MAB, THE WOLF, AND THE WATERFALL.

"Now, Mab, here's father's tea piping hot; take it and run along. You know the way: go along by the river, and round by Jerry Smith's cottage; then turn to the right, and the sound of father's axe will guide you." So spoke Mrs. Lester while Mab, her little daughter, donned her hat and cloak, with all a child's eagerness at the prospect of a long sunny walk through the woods.

"Mind old Jerry's ghost doesn't catch hold of you," cried her waggish brother Jack, as she crossed the threshold, tea-can in hand.

"There are no ghosts. Mother says they don't live in our days," quoth Mab, disdainfully.

"Wolves do," said Ben, who was just nine, a year older than Mab. "Take care you're not another Red Riding Hood."

"I shan't take care, because Red Riding Hood isn't true, any more than fables are true: so father says; and we know fables are not true," dissented matter-of-fact Mab, out of her eight years' experience.

"Oh, more things are true than you and father know of," observed Jack, with a wink at Ben.

But the little maiden was now out of hearing; once, twice she waved her hand to them as they watched her from the doorway—how and when would they meet again? Then she went trip-tripping along by the brook. The brook ran into the wood; here it joined another stream, wildly turbulent, although narrow, then together rushed on like two prankish schoolboys out for a frolic; not long after joining hands, as it were, they leaped down an embankment, laughing, as one could fancy, listening to the babble the waters made, watching the sparkling of the flying spray. Ah! many a rainbow shimmered about the waterfall; right dangerous was the whirlpool above and below the fall. Deep down in the ravine the waters meandered, calmly tranquil: very like mature thoughtful manhood, after the prankish follies of youth are past.

Well, along by the side of the brook trudged Mab, saying aloud, as if to re-assure herself, "There are no ghosts and no wolves," for only her parents' words could render the imaginative child brave, strong, handsome girl of eight though she was. But ah! ah! what was that?

She was nearing Smith's cottage now, and surely something was stirring among the bushes and undergrowth. Ah! yes, and a formidable something was to be seen; her eyes scarce took it in ere it had quite vanished. She met a little old woman a minute after, carrying a bundle of sticks.

"Please; ma'am, did you see anything like a dog or a wolf as you came along?" she asked, half ashamed of her question.

"La! child, no; and I hope I shan't, for I likes no such creatures;" so saying, the old woman took to her heels and ran, sticks and all.

Poor little Mab wished she had not scared the old soul with her fancies, for of course they were fancies, when oh, horror! the child's heart seemed to leap into her throat; there, almost close to her, was a hideous creature, which her startled imagination conjured up into something terrible to behold, snorting, growling, and bearing down upon her. Poor, impulsive, silly Mab: before she well knew what she was doing she had sprung aside, anywhere to be out of the way of the beast—a wolf she thought it was—and that anywhere was into the brook, the prankish brook, just where it joined hands with its wild companion. The very trees seemed to rustle with consternation as her shriek rang around; ay, she may shriek, but who would hear her? Not her father, chopping at and felling the giant trees some distance away.

Now two lads rush up to the edge of the brook: they are Jack and Ben. Jack drops a something very like a skin, and leaps in after poor, screaming, struggling Mab, borne away, borne on to be hugged and embraced in the arms of both streams, and hurried forward to the waterfalls.

Alas! alas! will Jack save her? He has reached her; she is clinging to him; but those two frolicsome watery playfellows are tossing them hither and thither as in rude sport. Ben takes it all in with his quick boyish eyes, and rushes away, like a very hare for swiftness, to where his father is chopping in the calm afternoon glory, little dreaming of what is happening not a mile away. How sweetly pitiful is the calm wondering sky, watching overhead, as one may fancy, the struggle for dear life going on in those wild gurgling waters. Ah! the two streams in one have them in their embrace; they will not let them go. Mab lies a senseless weight in Jack's arms as they are borne on towards the whirlpool; once there, their fate will be sealed.

Jack's senses are leaving him; if Mab was not clinging to him as with the grasp of death, he would let her go; his strong young arms are waxing weak; and oh! a black terrible monster is upon him. Is it a wolf? The river clamours and laughs—ha-ha! Jack, Mab, and the terrible monster are mingling together; then Jack's senses are quite gone, and he remembers no more.

