The goat caught up the measure in her lips, and one bound carried her into the leafy thicket.
“My word, but you are in a hurry to be off!” cried Luck of the Bean-rows. “May I ask you, dear lady, if I am still far from the great town mother is sending me to?”
“You are there already,” answered the goat as she buried herself deep among the bushes.
Once more the Luck went on his way, his staff the lighter by two quart measures. He was looking out for the walls of the big town when he noticed by a rustling along the skirt of the woods that someone was following him closely. He turned quickly towards the sound, with his pronged hoe gripped hard in his hand. Well for him that the prongs were open, for the prowler that was tracking him was a grim old wolf whose appearance promised no good.
“So it is you, evil beast!” cried Luck. “You hoped to give me the place of honour at your evening spread! By good fortune my two iron teeth,” and he glanced at his hoe, “are worth all yours together, though I would not belittle them; so you may take it as settled, old crony, that you are to sup this evening without me. Consider yourself in luck, too, if I do not avenge the husband of the she-goat and the father of the kid who have been brought into pitiful straits by your cruelty. Perhaps I ought to, and it would only be justice, but I have been brought up with such a horror of blood that I am loth to shed even a wolf’s.”
So far the wolf had listened in deep humility; now he suddenly broke into a long and lamentable howl and turned up his eyes to heaven as if calling on it to bear witness.
“Oh, power divine, who clothed me as a wolf,” he sobbed, “you know if ever I felt wicked desires in my heart. However, my lord,” he added, with a bow of resignation towards Luck of the Bean-rows, “it lies with you to dispose of my wretched life. I place it at your mercy without fear and without remorse. If you think it right to make my death atone for the crimes of my race I shall die at your hands without repining; for ever since I fondled you in your cradle with pure delight, when your lady mother was not there, I have ever loved you dearly and truly honoured you. Then you grew so handsome, so stately, that, only to look at you, one might have guessed you would become a great and magnanimous prince, as you have. Only I beg you to believe, before you condemn me, I did not stain these claws in the blood of the doe’s luckless mate.
“I was brought up on principles of restraint and moderation; my fell is sprinkled with grey, but through all the years I have never swerved from them. At the time you mention I was abroad among my scattered tribesfolk, proclaiming sound moral doctrines in the hope of leading them by word and example to a frugal standard of living, that high aim of wolfish character. I will go further, my lord; that mountain goat was my good friend. I encouraged promising qualities in him; often we travelled together, discoursing by the way, for he had a bright wit and eagerness to learn. In my absence a sad quarrel for precedence (you know how touchy these rock people are on this point) was the cause of his death, which I have never got over.”
The wolf wept—from the very depth of his heart it seemed, as inconsolable as the doe herself.