A Goatherd was driving his flock from their pasture at evening, while going he found some Wild Goats moving along them, so he shut them up together with his own for the night.
The next day there was a hard snowfall, 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 snowfall set in, he led them all out to feed, and the Wild Goats ran 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."
Moral: Old friends cannot with
impunity be sacrificed for new ones.