stration: vignette]

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[Illustration: THE WILD MAN]

[Illustration: headpiece]

THE WILD MAN

One day the army were overtaken by a singularly wild-looking man who
proved, however, to be at the same time quite an amiable creature, and
expressed a great desire to seek some employment with the gallant
fellows. The King was pleased to enlist the nice and sociable person,
and was more than repaid for his confidence in him by his charming ways.
On one occasion, when the King was rather tired and worried, the Wild
Man, in order to distract the dear old fellow, told the following
story:--

'Good Sirs, though wild enough indeed, yet may I claim to be an unspoilt
child of nature, whose finest instincts have, unchecked, found their
true development. Thus, communing with nature from my cradle and living
on terms of the closest intimacy with her wildest creatures, I can
appreciate their humble wants, their hopes and fears, and have acquired
the truly marvellous power of conversing with these simple-minded
denizens of the wilderness.

'My home was a rocky cave hard by the sea-shore, in which I lived in
simple happiness with my good wife, now dead, alas! this many a long
year ago, and our five brown children, who long since have grown to men
and gone out into the world to seek their fortunes. Harmless indeed were
our joys, and our trials we bore with that great fortitude which was not
the least of the blessings we derived from our simple mode of life.

'To proceed with my tale, on one dismal evening late in autumn, I left
my cave, with the hungry cries of my children still in my ears,--for,
indeed, the poor things had had no sup or bite the whole day through.
Wondering what I could do that they might not go supperless to bed, I
strolled along the sands by the sea in the hope of finding some odd
limpet or whelk which, together with a few dried dandelion leaves, might
make a simple stew. Alas! no vestige of a single crustacean could I
find, so I sat me down upon the sands, determined not to return until
the children had fallen asleep on the dry ferns and grass heaped up for
them at the back of the cave, as their cries were more torment to me
than my own emptiness.

'The sun had long ago set, and the autumnal twilight, reflected in the
pools of still water left by the far receded tide, was gradually fading
from the sky, when I fancied I could hear a low heart-rending moan from
o