When he woke next morning, Bevis quite forgot what the squirrel had told him; he jumped out of bed without thinking, and his right foot touched the floor first, and led him to the window. From the window he saw the brook, and recollected that the brook had promised to tell him what he was singing, so as soon as ever he could get out of doors away he went through the gateway the grasshopper had shown him, and down to the hatch. Instead of coming quietly on tip-toe, as the brook had told him, he danced up, and the kingfisher heard him, and went off as before, whistling: "Weep, weep". Bevis stood on the brink and said: "Brook, Brook, what are you singing? You promised to tell me what you were saying."

The brook did not answer, but went on singing. Bevis listened a minute, and then he picked a willow leaf and threw it into the bubbles, and watched it go whirling round and round in the eddies, and back up under the fall, where it dived down, and presently came up again, and the stream took it and carried it away past the flags. "Brook, Brook," said Bevis, stamping his foot, "tell me what you are singing."

And the brook, having now finished that part of his song, said: "Bevis dear, sit down in the shadow of the willow, for it is very hot to-day, and the reapers are at work; sit down under the willow, and I will tell you as much as I can remember."

"But the reed said you could not remember anything," said Bevis, leaning back against the willow.

"The reed did not tell you the truth, dear; indeed, he does not know all; the fact is, the reeds are so fond of talking that I scarcely ever answer them now, or they would keep on all day long, and I should never hear the sound of my own voice, which I like best. So I do not encourage them, and that is why the reeds think I do not recollect."

"And what is that you sing about?" said Bevis, impatiently.

"My darling," said the brook, "I do not know myself always what I am singing about. I am so happy I sing, sing, and never think about what it means; it does not matter what you mean as long as you sing. Sometimes I sing about the sun, who loves me dearly, and tries all day to get at me through the leaves and the green flags that hide me; he sparkles on me everywhere he can, and does not like me to be in the shadow. Sometimes I sing to the wind, who loves me next most dearly, and will come to me everywhere, in places where the sun cannot get. He plays with me whenever he can, and strokes me softly, and tells me the things he has heard in the woods and on the hills, and sends down the leaves to float along, for he knows I like something to carry. Fling me in some leaves, Bevis dear.

"Sometimes I sing to the earth and the grass; they are fond of me too, and listen the best of all. I sing loudest at night, to the stars, for they are so far away they would not otherwise hear me."

"But what do you say?" said Bevis; but the brook was too occupied now to heed him, and went on.

"Sometimes I sing to the trees; they, too, are fond of me, and come as near as they can; they would all come down close to me if they could. They love me like the rest, because I am so happy, and never cease my chanting. If I am broken to pieces against a stone, I do not mind in the least; I laugh just the same, and even louder. When I come over the hatch, I dash myself to fragments; and sometimes a rainbow comes and stays a little while with me. The trees drink me, and the grass drinks me, the birds come down and drink me; they splash me, and are happy. The fishes swim about, and some of them hide in deep corners. Round the bend I go, and the osiers say they never have enough of me. The long grass waves and welcomes me; the moor-hens float with me; the kingfisher is always with me somewhere, and sits on the bough to see his ruddy breast in the water. And you come too, Bevis, now and then to listen to me; and it is all because I am so happy."

"Why are you so happy?" said Bevis.

"I do not know," said the brook. "Perhaps it is because all I think of is this minute; I do not know anything about the minute just gone by, and I do not care one bit about the minute that is just coming; all I care about is this minute, this very minute now. Fling me in some more leaves, Bevis. Why do you go about asking questions, dear? Why don't you sing, and do nothing else?"

"Oh, but I want to know all about everything," said Bevis. "Where did you come from, and where are you going, and why don't you go on and let the ground be dry—why don't you run on, and run all away? Why are you always here?"

The brook laughed, and said: "My dear, I do not know where I came from, and I do not care at all where I am going. What does it matter, my love? All I know is I shall come back again; yes, I shall come back again." The brook sang very low, and rather sadly now: "I shall go into the sea, and shall be lost; and even you would not know me—ask your father, love, he has sailed over the sea in the ships that come to Southampton, and I was close to him, but he did not know me. But by-and-by, when I am in the sea, the sun will lift me up, and the clouds will float along—look towards the hills, Bevis dear, every morning, and you will see the clouds coming and bringing me with them; and the rain and the dew, and sometimes the thunder and the lightning, will put me down again, and I shall run along here and sing to you, my sweet, if you will come and listen. Fling in some little twigs, my dear, and some bits of bark from the tree."

