A Farmer, whose poultry-yard had suffered severely from the foxes,
succeeded at last in catching one in a trap.
“Ah, you rascal!” said he, as he saw him struggling, “I’ll teach you
to steal my fat geese. You shall hang on the tree yonder, and your
brothers shall see what comes of thieving.”
The Farmer was twisting a halter to do what he had threatened, when the
Fox, whose tongue had helped him in hard pinches before, thought there
could be no harm in trying if it might not do him one more good turn.
“You will hang me,” he said, “to frighten my brother foxes. On the word
of a fox they won’t care a rabbit-skin for it; they’ll come and look at
me, but you may depend upon it, they will dine at your expense before
they go home again!”
“Then I shall hang you for yourself, as a rogue and a rascal,” said the
Farmer.
“I am only what Nature, or whatever you call the thing, chose to make
me,” the Fox answered; “I didn’t make myself.”
“You stole my geese,” said the man.
“Why did Nature make me like geese, then?” said the Fox. “Live and let
live; give me my share and I won’t touch yours; but you keep them all
to yourself.”
“I don’t understand your fine talk,” answered the Farmer; “but I know
that you are a thief, and that you deserve to be hanged.”
His head is too thick to let me catch him so, thought the Fox; I
wonder if his heart is any softer. “You are taking away the life of a
fellow-creature,” he said; “that’s a responsibility,--it is a curious
thing that life, and who knows what comes after it? You say I am a
rogue; I say I am not; but at any rate I ought not to be hanged, for if
I am not, I don’t deserve it; and if I am, you should give me time to
repent.” I have him now, thought the Fox; let him get out if he can.
“Why, what would you have me do with you?” said the man.
“My notion is, that you should let me go, and give me a lamb, or a
goose or two, every month, and then I could live without stealing; but
perhaps you know better than I, and I am a rogue; my education may have
been neglected; you should shut me up, and take care of me, and teach
me. Who knows but in the end I may turn into a dog?”
“Very pretty,” said the Farmer; “we have dogs enough, and more, too,
than we can take care of, without you. No, no, Master Fox; I have
caught you, and you shall swing, whatever is the logic of it. There
will be one rogue less in the world, any how.”
“It is mere hate and unchristian vengeance,” said the Fox.
“No, friend,” the Farmer answered, “I don’t hate you, and I don’t want
to revenge myself on you; but you and I can’t get on together, and I
think I am of more importance than you. If nettles and thistles grow in
my cabbage-garden, I don’t try and persuade them to grow into cabbages.
I just dig them up. I don’t hate them; but I feel somehow that they
mustn’t hinder me with my cabbage, and that I must put them away; and
so, my poor friend, I am sorry for you, but I am afraid you must swing.”