drenching the floor with blood. Yes, there is wisdom in the old story:
A deer there was that burst his bonds;
He flung the trap aside;
He violently broke apart
The hobbling snare that tied;
From woods uncouth with tufted flames
Around him bristling, fled;
The hunters' arrows left behind;
To seeming safety sped;
Into a well at last he tumbles:
On hostile fate all effort stumbles.
Then I departed, alone. The others—poor dolts! plunged into the old fortress. Thereupon the holy man, perceiving that the floor was smeared with drops of blood, followed the trail to the fortress, and began to ply the pickaxe. As he dug, he came upon the hoard over which I had lived so long, and the smell of which used to guide me back to the fortress.
Then Wide-Bottom was filled with glee and said: "Now, Crop-ear, sleep in peace. It was the smell of this that enabled the mouse to wake you." So they took the hoard and turned to the cell.
Now when I returned to the spot, I could not bear to look at the sad, disturbing sight. And I reflected: "Ah, what shall I do? Where shall I go? How may I win peace of mind?" In such reflections the day dragged drearily away.
Still, when the sun had laid his thousand beams to
