A LUCKY MAGPIE.

BY W. WARDE FOWLER.

So you've kept old Mag safe all this time,' I called out, as I came through the little croft under the apple-trees, and caught sight of the farmer sitting at his door and smoking his evening pipe; and not forgetting my duty as became a midshipman in Her Majesty's Service, I took off my cap and made three bows to the magpie, whose wicker cage was hanging just over the farmer's head.

Farmer Reynardson and his magpie and I had always been great friends. Ever since I was a little fellow I had had a great liking for the farmer's friendly face, and a still greater reverence for his bird, for he never would let me come within sight of it without making my obeisance in due form.

'It's a lucky magpie,' he always said, and I don't know what mightn't happen if you didn't treat him with proper respect. Honour where honour is due, my boy!'

So I always made my three bows, which seemed to please both the bird and his master. I say 'master' now, but in those days I never thought of him as the magpie's master, nor of the bird as his property. I considered Mag as a member of the family, about whom there was something rather mysterious. It was only when I grew older that I began to think of asking questions about him, and it was not till the very last evening before I left to join the training-ship that I ventured to ask the history of my revered friend. But the farmer would not tell me then. When you're ready to fight for the Queen, then I'll tell you the story,' he said.

So I had to wait a pretty long time; and whenever I came home from the Britannia and called at Slade Croft, I felt my curiosity increasing. The story must be worth hearing, or I should not have been kept waiting for it so long. And when I was gazetted midshipman, and ran home to my grandfather's for a week before joining my ship, I slipped off to the farm the very first evening after dinner.

Farmer Reynardson rose, shook hands warmly, and slapped me on the back. Then he turned me round and inspected my jacket and Her Majesty's buttons carefully.

'Now for the story,' I cried. It's all right, you needn't look at

my boots too, you know,' as his eye travelled down my uniform trousers. Now for the yarn of the lucky magpie.'

'George,' said the farmer gravely, putting his hand on my shoulder, 'you shall have it, my lad, this very evening. But I must show you something first.' He walked me through the orchard to a shady corner by the hedge, and showed me a little stone set upright in the ground, on which I read this inscription—

Here lies the body of
a lucky Magpie
and an
attached
Friend.

(J. R.)

They say it's cruel happy, that one was.

'It's a new one, he in the cage,' he said, quite sadly. Neither I nor missis could get along without one. Old Mag died quite easy, of nothing but old age, and old he was, to be sure. He'd have died years ago, if he'd been any one else's bird. He'd have been shot years ago if he'd lived his own natural life. keeping birds in cages; but if ever a bird was And what's more,' he said, with a touch of pathos in his voice which I have often remembered since then, when I have been telling his story to others, he had his share in making others happy, and that's more than can be said for some of us, my boy. However, come along, and I'll spin you the yarn (as you seafaring folks say); and, indeed, I'll be glad to tell it to some one, for poor old Mag's sake. Honour where honour is due.'

We sat down on the bench by the front door, and Mrs. Reynardson, bonny and bright-eyed, came and gave me her hand and sat down with us. The farmer paused a bit to collect his thoughts, while he pensively tickled the newly-installed genius of the house with the sealing-waxed end of his long pipe. The genius seemed not unworthy of his venerable predecessor, for he showed no resentment, and settled himself down comfortably to hear the tale-or to roost.

'Now then. Once upon a time,' said I, to jog his memory.

But that dear old fellow never did things quite like other people; perhaps that was why I was so fond of him. He withdrew his pipestem from the cage, and patting the back of his wife's hand with it in passing (an action I did not then understand), he pointed it in the direction of the hills which bounded our view.

'If you were to go up there,' he said, 'just where you see the gap in the long line of trees, you would see below you, on the other side, a small village, and on beyond the village you'd see a bit of a hillock, with three big elms on it. And if you got near enough, I'll be bound you'd see a magpie's nest in the tallest tree to the right. There always was one, when I was a boy there, and there has always been one whenever I've happened to be over there since; and it was in that nest that my old Mag was born, and I was born within sight of it.

'Of course, we knew of it, we boys of the village, and we'd have

been up there often, only that tree was a bad one to climb, as the magpie knew very well. Easy work when you got to the branches, but unlike most elms, this one had fifteen feet of big broad stem before you reached them. None of us could get up that fifteen feet, though the bark was rough and we could get some hold with fingers and toes; sooner or later we were sure to come slipping down, and it was lucky for us that the grass was long and soft below.

'Well, when it's a matter of fingers and toes, a girl is as good as a boy, if she has some strength and pluck, and it was a girl that showed me how to climb that tree. Nelly Green was her name; we were fast friends, she and I, and it was between us two that the solemn treaty and alliance-as the newspapers say was concluded, by which we were to get possession of a young magpie. First it was agreed that when we had got our bird (we began at the wrong end, you see), I was to keep it, because Nelly's mother would have no pets in the house. Secondly, she was to go no higher than the first branch, because girls were not fit to go worming themselves up to the tops of trees in petticoats. And then-let me see-she was to climb the bark first, because of her small hands and feet, and was to carry a rope round her waist, which she was to tie to a branch to help me in coming up after her. Fourthly, we were only to take one nestling, and to leave the others in peace.

'Nelly said that this treaty was to be written out and signed with hedgehog's blood. Where she got the notion from I can't tell, but no hedgehog turned up in time, and we were neither of us too fond of writing, so we let that plan drop.'

'What a dreadful tomboy she must have been, John!' said Mrs. Reynardson.

'Well, I won't say she wasn't a bit of one,' said the farmer, with a twinkle in his eye; but she turned out none so badly-none so badly, as you shall hear, my dear.

