ght that if he fed them well they
wouldn't want to leave him. When the weather improved, he took them
all out to pasture again; but no sooner had they got near the hills
than the Wild Goats broke away from the flock and scampered off. The
Goatherd was very much disgusted at this, and roundly abused them for
their ingratitude. "Rascals!" he cried, "to run away like that after
the way I've treated you!" Hearing this, one of them turned round and
said, "Oh, yes, you treated us all right--too well, in fact; it was
just that that put us on our guard. If you treat newcomers like
ourselves so much better than your own flock, it's more than likely
that, if another lot of strange goats joined yours, _we_ should then
be neglected in favour of the last comers."

THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE SWALLOW

A Swallow, conversing with a Nightingale, advised her to quit the
leafy coverts where she made her home, and to come and live with men,
like herself, and nest under the shelter of their roofs. But the
Nightingale replied, "Time was when I too, like yourself, lived among
men: but the memory of the cruel wrongs I then suffered makes them
hateful to me, and never again will I approach their dwellings."

The scene of past sufferings revives painful memories.

THE TRAVELLER AND FORTUNE

A Traveller, exhausted with fatigue after a long journey, sank down at
the very brink of a deep well and presently fell asleep. He was within
an ace of falling in, when Dame Fortune appeared to him and touched
him on the shoulder, cautioning him to move further away. "Wake up,
good sir, I pray you," she said; "had you fallen into the well, the
blame would have been thrown not on your own folly but on me, Fortune."

ILLUSTRATIONS

[Illustration: THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE]

[Illustration: THE MOON AND HER MOTHER]

[Illustration: THE FIR-TREE AND THE BRAMBLE]

[Illustration: THE CRAB AND HIS MOTHER]

[Illustration: THE QUACK FROG]

[Illustration: THE SHIPWRECKED MAN AND THE SEA]

[Illustration: THE BLACKAMOOR]

[Illustration: THE TWO POTS]

[Illustration: VENUS AND THE CAT]

[Illustration: THE TRAVELLERS AND THE PLANE-TREE]

[Illustration: THE TREES AND THE AXE]

[Illustration: THE LION, JUPITER, AND THE ELEPHANT]

[Illustration: THE GNAT AND THE LION]

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Aesop's Fables, by Aesop

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