A Boy and False Alarms

2.11. A BOY AND FALSE ALARMS. A Shepherd's Boy kept his sheep upon a common, and in sport and wantonness had gotten a roguish trick of crying, "A wolf! A wolf!" when there was no such matter, and fooling the country people with false alarms. He had been at this sport so many times in jest, that they would not believe him at last when he was in earnest; and so the wolves broke in upon the flock, and worried the sheep without resistance.
Rank lies repeated oft, and oft detected,
Makes truth itself for a rank lie suspected. [more info]