i6o THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



his eldest son to make him like himself, and thus ensure 

 his succession — the King never dies — among his un- 

 suspecting subjects. 



In several places Jefferies' strong feeling about Fate is 

 expressed with a quaint intensity, as when the Squirrel 

 tells Bevis : 



' " Elms indeed are very treacherous, and I recommend 

 you to have nothing to do with them, dear. ... He can 

 wait till you go under him, and then drop that big bough 

 on you. He has had that bough waiting to drop on some- 

 body for quite ten years. . . . Now, the reason the elms 

 are so dangerous is because they will wait so long till 

 somebody passes. Trees can do a great deal, I can tell 

 you ; why, I have known a tree, when it could not drop a 

 bough, fall down altogether when there was not a breath 

 of wind, nor any lightning, just to kill a cow or a sheep, 

 out of sheer bad temper." '* 



The flint lies in wait to upset a cart ; the water lies in 

 wait, ' and if they stop swimming a minute they will be 

 drowned ' ; and ' if you climb up a tree, be sure and 

 remember to hold tight, and not forget, for the earth 

 will not forget, but will pull you down to it thump, 

 and hurt you very much.'f Here, too, is that denial 

 of time, born of his mystic trances, which was later to 

 give his mind such a range backward and forward in 

 eternity : 



' " My dear," said the brook, " that which has gone by, 

 whether it happened a second since, or a thousand years 

 since, is just the same ; there is no real division betwixt 

 you and the past. You people who live now have made 

 up all sorts of stupid, very stupid, stories, dear ; I hope 

 you will not believe them ; they tell you about time and all 

 that. Now there is no such thing as time, Bevis, my 

 love ; there never was any time, and there never will be ; 

 the sun laughs at it, even when he marks it on the sun- 

 dial. Yesterday was just a second ago, and so was ten 

 thousand years since, and there is nothing between you 

 * Wood MagiC' + Ibid. 



