ONCE upon a time an old gray wolf had a den in the heart of England, from which he emerged and devastated the countryside, terrorizing travelers, plundering sheepfolds and devouring young children. Parties of men with pitchforks and guns were often organized to hunt the brute down, but year after year, by superior strength and fleetness, he always escaped unscathed, leaving deep scars of these encounters upon his pursuers.
Finally an eccentric country parson whose wits had been turned by drink and disease and by reading curious old books got it fixed in his crack-brained noddle that as there are more ways than one of killing a cat, the same must be true of wolves. He made himself a suit of motley, with cap and bells, and, taking a bladder with rattling beans in one hand and a tear-bottle in the other, went forth to hunt the wolf.
When the fierce creature sprang at him the parson stood fast and rattled the bladder till he saw the whites of the wolf's bloodshot eyes. Then he tossed the contents of the tear-bottle into them. Dismayed by this unaccustomed mode of attack the beast turned tail and fied. The parson pursued, through wood and fen, through hedge and ditch, through bush and briar, still shaking the bladder, till the panic-stricken animal leaped over the cliff at Dover and was drowned.