Then the brook sang very low and very sad, and said: "I shall come back again, Bevis; I always come back, and I am always happy; and yet I do not know either if I am really happy when I am singing so joyously. Bevis dear, try and think and tell me. Am I really happy, Bevis? Tell me, dear; you can see the sun sparkling on me, and the wind stroking me, just as he strokes your hair (he told me he was very fond of you, and meant to tell you a story some day), and the reeds whispering, and the willows drooping over me, and the bright kingfisher; you can hear me singing, Bevis, now am I happy?"

"I do not know," said Bevis; "sometimes you sound very happy, but just now you sound very sad. Stop a little while and think about it."

"Oh, no, Bevis; I cannot stop, I must keep running. Nothing can stop, dear: the trees cannot stop growing, they must keep on growing till they die; and then they cannot stop decaying, till they are all quite gone; but they come back again. Nor can you stop, Bevis dear."

"I will stop," said Bevis.

"You cannot," said the brook.

"But I will."

"You cannot. You are a very clever boy, Bevis, but you cannot stop; nor can your papa, nor anybody, you must keep on. Let me see, let me think. I remember, I have seen you before; it was so many, many thousand years ago, but I am almost sure it was you. Now I begin to think about it, I believe I have seen you two or three times, Bevis; but it was before the hippopotamus used to come and splash about in me. I cannot be quite certain, for it is a long time to remember your face, dear."

"I do not believe it," said Bevis; "you are babbling, Brook. My mamma says you babble—it is because you are so old. I am sure I was not born then."

"Yes, you were, dear; and I daresay you will come back again, when all the hills are changed and the roads are covered with woods, and the houses gone. I daresay you will come back again and splash in me, like the blackbirds."

"Now you are talking nonsense, you silly Brook," said Bevis; "the hills will never change, and the roads will always be here, and the houses will not be gone: but why are you sighing, you dear old Brook?"

"I am sighing, my love, because I remember."

"What do you remember?"

"I remember before the hills were like they are now; I remember when I was a broad deep river; I remember the stars that used to shine in me, and they are all gone, you cannot see them now, Bevis ('Pooh,' said Bevis); I remember the stories the lions used to tell me when they came down to drink; I remember the people dancing on the grass by me, and sing, singing; they used to sing like me, Bevis, without knowing what it was they sung, and without any words (not stupid songs, Bevis, like your people sing now), but I understood them very well. I cannot understand the songs the folk sing now, the folk that live now have gone away so far from me."

"What nonsense you say, old Brook; why, we live quite close, and the waggons go over your bridge every day."

"I remember (the brook took no notice, but went on), I remember them very well, and they loved me dearly too; they had boats, Bevis, made out of trees, and they floated about on me."

"I will have a boat," said Bevis, "and float about on you."

"And they played music, which was just like my singing, and they were very happy, because, as I told you about myself, they did not think about the minute that was coming, or the minute that had gone by, they only thought about this minute."

"How long was that ago?" said Bevis.

"Oh," said the brook, "I daresay your papa would tell you it was thousands upon thousands of years, but that is not true, dear; it was only a second or two since."

"I shall not stay to listen much longer, silly Brook, if you talk like that; why, it must be longer than that, or I should have seen it."

"My dear," said the brook, "that which has gone by, whether it happened a second since, or a thousand 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 and then; there is no wall between you and then—nothing at all, dear,"—and the brook sang so low and thoughtfully that Bevis could not catch what he said, but the tune was so sweet, and soft, and sad that it made him keep quite still. While he was listening the kingfisher came back and perched on the hatch, and Bevis saw his ruddy neck and his blue wings.

"There is nothing between you and then," the brook began again, "nothing at all, dear; only some stories which are not true; if you will not believe me, look at the sun, but you cannot look at the sun, darling; it shines so bright. It shines just the same, as bright and beautiful; and the wind blows as sweet as ever, and I sparkle and sing just the same, and you may drink me if you like; and the grass is just as green; and the stars shine at night. Oh, yes, Bevis dear, we are all here just the same, my love, and all things are as bright and beautiful as ten thousand times ten thousand years ago, which is no longer since than a second.

