Pretty lads they were. Nothing would serve the squire but that the
youngest must be made a parson. Upon which he persuaded the father to
send him to school, promising that he would afterwards maintain him at
the university, and, when he was of a proper age, give him a living. But
after the lad had been seven years at school, and his father brought him
to the squire, with a letter from his master that he was fit for the
university, the squire, instead of minding his promise, or sending him
thither at his expense, only told his father that the young man was a
fine scholar, and it was pity he could not afford to keep him at Oxford
for four or five years more, by which time, if he could get him a
curacy, he might have him ordained. The farmer said, 'He was not a man
sufficient to do any such thing.'--'Why, then,' answered the squire, 'I
am very sorry you have given him so much learning; for, if he cannot get
his living by that, it will rather spoil him for anything else; and your
other son, who can hardly write his name, will do more at ploughing and
sowing, and is in a better condition, than he.' And indeed so it proved;
for the poor lad, not finding friends to maintain him in his learning,
as he had expected, and being unwilling to work, fell to drinking,
though he was a very sober lad before; and in a short time, partly with
grief, and partly with good liquor, fell into a consumption, and
died.--Nay, I can tell you more still: there was another, a young woman,
and the handsomest in all this neighbourhood, whom he enticed up to
London, promising to make her a gentlewoman to one of your women of
quality; but, instead of keeping his word, we have since heard, after
having a child by her himself, she became a common whore; then kept a
coffeehouse in Covent Garden; and a little after died of the French
distemper in a gaol.--I could tell you many more stories; but how do you
imagine he served me myself? You must know, sir, I was bred a seafaring
man, and have been many voyages; till at last I came to be master of a
ship myself, and was in a fair way of making a fortune, when I was