A brigand, having murdered a man on a road, and finding himself pursued by those who were there, abandoned his bloodstained victim and fled. But some travellers coming the other way asked him what had soiled his hands; he replied that he had just come down from a mulberry tree. As he said this, those who were pursuing him caught up, seized him, and hanged him on a mulberry tree. And the mulberry tree said to him, "I am not sorry to serve for your punishment: for it was you who committed the murder, and it was on me that you wiped off the blood."
So it often happens that people naturally good, when they see themselves disparaged by slanderers, do not hesitate to show themselves harsh towards them.
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