A GOATHERD, driving his flock from their pasture at eventide, found
some Wild Goats mingled among them, and shut them up together with his
own for the night. The next day it snowed very hard, so that he could
not take the herd to their usual feeding places, but was obliged to
keep them in the fold. He gave his own goats just sufficient food to
keep them alive, but fed the strangers more abundantly in the hope of
enticing them to stay with him and of making them his own. When the
thaw set in, he led them all out to feed, and the Wild Goats scampered
away as fast as they could to the mountains. The Goatherd scolded them
for their ingratitude in leaving him, when during the storm he had
taken more care of them than of his own herd. One of them, turning
about, said to him: “That is the very reason why we are so cautious;
for if you yesterday treated us better than the Goats you have had so
long, it is plain also that if others came after us, you would in the
same manner prefer them to ourselves.”
Old friends cannot with impunity be sacrificed for new ones.