"But your people have gone away from us—that is their own fault. I cannot think why they should do so; they have gone away from us, and they are no longer happy, Bevis; they cannot understand our songs—they sing stupid songs they have made up themselves, and which they did not learn of us, and then because they are not happy, they say: 'The world is growing old'. But it is not true, Bevis, the world is not old, it is as young as ever it was. Fling me a leaf—and now another. Do not you forget me, Bevis; come and see me now and then, and throw twigs to me and splash me."

"That I will," said Bevis; and he picked up a stone and flung it into the water with such a splash that the kingfisher flew away, but the brook only laughed, and told him to throw another, and to make haste and eat the peck of salt, and grow bigger and jump over him. "That I will," said Bevis, "I am very hungry now—good-morning, I am going home to dinner."

"Good-morning, dear," said the brook, "you will always find me here when you want to hear a song." Bevis went home to dinner humming the tune the brook had taught him, and by-and-by, when the hot sun had begun to sink a little, he started again for the copse, and as before the dragon-fly met him, and led him to the timber, and from there to the raspberries.

The squirrel was waiting for him on a bough of the oak, and while Bevis picked the fruit that had ripened since yesterday, told him the news the peewits had brought about the great rebel Choo Hoo. A party of the peewits, who had been watching ever so far away, thought they saw a stir and a movement in the woods; and presently out came one of the captains of the wood-pigeons with two hundred of his soldiers, and they flew over the border into King Kapchack's country and began to forage in one of his wheat-fields, where the corn was ripe. When they saw this, the peewits held a council on the hill, and they sent a messenger to Kapchack with the news. While they were waiting for him to return, some of the wood-pigeons, having foraged enough, went home to the woods, so that there was not much more than half of them left.

Seeing this—for his soldiers who were wheeling about in the air came and told him—the captain of the peewits thought: "Now is my time! This is a most lucky and fortunate circumstance, and I can now win the high approval of King Kapchack, and obtain promotion. The captain of the wood-pigeons has no idea how many of us are watching his proceedings, for I have kept my peewits behind the cover of the hill so that he could not count them, and he has allowed half of the wood-pigeons to go home. We will rush down upon the rest, and so win an easy victory."

So saying he flew up, and all the peewits followed him in the expectation of an easy conquest. But, just as they were descending upon the wheat-field, up flew the wood-pigeons with such a terrible clangour of their strong wings, and facing towards them, showed such a determination to fight to the last breath, that the peewits, who were never very celebrated for their courage, turned tail, and began to retreat.

They would still have reached the hills in good order, and would have suffered no great disgrace (for they were but a small party, and not so numerous as the wood-pigeons), but in the midst of these manoeuvres, the lieutenant of the pigeons, who had gone home with those who had done foraging, flew out from the wood with his men, and tried by a flank movement to cut off the peewits' retreat. At this they were so alarmed they separated and broke up their ranks, each flying to save himself as best he might. Nor did they stop till long after the wood-pigeons, being cautious and under complete control, had ceased to pursue; not till they had flown back two or three miles into the fastnesses of Kapchack's hills. Then some of them, collecting again, held a hurried council, and sent off messengers with the news of this affray.

About the same time, it happened that a missel-thrush arrived at the court, a son of the favourite missel-thrush, the only bird whom Kapchack (and the farmer) allowed to build in the orchard. The missel-thrush had just travelled through part of the country which once belonged to Kapchack, but which Choo Hoo had over-run the year before, and he brought Kapchack such a terrible account of the mighty armies that he saw assembling, that the king was beside himself with terror. Next came a crow, one of Kauc's warriors, who had been that way, and he said that two captains of the wood-pigeons, hearing of the peewits' defeat, had already, and without staying for instructions from Choo Hoo, entered the country and taken possession of a copse on the slope of the hill from which the peewits had descended.

"And," said the squirrel, as Bevis, having eaten all the raspberries, came and sat down on the moss under the oak, "the upshot of it is that King Kapchack has called a general council of war, which is to be held almost directly at the owl's castle, in the pollard hard by. For you must understand that the farmer who lives near Kapchack's palace is so fierce, he will not let any of the large birds (except the favourite missel-thrush) enter the orchard, and therefore Kapchack has to hold these great councils in the copse. What will be the result I cannot think, and I am not without serious apprehensions myself, for I have hitherto held undisputed possession of this domain. But Choo Hoo is so despotic, and has such an immense army at his back, that I am not at all certain he will respect my neutrality. As for Kapchack, he shivers in his claws at the very name of the mighty rebel."

