' WOOD MAGIC ' AND ' BEVIS ' 159 



brook, me and my family, for ever so many thousands of 

 years, and though the brook has been talking and singing 

 all that time, I never heard him ask why about anything. 

 And the great oak, where you went to sleep, has been 

 there, goodness me, nobody can tell how long, and every 

 one of his leaves (he has had millions of them) have all 

 been talking, but not one of them ever asked why ; nor 

 does the sun, nor the stars, which I see every night shining 

 in the clear water down there, so that I am quite sure there 

 is no why at all,'* 



This impression of the great age, the happiness, the 

 inhumanity of Nature (or the unnaturalness of man), is 

 sometimes made with the force of a proverb or a folk-tale. 

 The irony, too, is often admirable, and I seem to see in 

 Kapchack, the omnipotent magpie, the crooked shadow of 

 a very august personage : 



' " It is," says the Toad, " a very dangerous thing to 

 talk about Kapchack, and everybody is most terribly 

 afraid of him ; he is so full of malice." 



* " Why ever do they let him be King ?" said Bevis. 

 " I would not, if I were them. Why ever do they put 

 up with him, and his cruelty and greediness ? I will tell 

 the thrush and the starling not to endure him any 

 longer." 



''" Pooh ! pooh !" said the Toad. " It is all very well 

 for you to say so, but you must excuse me for saying, my 

 dear Sir Bevis, that you really know very little about it. 

 The thrush and the starling would not understand what 

 you meant. The thrush's father always did as Kapchack 

 told him, and sang his praises, as I told you, and so did 

 his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, and all his 

 friends and relations, these years and years past. So 

 tliat now the thrushes have no idea of there being no 

 Kapchack. . . ." 'f 



And yet this Kapchack, who was supposed to be of un- 

 counted years, was really only a distant descendant of the 

 original Kapchack ; for each King tore out an eye from 

 * Wood Magic. t ^b^^^' 



