The Grey Brethren(14)

    The Story of the Dreadful Griffin.

    MY DEAR CHILDREN, - I am going to tell you a really breathless story for your holiday treat. It will have to begin with the moral, because everyone will be too much exhausted to read one at the end, and as the moral is the only part that really matters, it is important to come to it quite fresh.

    We will, therefore, endeavour to learn from this story：If we fly at all, to fly HIGH. To be extremely polite. To be kind and grateful to cats and all other animals.

    All the trouble arose one day when the Princess （there is always a Princess in a fairy-tale, you know） was playing in the garden with her ball. She threw it up in the air much higher than usual and it never came down again. There was an awful shriek, like ten thousand steam-engines； all the ladies-in-waiting fainted in a row, the inhabitants of the place went stone-deaf, and the Captain of the Guard, who was in attendance with a company of his troops, seized the Princess, put her on his horse, galloped away followed by his soldiers to a castle on the top of a hill, deposited the Princess in the highest room, and then and only then, told her what had happened.

    "Miss," he said, for he was so upset he forgot Court etiquette, "Miss, your ball must have hit the Dreadful Griffin in the eye （I noticed he was taking a little fly in the neighbourhood）, and that was the reason of the awful shriek. Well, Miss, the Dreadful Griffin never was known to forgive anybody anything, so I snatched you up quick before he could get at you and brought you to the Castle of the White Cats. There are seventeen of these animals sitting outside the door and twenty-seven more standing in the courtyard, so you're as safe as safe can be, for the Dreadful Griffin can't look at a white cat without getting the ague and then he shakes so a mouse wouldn't be afraid of him. And now, Miss, I must go back to your Royal Pa, so I will wish you good-morning."

    Having made this long speech the Captain suddenly remembered the Court etiquette, became very hot and red, went out of the room backwards, and instantly fell over the seventeen cats who all swore at him, which so confused the poor man that he rolled down the stairs and out into the court where the twenty-seven cats were having rations of mouse-pie served out to them； and the Captain rolled into the middle of the pie, scalded himself badly with the gravy, and was thankful to jump on his horse and ride away with his soldiers to report matters to the King.

    The King was so pleased with his promptitude that he made him the General of the Flying Squadron, which only fights in the air, and conferred on him the medal of the Society for the Suppression of Superfluous Salamanders, whereat the Captain was overjoyed.

    But this is a digression, and I only told you because I wanted you to see that virtue is always rewarded.