Meanwhile, Ben sweeps on like the wind, hearkening even in his haste for the welcome "thwack, thwack" of his father's axe. It is a sweetly tranquil scene he bursts upon at last—a knot of toiling men lopping off the limbs of a huge tree but newly laid low—the lad heard the crash of its fall as he ran. The warm afternoon glow was about them, the little birds hopping and peering among the wide-spreading branches of the trees around, half startled, half curious, as if to see all. A terrible shock to John Lester was the tale the panting boy had to tell, and then he too ran like the wind; his companions in full cry behind.

Only the exultant river, all flecked with lights and with afternoon colouring, met the eyes of the eager men when they reached the spot; the struggle was over. Two lives had gone out or had been saved; the father wrung his hands as he rushed madly here and there, and peered over at the plashing waterfall, Ben at his side, and both seeing nothing of the dear ones they sought.

"And it all came of Jack's putting on old Shag's skin and playing wolf to frighten Mab; and she saw him, and jumped in before he had time to speak," wailed Ben, as the river swept on and the waterfall clamoured. John Lester groaned.

"Well, Master Lester; I have 'em safe enough—I and old Jowler. 'Twas a miracle of savin', but 'tis done; they're both in bed and asleep like two tops already." So spoke Jerry Smith, the owner of the cottage in the woods, and of a ghost to boot, if the lads of the neighbourhood could be believed, coming up behind the distracted father, and speaking over his shoulder.

"Then Heaven be praised!" returned he out of the depth of his heart, turning and grasping the old man's hand.

"Ay! I have 'em all safe—ha-ha!" laughed the old man, glancing up at his chamber window, which looked westward, where stood a wooden figure of a miniature North American Indian all in his war paint, and brandishing his knives like a very brave, as the wind caught him and whirled him round.

"And see, Master Lester, I've mounted my savage to amuse them when they wake—my ghost the youngsters about here call it, and keep clear of my house. Ghost, indeed! there are no ghosts."

"No; the world is getting too wise to believe such nonsense in our days, Jerry. But I'd like to take a look at my youngsters," quoth John Lester.

The old man led him in—Ben following on tip-toe—and up to his quaint chamber—ah! yes, it was very quaint and pretty, full of wonderful surprises, what with curious stones arranged here, a stuffed squirrel there, and a dormouse elsewhere. Then in one corner was a fleet of tiny ships—ah! Jerry had been a sailor in his youthful days—which sailed round and round a centre one and stationary by using an apparatus not unlike small bellows. And there in the west window stood the warrior Indian, chopping and cutting at imaginary foes among the sunbeams. But the father's eyes sought his children. Ah! yes, he was thankful to see, there they were, both sweetly sleeping, Mab in the old man's bed, a stray sunbeam flitting over her face, like a smile from somewhere, Jack wrapped in blankets on the floor.

The sweet after-glow was about the house ere they awoke, and then peals of laughter from both children brought old Jerry up his creaking stairs. Nay, Jack was out on the landing, hurrying out of his blankets and into the dry clothes Ben had brought him from home.

When the two children had dressed and descended the stairs, there, in the cosy little kitchen, stood tea ready for them—bread-and-butter and blackberry jam, and such old-fashioned china cups and saucers for the three young ones to drink from. What is more, there was a pair of curiously-worked bead slippers for Mab, and a bow and arrow for each of the boys.

"Ingins' work," the old man told them when they thanked him.

"You are a clever man, Jerry, if you made that dancing old thing—did you?" cried Jack.

"What, made my Ingin? In course I did."

"Phew! why, all the fellows said 'twas a ghost you kept in your window," said admiring Jack, now outside the house, and looking up at the window—"why, I half said so myself."

"Well, lad, ghosts are but whims and fancies, and this individual is good solid wood, you see," replied Jerry, looking up, and chuckling at his own handiwork.

Mab soon stood beside Jack, and Ben came out ready to depart.

"Children," said the old man, as they thanked him and bade him "good-bye," patting Jowler on the head as he stood by his master, "children, keep to the good, right, honest truth from this day, even in fun; the wolves and things ye have conjured up to-day out of nothing have gone nigh to costing ye dearly, lads. And you little maiden, take an old man's warning, and look before you leap, as mayhap I and Jowler may not be anigh next time. And there's a many leaps to be taken in life, and a many waterfalls and things about ye."

"Wow, wow, wow!" said Jowler to this, springing up, and licking his master's hand, and so ends my story of Mab, the wolf, and the waterfall.

mab on her journey. (See p. 299).