[Illustration:  DROWNING THE EEL.]

This they resolved not to do, and therefore devised a plan which caused the king to pass another way.  When the king learned what had been done he was very angry, and at once sent messengers to inquire why they had been so rude, intending, no doubt, to punish them for what they had done.  When the Gothamites learned of the approach of the messengers they were as anxious to escape punishment as they had been to save their meadow.  They immediately came together and agreed upon a plan by which to save themselves.  They at once set about carrying their plans into effect, and when the king’s messengers arrived they found some of the inhabitants endeavoring to drown an eel in a pond; some dragging their carts and wagons to the top of a barn to shade the wood from the sun’s rays; some tumbling cheeses down a hill in the expectation that they would find their way to Nottingham Market, and some were employed in hedging in a cuckoo which had perched upon an old bush.  Seeing men engaged in such employments as these the king’s servants were convinced that the villagers were all fools, and quite unworthy the king’s notice.  The villagers, however, seeing that they had outwitted the king, considered themselves wise.  To the present day a “cuckoo bush” stands upon the spot where it is said that the inhabitants of Gotham endeavored to hedge in the bird.

There is another class of Fools which deserve mention.  These are called Court Fools or Jesters.  Until within a comparatively short time ago, every king had his Jester, whose duty it was to furnish mirth and merriment for the royal household.  The real Court Fool was in reality a fool by birth, while a Jester was a pretended fool.  The former was dressed in “a parti-colored dress, including a cowl, which ended in a cock’s-head, and was winged with a couple of long ears; he, moreover, carried in his hand a stick called his bauble, terminating either in an inflated bladder or some other ludicrous object, to be employed in slapping inadvertent neighbors.”

[Illustration:  SAVING THE SHINGLES.]

On the other hand, the Jester selected his clothes not only with a view to their grotesqueness but also with an eye to their richness.  While the real fool “haunted the kitchen and scullery, messing almost with the dogs, and liable, when malapert, to a whipping,” the pretended fool was comparatively a companion to the sovereign who engaged his services.  Berdic, the Jester of the Court of William the Conqueror, for instance, was considered of so great importance that three towns and five carucates were conferred upon him.

[Illustration]