Page:Little fabulist, or, Select fables.pdf/20

(20) The Lynx and the Mole.

NDER the covert of a thick wood, at the foot of a tree, as a Lynx lay whetting his teeth, and waiting for his prey, he espied a Mole, half buried under a hillock of her own raising. Alas, poor creature, said the Lynx, how much I pity thee! Surely Jupiter has been very unkind, to debar thee from the light of the day which rejoices the whole creation. Thou art certainly not above half alive; and it would be doing thee a service to put an end to so unanimated a being. I thank you for your kindness, replied the Mole, but I think I have full as much vivacity as my state and circumstances require. For the rest I am perfectly well contented with the faculties which Jupiter has allotted me, who I am sure wants not our direction in distributing his gifts with propriety. I have not, 'tis true your piercing eyes; but I have ears which answers all my purposes full as well. Hark! for example, I am warned, by a noise which I hear behind you, to fly from danger. So saying, he slunk into the earth; while a javelin from the arm of a hunter pierced the quick-sight Lynx to the heart.