Page:Merry and entertaining history of the king and the cobler.pdf/13

 his ear, crying, long live Harry Tudor, long live Harry Tudor, with a hundred boys at his heels, whooping and losing. His wife ſtanding at the door, and ſeeing him pranceing along in ſuch a hair-brained poſture, ſhe immediately put on one of her accuſtomed crabbed looks, crying out, hoity toity, what's come of you now? I'll Harry Tudor you, with a vengeance! Wait for this I dreſſed you up in plimblico, in all your beſt apparel, to have you come home like one just out of bedlam.

Peace wife, quoth the cobler, for I am upon my preferment; I am promiſed to be made a courtier, that I am.

A courtier! quoth Joan; Adsfoot! more like a cuckold, drunken ſcoundrel.

Nay, you be know that, 'tis from you I must have that favour if it be conferred upon me.

Ceaſe your prating, quoth Joan, and get you to bed, that you may riſe in the morning, and fall to your buſineſs, for this courſe of life will never do. With theſe, and the like reprimands, ſhe conquers poor Criſpin, who for quietneſs ſake, forth with rent to bed, where we will leave him to take his reſt. Let us now return to court, and ſay ſomething of what pared between the King, Queen, and Nobles, relating that day's comical adventure.

OW it is to be noted that the coller was no ſooner gone, but the King with his Nobles, began to renew their mirth, upon their rehearſing the many comical fancies and pleaſant pranks with which the cobler had entertained them, and that which added the more to their recreation and ſport was, a certain Lord, who put himſelf into a country habit, and imitated the cobler ſo to the life, that the King and the reſt of the nobles fell into a hearty fit of laughter, which laſted a conſiderable