REASON OR INSTINCT ?

es

Y ROM time immemorial the fox has
been called sly. The following story,
however, seems to show that with his
craft is sometimes mixed what might
be called worldly wisdom. <A young

 

of Bridgewater, and on account of
his tender years was placed in the
kitchen of the White Heart, where
he grew up, Winning and retaining
the affection of his master and mis-
tress. It can scarcely be said that he
ate the bread of idleness; on the con-
trary, he did suit and service for bed and board,
his occupation being that of a turnspit. Whether
he grew weary of this employment, ‘or was seized
with a desire to see something of the outer world,
seeins uncertain. One morning a short time ago
he left his box by the fireside, crept out of the door,
jumped lightly over the garden wall, and fairly took
to his heels across country. Viewed by a pack of
hounds trotting leisurely along the road to the cover
side, poor Reynard had to fly for his life. After a
smart run he perhaps became conscious that his
sedentary life ill fitted him for such desperate exer-
tion. Did his master and his mistress and his erib
in the corner, we wonder, come into his mind as
likely to afford him a refuge in his extremity? Be
this as it may, he took hedge, ditch, and bank as
straight as a line, dashed into the kitchen, jumped
into his box, and went on with his professional oc-
cupation of turning with extraordinary energy. The
pack, however, was close at his heels, charged into
the room, and, in spite of the exertions of his friends,
would have torn him to pieces, had not the huntsman
arrived opportunely and whipped off the dogs.

 

 

 

WHY THEY WENT TO WAR.

CERTAIN king sent to another king, saying,
‘Send me a blue pig with a black tail, or
else 3

The other replied :—

‘I have not got one; and if I had——’

On this weighty cause they went to war. After
they had exhausted their armies and treasure, and
had laid waste their kingdoms, they began to wish to
make peace; but before this could be done it was
necessary that the insulting language which had led
to the trouble should be explained.

‘What could you mean,’ asked the second king of
the first, ‘by saying, “Send me a blue pig with a
black tail, or else——?”?

‘Why,’ said the other, ‘I meant a blue pig with a
black tail, or else some other colour. But what
could you mean by saying, “I have not got one, and
if I had——?”?

‘Why, of course, if I had I should have sent it.’

‘The explanation was satisfactory, and peace was
made at once.

The story of the two kings ought to serve as a
lesson for us all. Most quarrels are quite as foolish
as the war of the blue pig with a black tail.

 

cub was caught in the neighbourhood.

 

A MAY-DAY STORY.
A True Tale.

\ HO does not know the Severn, that longest,

though second, of English rivers? Who has
not loved to follow its windings from its source in the
Welsh mountains, through the picturesque counties
of Montgomery, Salop, Worcester, and Gloucester,
until, mingling with the waters of the Bristol
Channel, it loses itself in the Atlantic ? ‘Call that a
river!’ I once heard an American say, as we crossed
one of its railway bridges; but we are proud of it, to’
us its swift current is dear—a part of our daily life.

Very winding and picturesque it is as it passes now
through sunny pasture-lands, and orchards white with
blossom, by country churches, and old castles. Past
busy towns, and tall, rugged cliffs, rich in manya tale
and legend ; its banks bordered with trees and flowers,
with its willow-planted islets, to which, in summer, the
children love to run dry-shod ; with its busy barges
and pleasure-boats, and its ferries, over which so many
must continually pass to church, to school, to the
railway stations, to their daily work, to their last quiet
resting-place, when, in some parishes, as they are
borne for that last time across the river, the church
bells do not toll, but chime—a sound so preferable to
me, speaking less of death, and sorrow, and desolation,
than of the sure and certain hope of the resurrec-
tion, on which we love to dwell, as we lay our loved
ones in ‘ God’s acre.’

It was May Day, bright, joyous, and sunny; and
the May fair in the neighbouring town of one of those
Shropshire villages. A fair frequented by the dwell-
ers for miles around, by the forgemen and quarrymen,
by lads and lasses, by farm-servants especially, for
‘statute fairs’ were still held, and this was the great
‘hiring-day.’

Among others, a forgeman and his wife had gone
thither, leaving their eldest boy, Johnnie, a fine dark-
eyed lad of eleven, to look after the house, the fire,
and little Willie, a curly-headed child of four. All
this Johnnie was well used to, and soon the house was
swept, the kettle filled, sticks and coal put ready for
‘lighting up against mother came,’ and then the boys,
taking their little boat, went with some other children
to the river-side. Now a thorough English Severn-
side boy scarcely knows what it is to fear the water ;

when only a wee, toddling thing, he plays beside

it; before his age numbers two figures he will try to
‘push about’ a boat, or ‘go fishing ;’ and they will
race in their games over the tall clids, some sixty, or
even eighty feet high, until we tremble as we look,
and feel that surely there must be a special Pro-
vidence over little children, or many a mother’s heart
would be left desolate : so, if Johnnie’s and Willie's
mother had seen them that morning she would have
felt no fear, nor would she have said, ‘ Don’t play by
the water.’

They had played for some time with Johnnie’s boat,
his own carving. ‘The wind filled the tiny sails, and
on it sped; the children ran by the river-side shout-
ing for joy, little Willie running and shouting too in
the general delight, when hark !—a splash! a cry ! the
little curly head, the little red frock, are gone! Again
he rises; Johnnie has boldly plunged in and caught
his brother. He strikes out for land, but the current
has carried the children on to a steeper bank, but with