Vincent:  Well, I shall tell her what you say, I warrant you.

Anthony:  Then will you make me make my word good!

But whatsoever she did, at least so fared now this wolf, who had cast out in confession all his old ravine.  For then hunger pricked him forward so that, as the shrewish wife said, he should begin all afresh.  But yet the prick of conscience withdrew him and held him back, because he would not, for breaking of his penance, take any prey for his mealtide that should pass the price of sixpence.

It happed him then, as he walked prowling for his gear about, that he came where a man had, a few days before, cast off two old lean and lame horses, so sick that no flesh was there left upon them.  And the one, when the wolf came by, could scant stand on his legs, and the other was already dead and his skin ripped off and carried away.  And as he looked upon them suddenly, he was first about to feed upon them and whet his teeth upon their bones.  But as he looked aside, he spied a fair cow in an enclosure, walking with her young calf by her side.  And as soon as he saw them, his conscience began to grudge him against both those two horses.  And then he sighed and said to himself, “Alas, wicked wretch that I am, I had almost broken my penance ere I was aware!  For yonder dead horse, because I never sad a dead horse sold in the market, even if I should die for it, I cannot guess, to save my sinful soul, what price I should set on him.  But in my conscience I set him far above sixpence, and therefore I dare not meddle with him.  Now, then, yonder live horse is in all likelihood worth a great deal of money.  For horses are dear in this country—­especially such soft amblers, for I see by his pace he trotteth not, nor can scant shift a foot.  And therefore I may not meddle with him, for he very far passeth my sixpence.  But cows this country hath enough, while money have they very little.  And therefore, considering the plenty of the cows and the scarcity of the money, yonder foolish cow seemeth unto me, in my conscience, worth not past a groat, if she be worth so much.  Now then, her calf is not so much as she, by half.  And therefore, since the cow is in my conscience worth but fourpence, my conscience cannot serve me, for sin of my soul, to appraise her calf above twopence.  And so pass they not sixpence between them both.  And therefore may I well eat them twain at this one meal and break not my penance at all.”  And so thereupon he did, without any scruple of conscience.

If such beasts could speak now, as Mother Maud said they could then, some of them would, I daresay, tell a tale almost as wise as this!  Save for the diminishing of old Mother Maud’s tale, a shorter sermon would have served.  But yet, as childish as the parable is, in this it serveth for our purpose:  that the night’s fear of a somewhat scrupulous conscience, though it be painful and troublous to him who hath it, as this poor ass had here, is yet less harm than a conscience that is over-large.  And less harm is it than a conscience such as a man pleases to frame himself for his own fancy—­now drawing it narrow, now stretching it in breadth, after the manner of a leather thong—­to serve on every side for his own commodity, as did here the wily wolf.