great piece of water, all gleaming in the sunshine and reaching far away
to the woods and the hills, as if it had no end.

Bevis clapped his hands with delight, and was just going to stand up,
when something caught him by the ankles; he looked round, and it was the
bailiff, who had had an eye on him all the time from the hayfield. Bevis
kicked and struggled, but it was no use; the bailiff carried him home,
and then went back with a bill-hook, and cutting a thorn bush, stopped
up the gap in the hedge.

CHAPTER V.

KAPCHACK.

"Q--q--q," Bevis heard a starling say some weeks afterwards on the
chimney-top one morning when he woke up. The chimney was very old and
big, and the sound came down it to his room. "Q--q--q, my dear, I will
tell you a secret"--he was talking to his lady-love.

"Phe-hu," she said, in a flutter. Bevis could hear her wings go plainly.
"Whatever is it? Do tell me."

"Look all round first," he said, "and see that no one is about."

"No one is near, dear; the sparrows are out in the corn, and the
swallows are very high up; the blackbird is busy in the orchard, and the
robin is down at the red currants; there's no one near. Is it a very
great secret?"

"It is a very great secret indeed, and you must be very careful not to
whistle it out by accident; now if I tell you will you keep your beak
quite shut, darling?"

"Quite."

"Then, listen--Kapchack is in love."

"Phe--hu--u; who is it? Is he going to be married? How old is she? Who
told you? When did you hear it? Whatever will people say? Tell me all
about it, dear!"

"The tomtit told me just now in the fir-tree; the woodpecker told him on
his promising that he would not tell anybody else."

"When is the marriage to come off, dear?" she asked, interrupting him.
"Kapchack--Phe--u!"

Somebody came round the house, and away they flew, just as Bevis was
going to ask all about it. He went to the window as soon as he was
dressed, and as he opened it he saw a fly on the pane; he thought he
would ask the fly, but instantly the fly began to fidget, and finding
that the top of the window was open out he went, buzzing that Kapchack
was in love. At breakfast time a wasp came in--for the fruit was
beginning to ripen, and the wasps to get busy--and he went all round the
room saying that Kapchack was in love, but he would not listen to
anything Bevis asked, he was so full of Kapchack. When Bevis ran out of
doors the robin on the palings immedia