"Why does Choo Hoo want King Kapchack's country?" said Bevis. "Why cannot he stop where he is?"

"There is no reason, dear; but you know that all the birds and animals would like to be king if they could, and when Choo Hoo found that the wood-pigeons (for he was nothing but an adventurer at first, without any title or property except the ancestral ash) were growing so numerous that the woods would hardly hold them, and were continually being increased both by their own populousness and by the arrival of fresh bands, it occurred to him that this enormous horde of people, if they could only be persuaded to follow him, could easily over-run the entire country. Hitherto, it was true, they had been easily kept in subjection, notwithstanding their immense numbers, first, because they had no leaders among them, nor even any nobles or rich people to govern their movements and tell them what to do; and next, because they were barbarians, and totally destitute of art or refinement, knowledge, or science, neither had they any skill in diplomacy or politics, but were utterly outside the civilised nations.

"Even their language, as you yourself have heard, is very contracted and poor, without inflection or expression, being nothing but the repetition of the same sounds, by which means—that is simply by the number and the depth of hollowness of the same monosyllables—they convey their wishes to each other. It is, indeed, wonderful how they can do so, and our learned men, from this circumstance, have held that the language of the wood-pigeon is the most difficult to acquire, so much so that it is scarce possible for one who has not been born among the barbarians to attain to any facility in the use of these gutturals. This is the reason why little or no intercourse has ever taken place between us who are civilised and these hordes; that which has gone on has been entirely conducted by the aid of interpreters, being those few wood-pigeons who have come away from the main body, and dwell peaceably in our midst.

"Now, Choo Hoo, as I said, being an adventurer, with no more property than the ancestral ash, but a pigeon of very extraordinary genius, considered within himself that if any one could but persuade these mighty and incredible myriads to follow him he could over-run the entire country. The very absence of any nobles or rich pigeons among them would make his sway the more absolute if he once got power, for there would be none to dispute it, or to put any check upon him. Ignorant and barbarous as they were, the common pigeons would worship such a captain as a hero and a demi-god, and would fly to certain destruction in obedience to his orders.

"He was the more encouraged to the enterprise because it was on record that in olden times great bodies of pigeons had passed across the country sweeping everything before them. Nothing could resist their onward march, and it is owing to these barbarian invasions that so many of our most precious chronicles have been destroyed, and our early history, Bevis dear, involved in obscurity. Their dominion—destructive as it was—had, however, always passed away as rapidly as it arose, on account of the lack of cohesion in their countless armies. They marched without a leader, and without order, obeying for a time a common impulse; when that impulse ceased they retired tumultuously, suffering grievous losses from the armies which gathered behind and hung upon their rear. Their bones whitened the fields, and the sun, it is said, was darkened at noonday by their hastening crowds fleeing in dense columns, and struck down as they fled by hawks and crows.

"Had they possessed a leader in whom they felt confidence the result might have been very different; indeed, our wisest historians express no doubt that civilisation must have been entirely extinguished, and these lovely fields and delicious woods have been wholly occupied by the barbarians. Fortunately it was not so. But, as I said, Choo Hoo, retiring to the top of a lofty fir-tree, and filled with these ideas, surveyed from thence the masses of his countrymen returning to the woods to roost as the sun declined, and resolved to lose no time in endeavouring to win them to his will, and to persuade them to embark upon the extraordinary enterprise which he had conceived.

"Without delay he proceeded to promulgate his plans, flying from tribe to tribe, and from flock to flock, ceaselessly proclaiming that the kingdom was the wood-pigeons' by right, by reason of their numbers, and because of the wickedness of Kapchack and his court, which wickedness was notorious, and must end in disaster. As you may imagine, he met with little or no response—for the most part the pigeons, being of a stolid nature, went on with their feeding and talking, and took no notice whatever of his orations. After a while the elder ones, indeed, began to say to each other that this agitator had better be put down and debarred from freedom of speech, for such seditious language must ultimately be reported to Kapchack, who would send his body-guards of hawks among them and exact a sanguinary vengeance.

