Page:Three hundred Aesop's fables (Townshend).djvu/100

94 him, and reproached him, saying, "You ungrateful fellow, you owe your life to me, and yet you leave me without a word of thanks." The Fox replied, "Indeed, I should have thanked you fervently, if your deeds had been as good as your words, and if your hands had not been traitors to your speech.".

A large Oak was uprooted by the wind, and thrown across a stream. It fell among some Reeds, which it thus addressed: "I wonder how you, who are so light and weak, are not entirely crushed by these strong winds." They replied, "You fight and contend with the wind, and consequently you are destroyed; while we on the contrary bend before the least breath of air, and therefore remain unbroken, and escape."

Stoop to conquer.

A entered a farm-yard. The farmer, wishing to catch him, shut the gate. The Lion, when he found that he could not escape, flew upon the sheep, and killed them, and then attacked the oxen. The farmer, beginning to be alarmed for his own safety, opened the gate, when the Lion got off as fast as he could. On his departure the farmer grievously lamented the destruction of his sheep and oxen; when his wife, who had been a spectator to all that took place, said, "On my word, you are rightly served; for how could you for a moment think of shutting up a Lion along with you in the farm-yard, when you know that you shake in your shoes if you only hear his roar at ever so great a distance?"