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A SET OF ROGUES, by Frank Barrett (Part 1)

CHAPTER I.

Of my companions and our adversities, and in particular from our getting into the stocks at Tottenham Cross to our being robbed at Edmonton.

There being no plays to be acted at the “Red Bull,” because of the Plague, and the players all cast adrift for want of employment, certain of us, to wit, Jack Dawson and his daughter Moll, Ned Herring, and myself, clubbed our monies together to buy a store of dresses, painted cloths, and the like, with a cart and horse to carry them, and thus provided set forth to travel the country and turn an honest penny, in those parts where the terror of pestilence had not yet turned men’s stomachs against the pleasures of life. And here, at our setting out, let me show what kind of company we were. First, then, for our master, Jack Dawson, who on no occasion was to be given a second place; he was a hale, jolly fellow, who would eat a pound of beef for his breakfast (when he could get it), and make nothing of half a gallon of ale therewith—a very masterful man, but kindly withal, and pleasant to look at when not contraried, with never a line of care in his face, though turned of fifty. He played our humorous parts, but he had a sweet voice for singing of ditties, and could fetch a tear as readily as a laugh, and he was also exceeding nimble at a dance, which was the strangest thing in the world, considering his great girth. Wife he had none, but Moll Dawson was his daughter, who was a most sprightly, merry little wench, but no miracle for beauty, being neither child nor woman at this time; surprisingly thin, as if her frame had grown out of proportion with her flesh, so that her body looked all arms and legs, and her head all mouth and eyes, with a great towzled mass of chestnut hair, which (off the stage) was as often as not half tumbled over her shoulder. But a quicker little baggage at mimicry (she would play any part, from an urchin of ten to a crone of fourscore), or a livelier at dancing of Brantles or the single Coranto never was, I do think, and as merry as a grig. Of Ned Herring I need only here say that he was the most tearing villain imaginable on the stage, and off it the most civil-spoken, honest-seeming young gentleman. Nor need I trouble to give a very lengthy description of myself; what my character was will appear hereafter, and as for my looks, the less I say about them, the better. Being something of a scholar and a poet, I had nearly died of starvation, when Jack Dawson gave me a footing on the stage, where I would play the part of a hero in one act, a lacquey in the second, and a merry Andrew in the third, scraping a tune on my fiddle to fill up the intermedios.

We had designed to return to London as soon as the Plague abated, unless we were favoured with extraordinary good fortune, and so, when we heard that the sickness was certainly past, and the citizens recovering of their panic, we (being by this time heartily sick of our venture, which at the best gave us but beggarly recompense) set about to retrace our steps with cheerful expectations of better times. But coming to Oxford, we there learned that a prodigious fire had burnt all London down, from the Tower to Ludgate, so that if we were there, we should find no house to play in. This lay us flat in our hopes, and set us again to our vagabond enterprise; and so for six months more we scoured the country in a most miserable plight, the roads being exceedingly foul, and folks more humoured of nights to drowse in their chimnies than to sit in a draughty barn and witness our performances; and then, about the middle of February we, in a kind of desperation, got back again to London, only to find that we must go forth again, the town still lying in ruins, and no one disposed to any kind of amusement, except in high places, where such actors as we were held in contempt. So we, with our hearts in our boots, as one may say, set out again to seek our fortunes on the Cambridge road, and here, with no better luck than elsewhere, for at Tottenham Cross we had the mischance to set fire to the barn wherein we were playing, by a candle falling in some loose straw, whereby we did injury to the extent of some shilling or two, for which the farmer would have us pay a pound, and Jack Dawson stoutly refusing to satisfy his demand he sends for the constable, who locks us all up in the cage that night, to take us before the magistrate in the morning. And we found to our cost that this magistrate had as little justice as mercy in his composition; for though he lent a patient ear to the farmer’s case, he would not listen to Jack Dawson’s argument, which was good enough, being to the effect that we had not as much as a pound amongst us, and that he would rather be hanged than pay it if he had; and when Ned Herring (seeing the kind of Puritanical fellow he was) urged that, since the damage was not done by any design of ours, it must be regarded as a visitation of Providence, he says: “Very good. If it be the will of Providence that one should be scourged, I take it as the Divine purpose that I should finish the business by scourging the other”; and therewith he orders the constable to take what money we have from our pockets and clap us in the stocks till sundown for payment of the difference. So in the stocks we three poor men were stuck for six mortal hours, which was a wicked, cruel thing indeed, with the wind blowing a sort of rainy snow about our ears; and there I do think we must have perished of cold and vexation but that our little Moll brought us a sheet for a cover, and tired not in giving us kind words of comfort.

