TALE XIV.
A man of Gotham took a young buzzard, and invited four or five gentlemen’s servants to the eating of it; but the wife killed an old goose, and she and two of her gossips ate up the buzzard, and the old goose was laid to the fire for the gentlemen’s servants. So when they came the goose was set before them. What is this? said one of them. The goodman said, a curious buzzard. A buzzard! why, it is an old goose, and thou art a knave to mock us, and so departed in great anger. The fellow was sorry that he had affronted them, and took a bag and put the buzzard’s feathers in it; but his wife desired him, before he went, to fetch a block of wood, and in the interim she pulled out the buzzard’s feathers, and put in the goose’s. The man, taking the bag, went to the gentlemen’s servants, and said, Pray, be not angry with me, you shall see I had a buzzard, for here be the feathers. Then he opened the bag, and took out the goose’s feathers; upon which one of them took a cudgel, and gave him a dozen of stripes, saying, Why, you knave, could you not be content to mock us at home, but you are come here to mock us also.