"Finding himself in danger, Choo Hoo, not one whit abashed, instead of fleeing, came before the elders and openly reproached them with misgovernment, cowardice, and the concealment or loss of certain ancient prophecies, which foretold the future power of the wood-pigeons, and which he accused them of holding back out of jealousy, lest they should lose the miserable petty authority they enjoyed on account of their age. Now, whether there were really any such prophecies, I cannot tell you, or whether it was one of Choo Hoo's clever artifices, it is a moot point among our most learned antiquaries; the owl, who has the best means of information, told me once that he believed there was some ground for the assertion.

"At any rate it suited Choo Hoo's purpose very well; for although the elders and the heads of the tribes forthwith proceeded to subject him to every species of persecution, and attacked him so violently that he lost nearly all his feathers, the common pigeons sympathised with him, and hid him from their pursuit. They were the more led to sympathise with him because, on account of their ever-increasing numbers, the territory allotted to them by Kapchack was daily becoming less and less suited to their wants, and, in short, there were some signs of a famine. They, therefore, looked with longing eyes at the fertile country, teeming with wheat and acorns around them, and listened with greedy ears to the tempting prospect so graphically described by Choo Hoo.

"Above all, the young pigeons attached themselves to his fortunes and followed him everywhere in continually increasing bands, for he promised them wives in plenty and trees for their nests without number; for all the trees in their woods were already occupied by the older families, who would not, moreover, part with their daughters to young pigeons who had not a branch to roost on. Some say that the fox, who had long been deeply discontented at the loss of his ancestors' kingdom and of his own wealth, which he dissipated so carelessly, did not scruple to advise Choo Hoo how to proceed. Be that as it may, I should be the last to accuse any one of disloyalty without evident proof; be that as it may, the stir and commotion grew so great among the wood-pigeons, that presently the news of it reached King Kapchack.

"His spies, of whom he has so many (the chief of them is Te-te, the tomtit, of whom I bid you beware), brought him full intelligence of what was going on. Kapchack lost no time in calling his principal advisers around him; they met close by here (where the council is to take place this afternoon), for he well knew the importance of the news. It was not only, you see, the immense numbers of the wood-pigeons and the impossibility of resisting their march, were they once set in motion, but he had to consider that there was a considerable population of pigeons in our midst who might turn traitors, and he was by no means sure of the allegiance of various other tribes, who were only held down by terror.

"The council fully acknowledged the gravity of the situation, and upon the advice of the hawk it was resolved that Choo Hoo, as the prime mover of the trouble, and as the only one capable of bringing matters to a crisis, should be forthwith despatched. But when the executioners proceeded to seize him he eluded their clutches with the greatest ease; for his followers (such was their infatuation) devoted their lives to his, and threw themselves in the way of Kapchack's emissaries, the hawks, submitting to be torn in pieces rather than see their beloved hero lose a feather. Thus baffled, the enraged Kapchack next tried to get him assassinated, but, as before, his friends watched about him with such solicitude that no one could enter the wood where he slept at night without their raising such a disturbance that their evil purpose was defeated.

"In his rage Kapchack ordered a decimation of the wood-pigeons, which I myself think was a great mistake; but, as I have told you before, I do not meddle with politics. Still I cannot help thinking that if he had, instead, of his royal bounty and benevolence, given the wood-pigeons an increase of territory, seeing how near they sometimes came to a famine, that they would have been disarmed and their discontent turned to gratitude; but he ordered in his rage and terror that they should be decimated, and let loose the whole army of his hawks upon them, so that the slaughter was awful to behold, and the ground was strewn with their torn and mangled bodies. Yet they remained faithful to Choo Hoo, and not one traitor was found among these loyal barbarians.

"But Choo Hoo, deeply distressed in mind, said that he would relieve them from the burden of his presence rather than thus be the cause of their sorrow. He therefore left those provinces and flew out of the country, leaving word behind him that he would never return till he had seen the raven, and recovered from him those ancient prophecies that had so long been lost. He flew away, and disappeared in the distance; the days and weeks passed, but he did not return, and at last Kapchack, relieved of his apprehensions, recalled his murderous troops, and the pigeons were left in peace to lament their Choo Hoo.

