[Illustration: THE STAG AND THE OX-STALL.]
A Stag, roused out of his thick cover in the midst of the forest, and
driven hard by the hounds, made towards a farm-house, and seeing the
door of an Ox-Stall open, entered therein, and hid himself under a heap
of straw. One of the Oxen, turning his head about, asked him what he
meant by venturing himself in such a place as that was, where he was
sure to meet with his doom?--'Ah!' says the Stag, 'if you will but be so
good as to favour me with your concealment, I hope I shall do well
enough; I intend to make off again the first opportunity.'--Well, he
staid there till towards night; in came the ox-man with a bundle of
fodder, and never saw him. In short, all the servants of the farm came
and went, and not a soul of them smelt any thing of the matter. Nay,
the bailiff himself came according to form, and looked in, but walked
away no wiser than the rest. Upon this the Stag, ready to jump out of
his skin for joy, began to return thanks to the good-natured Oxen,
protesting that they were the most obliging people he had ever met with
in his life. After he had done his compliments, one of them answered him
gravely--'Indeed, we desire nothing more than to have it in our power to
contribute to your escape; but there is a certain person, you little
think of, who has a hundred eyes; if he should happen to come, I would
not give this straw for your life.'--In the interim, home comes the
master himself, from a neighbour's, where he had been invited to dinner;
and, because he had observed the cattle to look but scurvily of late, he
went up to the rack, and asked, why they did not give them more fodder?
then, casting his eyes downward,--'Hey-day!' says he, 'why so sparing of
your litter? pray scatter a little more here. And these cobwebs--but I
have spoke so often, that unless I do it myself--' Thus, as he went on,
prying into every thing, he chanced to look where the Stag's horns lay
sticking out of the straw; upon which he raised a hue-and-cry, called
all his people about him, killed the poor Stag, and made a prize of him.