“Ah,” cried he, with triumph, “now I have got you!”

The wolf held his peace until the other was quite near, and then in a tone of the severest moral rebuke, and with a voice that was made quite low and grave with its weight of judicial reprehension, said,—­

“Is it you, then?  Can it be one wearing the form of a man, who has laid this wicked plot against the peace, nay, as I infer from that club, against the very life, of an innocent creature?  Behold what I suffer, and how unjustly!—­I, of all animals, whose life,—­the sad state I am now in constrains me against modesty to say it,—­whose life is notoriously a pattern of all the virtues;—­I, too, ungrateful biped, who have watched your flock through so many sleepless nights, lest some ill-disposed dog might do harm to the helpless sheep and lambs!”

The shepherd, one of the simplest souls that ever lived, was utterly confounded by this reproof, and hung his head with shame, unable, for a season, to utter a word in his own defence.  At length he managed to stammer,—­

“I pray your pardon, brother, but—­but in truth I have lost a great many lambs lately, and began to think my little ones at home would starve.”

“How harder than stone is the heart of man!” murmured the wolf, as if to himself.

Then, raising his voice, he went on to say,—­

“I despair of reaching your conscience; nevertheless I will speak as if I had hope.  You never paid me anything for protecting your flock; it was on my part a pure labor of love; and yet, because I cannot quite succeed in guarding it against all the bad dogs that are about, you would take my life!”

And the creature put on such a look of meek suffering innocence that the shepherd was touched to the very heart, and felt more guilty and abashed than ever.  He therefore said at once,—­

“Brother, I fear that I have done you wrong; and if you will swear to mind your own affairs, and not prey upon my flock, I will at once set you free.”

“My character ought to be a sufficient guaranty,” answered the quadruped, with much dignity; “but I submit, since I must, to your unjust suspicions, and promise as you require.”

So, lifting up his paw, he swore solemnly, by all the gods that wolves worship, to keep his pledge.  Thereupon the other set him free, with many apologies and professions of confidence and friendship.  Only a few days, however, had passed before the shepherd, happening to mount a knoll, saw at a little distance the self-same wolf eagerly devouring the warm remains of a lamb.

“Villain! villain!” he shouted, in great wrath, “is this the way you keep your oath?  Did not you swear to mind your own business?”

“I am minding it,” said the wolf, with a grin; “it is my business to eat lambs; it should be yours not to believe in wolves’ promises.”

So saying, he seized upon the last fragment of the Iamb, and ran away as fast as his legs would carry him.