"A twelvemonth passed, and still Choo Hoo did not come; the people said he had been called to the happy Forest of the Heroes, and averred that sometimes they heard his voice calling to them when no one was near. There was no doubt that he had gone with the raven. The raven, you must know, my dear Sir Bevis, was once the principal judge and arbiter of justice amongst us, so much so that he was above kings, and it is certain that had he been here we should not have had to submit to the sanguinary tyranny of Kapchack, nor condemned to witness the scandalous behaviour of his court, or the still greater scandal of his own private life. But for some reason the raven mysteriously left this country about a hundred years ago, leaving behind him certain prophecies, some of which no doubt you have heard, especially that upon his return there will be no more famine, nor frost, nor slaughter, nor conflict, but we shall all live together in peace.

"However that may be, the raven has never come back; the learned hold that he must have died long since, for he was so aged when he went away no one knew his years, hinting in their disbelief that he went away to die, and so surround his death with a halo of mystery; but the common people are quite of a different opinion, and strenuously uphold the belief that he will some day return. Well, as I told you, a twelvemonth went by, and Choo Hoo did not come, when suddenly in the spring (when Kapchack himself was much occupied in his palace, and most of his spies were busy with their nests, and the matter had almost been forgotten) Choo Hoo reappeared, bringing with him the most beautiful young bride that was ever beheld, as he himself was, on the other hand, the strongest and swiftest of the wood-pigeons.

"When this was known (and the news spread in a minute) the enthusiasm of the barbarians knew no bounds. Notwithstanding it was nesting-time, they collected in such vast numbers that the boughs cracked with their weight; they unanimously proclaimed Choo Hoo emperor (for they disdained the title of king as not sufficiently exalted), and declared their intention, as soon as the nesting-time was over, and the proper season—the autumn—for campaigning arrived, of following him, and invading the kingdom of Kapchack.

"Choo Hoo told them that, after many months of wandering, he had at last succeeded in finding the raven; at least he had not seen the raven himself, but the raven had sent a special messenger, the hawfinch, to tell him to be of good cheer, and to return to the wood-pigeons, and to lead them forth against Kapchack, who tottered upon his throne; and that he (the raven) would send the night-jar, or goat-sucker, with crooked and evil counsels to confound Kapchack's wisdom. And indeed, Bevis, my dear, I have myself seen several night-jars about here, and I am rather inclined to think that there is some truth in this part at least of what Choo Hoo says; for it is an old proverb, which I daresay you have heard, that when the gods design the destruction of a monarch they first make him mad, and what can be more mad than Kapchack's proposed marriage with the jay, to which he was doubtless instigated by the night-jars, who, like genii of the air, have been floating in the dusky summer twilight round about his palace?

"And they have, I really believe, confounded his council and turned his wisdom to folly; for Kapchack has been so cunning for so many, many years, and all his family have been so cunning, and all his councillors, that now I do believe (only I do not meddle with politics) that this extreme cunning is too clever, and that they will overreach themselves. However, we shall see what is said at the council by-and-by.

"Choo Hoo, having told the pigeons this, added that he had further been instructed by the raven to give them a sacred and mystic pass-word and rallying cry; he did not himself know what it meant; it was, however, something very powerful, and by it they would be led to victory. So saying, he called 'Koos-takke!' and at once the vast assembly seized the signal and responded 'Koos-takke!' which mystic syllables are now their war-cry, their call of defiance, and their welcome to their friends. You may often hear them shouting these words in the depths of the woods; Choo Hoo learnt them in the enchanted Forest of Savernake, where, as every one knows, there are many mighty magicians, and where, perhaps, the raven is still living in its deep recesses. Now this war-cry supplied, as doubtless the raven had foreseen, the very link that was wanting to bind the immense crowd of wood-pigeons together. Thenceforward they had a common sign and pass-word, and were no longer scattered.

"In the autumn Choo Hoo crossed the border with a vast horde, and although Kapchack sent his generals, who inflicted enormous losses, such as no other nation but the barbarians could have sustained, nothing could stay the advance of such incredible numbers. After a whole autumn and winter of severe and continued fighting, Choo Hoo, early in the next year, found that he had advanced some ten (and in places fifteen) miles, giving his people room to feed and move. He had really pushed much farther than that, but he could not hold all the ground he had taken for the following reason. In the spring, as the soft warm weather came, and the sun began to shine, and the rain to fall, and the brook to sing more sweetly, and the wind to breathe gently with delicious perfume, and the green leaves to come forth, the barbarians began to feel the influence of love.

