a small glass bottle for the crowd
to stare into. The people were pushing this way and that to see what
might be there.

At the bottom sat the little fairy, without her wand, weeping and
beating her hands on the glass.

The showman was so proud he grew red in the face, and ran shouting up
and down the plank, shaking and turning the bottle upside down now and
then, so as to make the cabined fairy use her wings, and buzz like a fly
against the glass.

The Jackdaw waggled unsteadily at his perch on the man's shoulder.
"Look at him!" laughed some one in the crowd, "he's going to steal his
master's scarf-pin."

"Ho, ho, ho!" shouted the showman. "See this bird now! See the
marvellous mongrel nature of the beast! Who tells me he's only a
nightingale painted black?"

The people laughed the more at that, for there was a fellow in the crowd
looking sheepish. The Jackdaw had drawn out the scarf-pin, and held it
gravely in its beak, looking sideways with cunning eyes. He was wishing
hard. All the crowd laughed again.

Suddenly the showman's hand gave a jerk, the bottle slipped from his
hold and fell, shivering itself upon the ground.

There was a buzz of wings--the fairy had escaped.

"The beautiful is coming true," thought the Jackdaw, as he yielded to
the fairy her wand, and found, suddenly, that his wings were not clipped
after all.

"What more can I do for you?" asked the fairy, as they flew away
together. "You gave me back my wand; I have given you back your wings."

"I will not ask anything," said the little Jackdaw; "what God intends
will come true."

"Let me take you up to the moon," said the fairy. "All the Jackdaws up
there sing like nightingales."

"Why is that?" asked the little Jackdaw.

"Because they are all moon-struck," she answered.

"And what is it to be moon-struck?" he asked.

"Surely you should know, if any one!" laughed the fairy. "To see things
beautifully, and not as they are. On the moon you will be able to do
that without any difficulty."

"Ah," said the little Jackdaw, "now I know at last that the beautiful is
going to come true!"

HOW LITTLE DUKE JARL SAVED THE CASTLE

Duke Jarl had found a good roost for himself when his long work of
expelling the invader was ended. Seawards and below the town, in the
mouth of the river, stood a rock, thrusting out like a great tusk ready
to rip up any armed vessel that sought passage that way. On the top of
this he had built himself a c