At five o’clock the constable unlocked us from our vile confinement, and I do believe we should have fallen upon him and done him a mischief for his pains there and then, but that we were all frozen as stiff as stones with sitting in the cold so long, and indeed it was some time ere we could move our limbs at all. However, with much ado, we hobbled on at the tail of our cart, all three very bitter, but especially Ned Herring, who cursed most horridly and as I had never heard him curse off the stage, saying he would rather have stayed in London to carry links for the gentry than join us again in this damnable adventure, etc. And that which incensed him the more was the merriment of our Moll, who, seated on the side of the cart, could do nothing better than make sport of our discontent. But there was no malice in her laughter, which, if it sprang not from sheer love of mischief, arose maybe from overflowing joy at our release.

Coming at dusk to Edmonton, and finding a fine new inn there, called the “Bell,” Jack Dawson leads the cart into the yard, we following without a word of demur, and, after putting up our trap, into the warm parlour we go, and call for supper as boldly as you please. Then, when we had eaten and drunk till we could no more, all to bed like princes, which, after a night in the cage and a day in the stocks, did seem like a very paradise. But how we were to pay for this entertainment not one of us knew, nor did we greatly care, being made quite reckless by our necessities. It was the next morning, when we met together at breakfast, that our faces betrayed some compunctions; but these did not prevent us eating prodigiously. “For,” whispers Ned Herring, “if we are to be hanged, it may as well be for a sheep as a lamb.” However, Jack Dawson, getting on the right side of the landlord, who seemed a very honest, decent man for an innkeeper, agreed with him that we should give a performance that night in a cart-shed very proper to our purpose, giving him half of our taking in payment of our entertainment. This did Jack, thinking from our late ill-luck we should get at the most a dozen people in the sixpenny benches, and a score standing at twopence a head. But it turned out, as the cunning landlord had foreseen, that our hanger was packed close to the very door, in consequence of great numbers coming to the town in the afternoon to see a bull baited, so that when Jack Dawson closed the doors and came behind our scene to dress for his part, he told us he had as good as five pounds in his pocket. With that to cheer us we played our tragedy of “The Broken Heart” very merrily, and after that, changing our dresses in a twinkling, Jack Dawson, disguised as a wild man, and Moll as a wood nymph, came on to the stage to dance a pastoral, whilst I, in the fashion of a satyr, stood on one side plying the fiddle to their footing. Then, all being done, Jack thanks the company for their indulgence, and bids ’em good-night.

And now, before all the company are yet out of the place, and while Jack Dawson is wiping the sweat from his face, comes the landlord, and asks pretty bluntly to be paid his share of our earnings.

“Well,” says Jack, in a huff, “I see no reason for any such haste; but if you will give me time to put on my breeches, you shall be paid all the same.” And therewith he takes down his trunks from the nail where they hung. And first giving them a doubtful shake, as seeming lighter than he expected, and hearing no chink of money, he thrusts his hand into one pocket, and then into the other, and cries in dismay: “Heaven’s mercy upon us; we are robbed! Every penny of our money is gone!”

“Can you think of nothing better than such an idle story as that?” says the landlord. “There hath been none behind this sheet but yourselves all the night.”

We could make no reply to this, but stood gaping at each other in a maze for some seconds; then Jack Dawson, recovering his wits, turns him round, and looking about, cries: “Why, where’s Ned Herring?”

“If you mean him as was killed in your play,” says the landlord, “I’ll answer for it he’s not far off; for, to my knowledge, he was in the house drinking with a man while you were a-dancing of your antics like a fool. And I only hope you may be as honest a man as he, for he paid for his liquor like a gentleman.”

That settled the question, for we knew the constable had left never a penny in his pocket when he clapt us in the stocks.

“Well,” says Jack, “he has our money, as you may prove by searching us, and if you have faith in him ’tis all as one, and you may rest easy for your reckoning being paid against his return.”