"They could no longer endure to fly in the dense column, they no longer obeyed the voice of their captain. They fell in love, and each marrying set about to build a nest, free and unmolested in those trees that Choo Hoo had promised them. Choo Hoo himself retired with his lovely bride to the ancestral ash, and passed the summer in happy dalliance. With the autumn the campaign recommenced, and with exactly the same result. After a second autumn and winter of fighting, Choo Hoo had pushed his frontier another fifteen miles farther into Kapchack's kingdom. Another summer of love followed, and so it went on year after year, Choo Hoo's forces meantime continually increasing in numbers, since there were now no restrictions as to nest trees, but one and all could marry.

"Till at last he has under his sway a horde of trained warriors, whose numbers defy calculation, and he has year by year pushed into Kapchack's territory till now it seems as if he must utterly overwhelm and destroy that monarch. This he would doubtless have achieved ere now, but there is one difficulty which has considerably impeded his advance, as he came farther and farther from his native province. This difficulty is water.

"For in the winter, when the Long Pond is frozen, and the brook nearly covered with ice, and all the ponds and ditches likewise, so vast a horde cannot find enough to satisfy their thirst, and must consequently disperse. Were it not for this Choo Hoo must ere now have overwhelmed us. As it is, Kapchack shivers in his claws, and we all dread the approaching autumn, for Choo Hoo has now approached so near as to be at our very doors. If he only knew one thing he would have no difficulty in remaining here and utterly destroying us."

"What is that?" said Bevis.

"Will you promise faithfully not to tell any one?" said the squirrel, "for my own existence depends upon this horde of barbarians being kept at bay; for, you see, should they pass over they will devour everything in the land, and there will certainly be a famine—the most dreadful that has ever been seen."

"I will promise," said Bevis. "I promise you faithfully."

"Then I will tell you," went on the squirrel. "In this copse of mine there is a spring of the clearest and sweetest water (you shall see it, I will take you to it some day) which is a great secret, for it is so hidden by ferns and fir-trees overhanging it, that no one knows anything about it, except Kapchack, myself, the weasel, and the fox; I wish the weasel did not know, for he is so gluttonous for blood, which makes him thirsty, that he is continually dipping his murderous snout into the delicious water.

"Now this spring, being so warm in the fern, and coming out of ground which is, in a manner, warm too, of all the springs in this province does not freeze, but always runs clear all the winter. If Choo Hoo only knew it, don't you see, he could stay in Kapchack's country, no matter how hard the frost, and his enormous army, whose main object is plunder, would soon starve us altogether. But he does not know of it.

"He has sent several of his spies, the wood-cocks, to search the country for such a spring, but although they are the most cunning of birds at that trick, they have not yet succeeded in finding my spring and thrusting their long bills into it. They dare not come openly, but fly by night, for Kapchack's hawks are always hovering about; well enough he knows the importance of this secret, and they would pay for their temerity with their lives if they were seen. All I am afraid of is lest the weasel or the fox, in their eagerness for empire, should betray the secret to Choo Hoo.

"The fox, though full of duplicity, and not to be depended upon, is at least brave and bold, and so far as I can judge his character would not, for his own sake (hoping some day to regain the kingdom), let out this secret. But of the weasel I am not so sure; he is so very wicked, and so cunning, no one can tell what he may do. Thus it is that in the highest of my beech trees I do not feel secure, but am in continual fear lest a wood-cock should steal in, or the weasel play the traitor, for if so a famine is imminent, and that is why I support, so far as I can without meddling with politics, the throne of Kapchack, as the last barrier against this terrible fate.

"Even now could he but be brought to reform his present life something might be hoped for, for he has a powerful army; but, as you have seen, this affair with the jay has caused ambitious ideas to spring up in the minds of his chief courtiers, some of whom (especially, I think, the crow and the weasel) are capable of destroying a country for their private and personal advantage. Therefore it is that I look forward to this council, now about to be held, with intense anxiety, for upon it will depend our future, the throne of Kapchack, our existence or destruction. And here comes the rook; the first as usual."