devastating tidal wave in resistless course southwards, driving the
independent princes before them, plundering, ravaging, and destroying,
and leaving famine behind. Part of the plunder indeed, of the provinces
recently attached to Kapchack's kingdom, and now declared independent,
furnished the first instalment of the war indemnity the barbarians had
engaged to pay.

Meantime, in the copse, preparations were made for the coronation of
the king, who had assumed, in accordance with well-known precedents,
that all his ancestors, whether acknowledged or not, had reigned, and
called himself King Reynard the Hundred and First. The procession having
been formed, and all the ceremonies completed, Bevis banged off his
cannon-stick as a salute, and the fox, taking the crown, proceeded to
put it on his head, remarking as he did so that thus they might see how
when rogues fall out honest folk come by their own.

CHAPTER XVII.

SIR BEVIS AND THE WIND.

Some two or three days after peace was concluded, it happened that one
morning the waggon was going up on the hills to bring down a load of
straw, purchased from the very old gentleman who in his anger shot King
Kapchack. When Bevis saw the horses brought out of the stable, and
learnt that they were to travel along the road that led towards the
ships (though but three miles out of the sixty), nothing would do but he
must go with them. As his papa and the bailiff were on this particular
occasion to accompany the waggon, Bevis had his own way as usual.

The road passed not far from the copse, and Bevis heard the woodpecker
say something, but he was too busy touching up the horses with the
carter's long whip to pay any heed. If he had been permitted he would
have lashed them into a sharp trot. Every now and then Bevis turned
round to give the bailiff a sly flick with the whip; the bailiff sat at
the tail and dangled his legs over behind, so that his broad back was a
capital thing to hit. By-and-by, the carter left the highway and took
the waggon along a lane where the ruts were white with chalk, and which
wound round at the foot of the downs. Then after surmounting a steep
hill, where the lane had worn a deep hollow, they found a plain with
hills all round it, and here, close to the sward, was the straw-rick
from which they were to load.

Bevis insisted upon building the load, that is putting the straw in its
place when it was thrown up; but in three minutes he said he hate