The landlord went off, vowing he would take the law of us if he were not paid by the morning; and we, as soon as we had shuffled on our clothes, away to hunt for Ned, thinking that maybe he had made off with the money to avoid paying half to the landlord, and hoping always that, though he might play the rogue with him, he would deal honestly by us. But we could find no trace of him, though we visited every alehouse in the town, and so back we go, crestfallen, to the Bell, to beg the innkeeper to give us a night’s lodging and a crust of bread on the speculation that Ned would come back and settle our accounts; but he would not listen to our prayers, and so, hungry and thirsty, and miserable beyond expression, we were fain to make up with a loft over the stables, where, thanks to a good store of sweet hay, we soon forgot our troubles in sleep, but not before we had concerted to get away in the morning betimes to escape another day in the stocks.

Accordingly, before the break of day, we were afoot, and after noiselessly packing our effects in the cart in the misty grey light, Jack Dawson goes in the stable to harness our nag, while I as silently take down the heavy bar that fastened the yard gate. But while I was yet fumbling at the bolts, and all of a shake for fear of being caught in the act, Jack Dawson comes to me, with Moll holding of his hand, as she would when our troubles were great, and says in a tone of despair:

“Give over, Kit. We are all undone again. For our harness is stole, and there’s never another I can take in its place.”

While we were at this stumble, out comes our landlord to make sport of us. “Have you found your money yet, friends?” says he, with a sneer.

“No,” says Jack, savagely, “and our money is not all that we have lost, for some villain has filched our nag’s harness, and I warrant you know who he is.”

“Why, to be sure,” returns the other, “the same friend may have taken it who has gone astray with your other belongings; but, be that as it may, I’ll answer for it when your money is found your harness will be forthcoming, and not before.”

“Come, Master,” says I, “have you no more heart than to make merry at the mischances of three poor wretches such as we?”

“Aye,” says he, “when you can show that you deserve better treatment.”

“Done,” says Jack. “I’ll show you that as quickly as you please.” With that he whips off his cap, and flinging it on the ground, cries: “Off with your jacket, man, and let us prove by such means as Heaven has given all which is the honester of us two.” And so he squares himself up to fight; but the innkeeper, though as big a man as he, being of a spongy constitution, showed no relish for this mode of argument, and turning his back on us with a shake of the head, said he was very well satisfied of his own honesty, and if we doubted it we could seek what satisfaction the law would give us, adding slyly, as he turned at the door, that he could recommend us a magistrate of his acquaintance, naming him who had set us in the stocks at Tottenham Cross.

The very hint of this put us again in a quake, and now, the snow beginning to fall pretty heavily, we went into the shed to cast about as to what on earth we should do next. There we sat, glum and silent, watching idly the big flakes of snow fluttering down from the leaden sky, for not one of us could imagine a way out of this hobble.

“Holy Mother!” cries Jack at length, springing up in a passion, “we cannot sit here and starve of cold and hunger. Cuddle up to my arm, Moll, and do you bring your fiddle, Kit, and let us try our luck a-begging in alehouses.”

And so we trudged out into the driving snow, that blinded us as we walked, bow our heads as we might, and tried one alehouse after the other, but all to no purpose, the parlours being empty because of the early hour, and the snow keeping folks within doors; only, about midday, some carters, who had pulled up at an inn, took pity on us, and gave us a mug of penny ale and half a loaf, and that was all the food we had the whole miserable day. Then at dusk, wet-footed and fagged out in mind and body, we trudged back to the Bell, thinking to get back into the loft and bury ourselves in the sweet hay for warmth and comfort. But coming hither, we found our nag turned out of the stable and the door locked, so that we were thrown quite into despair by the loss of this last poor hope, and poor Moll, turning her face away from us, burst out a-crying—she who all day had set us a brave example by her cheerful merry spirit.

CHAPTER II.

Of our first acquaintance with the Señor Don Sanchez del Castillo de Castelaña, and his brave entertaining of us.

I was taking a turn or two outside the shed—for the sight of Jack Dawson hugging poor Moll to his breast and trying to soothe her bodily misery with gentle words was more than I could bear—when a drawer coming across from the inn told me that a gentleman in the Cherry room would have us come to him. I gave him a civil answer and carried this message to my friends. Moll, who had staunched her tears and was smiling piteously, though her sobs, like those of a child, still shook her thin frame, and her father both looked at me in blank doubt as fearing some trap for our further discomfiture.

“Nay,” says Jack, stoutly. “Fate can serve us no worse within doors than without, so let us in and face this gentleman, whoever he is.”

