The Goatherd and the Wild Goats

The Goatherd and the Wild Goats

A GOATHERD, driving his flock from their pasture at eventide, found

some Wild Goats mingled 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 herd 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

enticing them to stay with him and of making them his own. When the

thaw set in, he led them all out to feed, and the Wild Goats scampered

away as fast as they could to the mountains. The Goatherd scolded them

for their ingratitude 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 impunity be sacrificed for new ones.