'We knew very well, of course, how the magpies were getting on, and when the eggs were hatched; and a few days after that, we got our rope and reached the hillock by a roundabout way, not to attract notice. Nelly had been studying the bark of that tree for many a day, though I never would let her go up lest she should come to grief coming down again. Up she went just like a creep-mouse, got a good seat on the branch and tied the rope round it. Then up I went too, hand over hand, and in five minutes more I was at the nest; a huge bit of building it was, roofed all over with sticks. The old birds flew round screaming, but I put one young bird in my pocket, and came down safely to where Nelly was sitting. Then the bird was put into her pocket, and she let herself down by the rope; and lastly I untied the rope (for it would never have done to have left it there), and wondered how I was to come down.

'At last I resolved on climbing out on my stomach to the very end of the branch, where I could bear it down with my weight, and then

dropping. But my weight was too little to pull the big branch down far, and as I came to the ground, I sprained my ankle badly. 'However, there was the bird all safe, and that was the great thing. Nelly helped me home, and Mag was put into a wicker cage we had ready for him. Of course we got scolded, but I was in too great pain to mind, and Nelly was used to it from her mother, so we got off pretty well.

‘Of course, too, I couldn't go to school, and Mag was my companion all day long. He had a tremendous appetite, and it was as much as I could do to find food for him. If I let him out of his cage he would follow me about, opening his bill and crying for food; and at night he slept outside my bedroom window. I had never had a pet before, and I got to love that bird better than anything in the world, except Nelly; and, indeed, I'm not sure that Nelly was not a bit jealous of him those few weeks.'

'I should have been,' said Mrs. Reynardson.

'Of course you would, my dear,' said her husband. 'Men were deceivers ever, as they say; and boys too. But Mag was to be Nelly's property as much as mine, by that treaty of alliance, for ever and ever; and that treaty was never broken. But I must go on.

'When my ankle was getting well, there came a neat maidservant to the cottage one day, and said that Miss Pringle wished to see me at six o'clock precisely; and wondering what she could want with me, I made myself uncomfortable in my best clothes and limped up the village to her back door. I was shown into a very neat parlour, where Miss Pringle sat in a stiff chair knitting.

'She was the old maid of our village, and when I've told you that, you know a 'good bit about her. She was a tightish sort of an old maid-tight in the lips, and tight in her dress, and tight, so they said, in her purse-strings too; but you shall form your own opinion of that presently. She had neat curls on each side of her head, and a neat thin nose, rather large, and she sat a bit forward and looked at you as if she'd found a speck of dirt on you somewhere. I always felt as if I had a smut on my nose when Miss Pringle was speaking

to me.

"Come in, John Reynardson," says she. "You may stand on that bit of matting by the door. What is the matter with your foot?"

"Sprained my ankle, ma'am, climbing a tree with Nelly Green." "With Nelly Green?" says Miss Pringle. "Then Nelly Green ought to be ashamed of herself! Boys may be monkeys if they like, but not girls. Tell Nelly Green I'm ashamed of her!"'

Did she say that?' asked Mrs. Reynardson.

'She did, and she never liked Nelly Green too much after that. She asked me several times afterwards if that monkey-girl was ashamed of herself.' Here the farmer stopped a minute to laugh. 'And I always told her she wasn't. No more she was-not a bit!

'Well, she told me frankly that she didn't like boys-and that was very kind of her!-but I could have told her so myself as soon as ever I was put on the matting and had my face looked at for smuts. Miss Pringle was not one of that soft kind of single ladies who think all boys angels-not she! But, bless her old soul! the Jackdaw, as Nelly and I used to call her, because of her grey head and her black dress and her pecking way-the jackdaw was nearly as lucky a bird for me as the magpie-in the long run, that is.

'She told me she wanted a boy to look after her pony and carriage, and as I was recommended by the Vicar, and was strong and active, she would offer me the place. But I wasn't to climb trees, and I wasn't to spin halfpence, and I wasn't to do this, and I wasn't to do that, and, lastly, I wasn't to keep animals about the house. Mind," she said, shaking her nose and her forefinger at the same time, I allow no pet animals about this house, so if you take my offer you must give up your rabbits."

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""Yes, ma'am," says I, though I hadn't any; but her nose was so tight when she said that, that I knew I had better hold my tongue.

Then she took me through her garden, making me pull up some weeds by the way, and lay them neatly in a heap in a corner, with a spadeful of ashes on them to keep the seeds from flying; and so to her little stable, where she showed me the pony and harness, and a little whitewashed room upstairs where I was to sleep. It was as neat as herself, and over the bed was a large piece of cardboard with three words on it "Tidiness, Punctuality, Obedience." Very good words for a lad just beginning to serve the Queen,' added the farmer, and very good they were for me too; but if I'd stuck hard to them all three I shouldn't be here now, as you shall hear.

'So I said very humbly that I was very thankful to take the place, if my parents agreed; and when I got home they were very thankful too. And then I went off to find Nelly, and hold a council of war about poor Mag.

'We went up to the hillock and the three elms to be out of the way. Nelly cried a bit when she heard that our climbing days were over, and that I was to be what she called slave to a Jackdaw; but she dried her eyes on her frock on my telling her that she should come and see the pony when the Jackdaw was off her perch; and then we had our council of war. I told her exactly what Miss Pringle had said—that she allowed no pets about the house. Nelly's mother was just as bad, and no one at my home could be trusted to feed a young bird regularly; so we were rather beaten, and I was for giving Mag his liberty.

'Nelly gave her hair a toss over her face, and sat down on the wet grass to think for a minute. Then she tossed it back again, looked