So in we go, and all sodden and bedrabbled as we were, went to follow the drawer upstairs, when the landlady cried out she would not have us go into her Cherry room in that pickle, to soil her best furniture and disgrace her house, and bade the fellow carry us into the kitchen to take off our cloaks and change our boots for slip-shoes, adding that if we had any respect for ourselves, we should trim our hair and wash the grime off our faces. So we enter the kitchen, nothing loath, where a couple of pullets browning on the spit, kettles bubbling on the fire, and a pasty drawing from the oven, filled the air with delicious odours that nearly drove us mad for envy; and to think that these good things were to tempt the appetite of some one who never hungered, while we, famishing for want, had not even a crust to appease our cravings! But it was some comfort to plunge our blue, numbed fingers into a tub of hot water and feel the life blood creeping back into our hearts. The paint we had put on our cheeks the night before was streaked all over our faces by the snow, so that we did look the veriest scarecrows imaginable; but after washing our heads well and stroking our hair into order with a comb Mistress Cook lent us, we looked not so bad. And thus changed, and with dry shoes to our feet, we at length went upstairs, all full of wondering expectation, and were led into the Cherry room, which seemed to us a very palace, being lit with half a dozen candles (and they of wax) and filled with a warm glow by the blazing logs on the hearth reflected in the cherry hangings. And there in the midst was a table laid for supper with a wondrous white cloth, glasses to drink from, and silver forks all set out most bravely.

“His worship will be down ere long,” says the drawer, and with that he makes a pretence of building up the fire, being warned thereto very like by the landlady, with an eye to the safety of her silver.

“Can you tell me his worship’s name, friend?” I whispered, my mind turning at once to his worship of Tottenham Cross.

“Not I, were you to pay me,” says he. “’Tis that outlandish and uncommon. But for sure he is some great foreign grandee.”

He could tell us no more, so we stood there all together, wondering, till presently the door opens, and a tall, lean gentleman enters, with a high front, very finely dressed in linen stockings, a long-waisted coat, and embroidered waistcoat, and rich lace at his cuffs and throat. He wore no peruke, but his own hair, cut quite close to his head, with a pointed beard and a pair of long moustachios twisting up almost to his ears; but his appearance was the more striking by reason of his beard and moustachios being quite black, while the hair on his head was white as silver. He had dark brows also, that overhung very rich black eyes; his nose was long and hooked, and his skin, which was of a very dark complexion, was closely lined with wrinkles about the eyes, while a deep furrow lay betwixt his brows. He carried his head very high, and was majestic and gracious in all his movements, not one of which (as it seemed to me) was made but of forethought and purpose. I should say his age was about sixty, though his step and carriage were of a younger man. To my eyes he appeared a very handsome and a pleasing, amiable gentleman. But, Lord, what can you conclude of a man at a single glance, when every line in his face (of which he had a score and more) has each its history of varying passions, known only to himself, and secret phases of his life!

He saluted us with a most noble bow, and dismissed the drawer with a word in an undertone. Then turning again to us, he said: “I had the pleasure of seeing you act last night, and dance,” he adds with a slight inclination of his head to Moll. “Naturally, I wish to be better acquainted with you. Will it please you to dine with me?”

I could not have been more dumbfounded had an angel asked me to step into heaven; but Dawson was quick enough to say something.

“That will we,” cries he, “and God bless your worship for taking pity on us, for I doubt not you have heard of our troubles.”

The other bowed his head and set a chair at the end of the table for Moll, which she took with a pretty curtsey, but saying never a word, for glee did seem to choke us all. And being seated, she cast her eyes on the bread hungrily, as if she would fain begin at once, but she had the good manners to restrain herself. Then his worship (as we called him), having shown us the chairs on either side, seated himself last of all, at the head of the table, facing our Moll, whom whenever he might without discourtesy, he regarded with most scrutinising glances from first to last. Then the door flinging open, two drawers brought in those same fat pullets we had seen browning before the fire, and also the pasty, with abundance of other good cheer, at which Moll, with a little cry of delight, whispers to me:

“’Tis like a dream. Do speak to me, Kit, or I must think ’twill all fade away presently and leave us in the snow.”

Then I, finding my tongue, begged his worship would pardon us if our manners were more uncouth than the society to which he was accustomed.

