A GOATHERD, driving his flock from their pasture at eventide,
found some Wild Goats mingled2 among them, and shut them up
together with his own for the night. The next day it snowed very
hard, so that he could not take the herd1 to their usual feeding
places, but was obliged to keep them in the fold. He gave his
own goats just sufficient food to keep them alive, but fed the
strangers more abundantly in the hope of enticing3 them to stay
with him and of making them his own. When the thaw4 set in, he
led them all out to feed, and the Wild Goats scampered5 away as
fast as they could to the mountains. The Goatherd scolded them
for their ingratitude6 in leaving him, when during the storm he
had taken more care of them than of his own herd. One of them,
turning about, said to him: "That is the very reason why we are
so cautious; for if you yesterday treated us better than the
Goats you have had so long, it is plain also that if others came
after us, you would in the same manner prefer them to ourselves."
Old friends cannot with impunity7 be sacrificed for new ones.
