Another
time I made him believe that Westminster Hall, for suspicion of treason,
was banished for ten years into Staffordshire. And last of all, I made
him believe that a tinker should be baited to death at Canterbury for
getting two and twenty children in a year; whereupon, to prove me a
liar, he took his horse and rode thither, and I, to verify him a fool,
took my horse and rode hither.'
"'Well,' quoth Jacke of Dover, 'this in my mind was pretty foolery, but
yet the Foole of all Fooles is not here found that I looked for.'
_The Fool of Huntington._
"'And it was my chance (quoth another of the jury) upon a time to be at
Huntington, where I heard tell of a simple shoemaker there dwelling, who
having two little boys whom he made a vaunt to bring up to learning, the
better to maintain themselves when they were men; and having kept them a
year or two at school, he examined them saying, "My good boy," quoth he
to one of them, "what dost thou learn and where is thy lesson?" "O
father," said the boy, "I am past grace." "And where art thou?" quoth he
to the other boy, who likewise answered that he was at the devil and all
his works. "Now Lord bless us," quoth the shoemaker, "whither are my
children learning? The one is already past grace and the other at the
devil and all his works!" Whereupon he took them both from school and
set them to his own occupation.
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