“Nay,” says Dawson, “Your worship will like us none the worse, I warrant, for seeing what we are and aping none.”

Finding himself thus beworshipped on both hands, our good friend says:

“You may call me Señor. I am a Spaniard. Don Sanchez del Castillo de Castelaña.” And then to turn the subject, he adds: “I have seen you play twice.”

“Aye, Señor, and I should have known you again if by nothing but this piece of generosity,” replies Dawson, with his cheek full of pasty, “for I remember both times you set down a piece and would take no change.”

Don Sanchez hunched his shoulders cavalierly, as if such trifles were nought to him; but indeed throughout his manner was most high and noble.

And now, being fairly settled down to our repast, we said no more of any moment that I can recall to mind till we had done (which was not until nought remained of the pullets and the pasty but a few bones and the bare dish), and we were drawn round the fire at Don Sanchez’s invitation. Then the drawers, having cleared the tables, brought up a huge bowl of hot spiced wine, a dish of tobacco, and some pipes. The Don then offered us to smoke some cigarros, but we, not understanding them, took instead our homely pipes, and each with a beaker of hot wine to his hand sat roasting before the fire, scarce saying a word, the Don being silent because his humour was of the reflective grave kind (with all his courtesies he never smiled, as if such demonstrations were unbecoming to his dignity), and we from repletion and a feeling of wondrous contentment and repose. And another thing served to keep us still, which was that our Moll, sitting beside her father, almost at once fell asleep, her head lying against his shoulder as he sat with his arm about her waist. As at the table, Don Sanchez had seated himself where he could best observe her, and now he scarcely once took his eyes off her, which were half closed as if in speculation. At length, taking the cigarro from his lips, he says softly to Jack Dawson, so as not to arouse Moll:

“Your daughter.”

Jack nods for an answer, and looking down on her face with pride and tenderness, he put back with the stem of his pipe a little curl that had strayed over her eyes. She was not amiss for looks thus, with her long eyelashes lying like a fringe upon her cheeks, her lips open, showing her good white teeth, and the glow of the firelight upon her face; but her attitude and the innocent, happy expression of her features made up a picture which seemed to me mighty pretty.

“Where is her mother?” asks Don Sanchez, presently; and Dawson, without taking his eyes from Moll’s face, lifts his pipe upwards, while his big thick lips fell a-trembling. Maybe, he was thinking of his poor Betty as he looked at the child’s face.

“Has she no other relatives?” asks the Don, in the same quiet tone; and Jack shakes his head, still looking down, and answers lowly:

“Only me.”

Then after another pause the Don asks:

“What will become of her?”

And that thought also must have been in Jack Dawson’s mind; for without seeming surprised by the question, which appeared a strange one, he answers reverently, but with a shake in his hoarse voice, “Almighty God knows.”

This stilled us all for the moment, and then Don Sanchez, seeing that these reflections threw a gloom upon us, turned to me, sitting next him, and asked if I would give him some account of my history, whereupon I briefly told him how three years ago Jack Dawson had lifted me out of the mire, and how since then we had lived in brotherhood. “And,” says I in conclusion, “we will continue with the favour of Providence to live so, sharing good and ill fortune alike to the end, so much we do love one another.”

To this Jack Dawson nods assent.

“And your other fellow—what of him?” asked Don Sanchez.

I replied that Ned Herring was but a fair-weather friend, who had joined fortunes with us to get out of London and escape the Plague, and how having robbed us, we were like never to see his face again.

“And well for him if we do not,” cries Dawson, rousing up; “for by the Lord, if I clap eyes on him, though it be a score of years hence, he shan’t escape the most horrid beating ever man outlived!”

The Don nodded his satisfaction at this, and then Moll, awaking with the sudden outburst of her father’s voice, gives first a gape, then a shiver, and looking about her with an air of wonder, smiles as her eye fell on the Don. Whereon, still as solemn as any judge, he pulls the bell, and the maid, coming to the room with a rushlight, he bids her take the poor weary child to bed, and the best there is in the house, which I think did delight Dawson not less than his Moll to hear.

Then Moll gives her father a kiss, and me another according to her wont, and drops a civil curtsey to Don Sanchez.

“Give me thy hand, child,” says he; and having it, he lifts it to his lips and kisses it as if she had been the finest lady in the land.

