“Well, well, I am reasonable,” said the Wolf; “give me five.”
“Surely you are joking,” said the Shepherd. “Why, if I were in the habit of sacrificing to Pan, I don’t think I should offer him more than five sheep the whole year round.”
“Four, then, my dear friend,” urged the Wolf, coaxingly; “you won’t think four too many?”
“Ah,” returned the Shepherd, with a sly glance from the corner of his eye, “don’t you wish you may get them?”
The selfish scoundrel, how he mocks me! thought the Wolf. “Will you promise me three, or even two?”
“Not even one—not the ghost of one!” replied the Shepherd, emphatically. “A pretty protector of my flock I should prove myself, truly, to surrender it piecemeal into the claws of my inveterate enemy! Take yourself off, my fine fellow, before you chance to vex me!”
III.
The third attempt generally creates or dissipates the charm, cogitated Isegrim. May it be so in this present instance! As he mentally uttered this ejaculation, he found himself in the presence of a third shepherd.
“Ah! my worthy, my excellent friend,” cried he, “I have been looking for you the whole day. I want to communicate a piece of news to you. You must know that I have been struggling desperately of late to regenerate my character. The enormity of my past career, haunted as it is with phantoms of blood and massacre, is for ever before my eyes, and humbles me—oh, dear! how much nobody can guess. I have grown very penitent, and very, very soft-hearted altogether, Shepherd.” Here Isegrim hung his head, overcome for a moment by his emotions. “Still, Shepherd, still—and this is what I want you to understand—I find I can make after all but slight progress by myself. I go on smack smooth enough for a while, and then my zeal flags. I require encouragement and sympathy, and the companionship of the good and the gentle, who could give me advice, and point out to me the path of rectitude continually. In short, you see, if—if you would be but generous enough to allow a sheep or two of enlightened principles to take a walk out with me occasionally, in the cool of the evening, along some sequestered valley, sacred to philosophic musings, I feel that it would prove of the greatest advantage to me, in a moral and intellectual point of view. But ah! I perceive you are laughing at me: may I ask whether there is any thing in my request that strikes you as ridiculous?”
“Permit me to answer your question by another,” said the Shepherd, with a sneer. “Pray, Master Wolf, how old are you?”