The Wolf and the Shepherd

: Aesop's Fables

A WOLF followed a flock of sheep for a long time and did not

attempt to injure one of them. The Shepherd at first stood on

his guard against him, as against an enemy, and kept a strict

watch over his movements. But when the Wolf, day after day, kept

in the company of the sheep and did not make the slightest effort

to seize them, the Shepherd began to look upon him as a guardian

of his flock rather than as a plotter of evil against it; and

when occasion called him one day into the city, he left the sheep

entirely in his charge. The Wolf, now that he had the

opportunity, fell upon the sheep, and destroyed the greater part

of the flock. When the Shepherd returned to find his flock

destroyed, he exclaimed: "I have been rightly served; why did I

trust my sheep to a Wolf?'