She being gone, the Don calls for a second bowl of spiced wine, and we, mightily pleased at the prospect of another half-hour of comfort, stretch our legs out afresh before the fire. Then Don Sanchez, lighting another cigarro, and setting his chair towards us, says as he takes his knee up betwixt his long, thin fingers:

“Now let us come to the heart of this business and understand one another clearly.”

CHAPTER III.

Of that design which Don Sanchez opened to us at the Bell.

We pulled our pipes from our mouths, Dawson and I, and stretched our ears very eager to know what this business was the Don had to propound, and he, after drawing two or three mouthfuls of smoke, which he expelled through his nostrils in a most surprising unnatural manner, says in excellent good English, but speaking mighty slow and giving every letter its worth:

“What do you go to do tomorrow?”

“The Lord only knows,” answers Jack, and Don Sanchez, lifting his eyebrows as if he considers this no answer at all, he continues: “We cannot go hence with none of our stage things; and if we could, I see not how we are to act our play, now that our villain is gone, with a plague to him! I doubt but we must sell all that we have for the few shillings they will fetch to get us out of this hobble.”

“With our landlord’s permission,” remarks Don Sanchez, dryly.

“Permission!” cries Dawson, in a passion. “I ask no man’s permission to do what I please with my own.”

“Suppose he claims these things in payment of the money you owe him. What then?” asks the Don.

“We never thought of that, Kit,” says Dawson, turning to me in a pucker. “But ’tis likely enough he has, for I observed he was mighty careless whether we found our thief or not. That’s it, sure enough. We have nought to hope. All’s lost!”

With that he drops his elbows on his knees, and stares into the fire with a most desponding countenance, being in that stage of liquor when a man must either laugh or weep.

“Come, Jack,” says I. “You are not used to yield like this. Let us make the best of a bad lot, and face the worst like men. Though we trudge hence with nothing but the rags on our backs, we shall be no worse off tomorrow than we were this morning.”

“Why, that’s true enough!” cries he, plucking up his courage. “Let the thieving rascal take our poor nag and our things for his payment, and much good may they do him. We will wipe this out of our memory the moment we leave his cursed inn behind us.”

It seemed to me that this would not greatly advance us, and maybe Don Sanchez thought the same, for he presently asks:

“And what then?”

“Why, Señor,” replies Dawson, “we will face each new buffet as it comes, and make a good fight of it till we’re beat. A man may die but once.”

“You think only of yourselves,” says the Don, very quietly.

“And pray, saving your Señor’s presence, who else should we think of?”

“The child above,” answers the Don, a little more sternly than he had yet spoken. “Is a young creature like that to bear the buffets you are so bold to meet? Can you offer her no shelter from the wind and rain but such as chance offers? make no provision for the time when she is left alone, to protect her against the evils that lie in the path of friendless maids?”

“God forgive me,” says Jack, humbly. And then we could say nothing, for thinking what might befall Moll if we should be parted, but sat there under the keen eye of Don Sanchez, looking helplessly into the fire. And there was no sound until Jack’s pipe, slipping from his hand, fell and broke in pieces upon the hearth. Then rousing himself up and turning to Don Sanchez, he says:

“The Lord help her, Señor, if we find no good friend to lend us a few shillings for our present wants.”

“Good friends are few,” says the Don, “and they who lend need some better security for repayment than chance. For my own part, I would as soon fling straws to a drowning man as attempt to save you and that child from ruin by setting you on your feet today only to fall again tomorrow.”

“If that be so, Señor,” says I, “you had some larger view in mind than that of offering temporary relief to our misery when you gave us a supper and Moll a bed for the night.”

Don Sanchez assented with a grave inclination of his head, and going to the door opened it sharply, listened awhile, and then closing it softly, returned and stood before us with folded arms. Then, in a low voice, not to be heard beyond the room, he questioned us very particularly as to our relations with other men, the length of time we had been wandering about the country, and especially about the tractability of Moll. And, being satisfied with our replies—above all, with Jack’s saying that Moll would jump out of window at his bidding, without a thought to the consequences—he says:

“There’s a comedy we might play to some advantage if you were minded to take the parts I give you and act them as I direct.”

“With all my heart,” cries Dawson. “I’ll play any part you choose; and as to the directing, you’re welcome to that, for I’ve had my fill of it. If you can make terms with our landlord, those things in the yard shall be yours, and for our payment I’m willing to trust to your honour’s generosity.”

“As regards payment,” says the Don, “I can speak precisely. We shall gain fifty thousand pounds by our performance.”

“Fifty thousand pounds,” says Jack, as if in doubt whether he had heard aright. Don Sanchez bent his head, without stirring a line in his face.

Dawson took up his beaker slowly, and looked in it, to make sure that he was none the worse for drink, then, after emptying it, to steady his wits, he says again:

“Fifty thousand pounds.”

“Fifty thousand pounds, if not more; and that there be no jealousies one of the other, it shall be divided fairly amongst us—as much for your friend as for you, for the child as for me.”

“Pray God, this part be no more than I can compass,” says Jack, devoutly.

“You may learn it in a few hours—at least, your first act.”

“And mine?” says I, entering for the first time into the dialogue.

The Don hunched his shoulders, lifting his eyebrows, and sending two streams of smoke from his nose.

“I scarce know what part to give you, yet,” says he. “To be honest, you are not wanted at all in the play.”

“Nay, but you must write him a part,” says Dawson, stoutly; “if it be but to bring in a letter—that I am determined on. Kit stood by us in ill fortune, and he shall share better, or I’ll have none of it, nor Moll neither. I’ll answer for her.”

“There must be no discontent among us,” says the Don, meaning thereby, as I think, that he had included me in his stratagem for fear I might mar it from envy. “The girl’s part is that which gives me most concern—and had I not faith in my own judgment—”

“Set your mind at ease on that score,” cried Jack. “I warrant our Moll shall learn her part in a couple of days or so.”

“If she learn it in a twelvemonth, ’twill be time enough.”

“A twelvemonth,” said Jack, going to his beaker again, for understanding. “Well, all’s as one, so that we can get something in advance of our payment, to keep us through such a prodigious study.”

“I will charge myself with your expenses,” says Don Sanchez; and then, turning to me, he asks if I have any objection to urge.

“I take it, Señor, that you speak in metaphor,” says I; “and that this ‘comedy’ is nought but a stratagem for getting hold of a fortune that doesn’t belong to us.”

Don Sanchez calmly assented, as if this had been the most innocent design in the world.

“Hang me,” cries Dawson, “if I thought it was anything but a whimsey of your honour’s.”

“I should like to know if we may carry out this stratagem honestly,” says I.

“Aye,” cries Jack. “I’ll not agree for cutting of throats or breaking of bones, for any money.”

“I can tell you no more than this,” says the Don. “The fortune we may take is now in the hands of a man who has no more right to it than we have.”

“If that’s so,” says Jack, “I’m with you, Señor. For I’d as lief bustle a thief out of his gains as say my prayers, any day, and liefer.”

“Still,” says I, “the money must of right belong to some one.”

“We will say that the money belongs to a child of the same age as Moll.”

“Then it comes to this, Señor,” says I, bluntly. “We are to rob that child of fifty thousand pounds.”

“When you speak of robbing,” says the Don, drawing himself up with much dignity, “you forget that I am to play a part in this stratagem—I, Don Sanchez del Castillo de Castelaña.”

“Fie, Kit, han’t you any manners?” cries Dick. “What’s all this talk of a child? Hasn’t the Señor told us we are but to bustle a cheat?”

“But I would know what is to become of this child, if we take her fortune, though it be withheld from her by another,” says I, being exceeding obstinate and persistent in my liquor.

“I shall prove to your conviction,” says the Don, “that the child will be no worse off, if we take this money, than if we leave it in the hands of that rascally steward. But I see,” adds he, contemptuously, “that for all your brotherly love, ’tis no such matter to you whether poor little Molly comes to her ruin, as every maid must who goes to the stage, or is set beyond the reach of temptation and the goading of want.”

“Aye, and be hanged to you, Kit!” cries Dawson.

“Tell me, Mr. Poet,” continues Don Sanchez, “do you consider this steward who defrauds that child of a fortune is more unfeeling than you who, for a sickly qualm of conscience, would let slip this chance of making Molly an honest woman?”

“Aye, answer that, Kit,” adds Jack, striking his mug on the table.

“I’ll answer you tomorrow morning, Señor,” says I. “And whether I fall in with the scheme or not is all as one, since my help is not needed; for if it be to Moll’s good, I’ll bid you farewell, and you shall see me never again.”

“Spoken like a man!” says Don Sanchez, “and a wise one to boot. An enterprise of this nature is not to be undertaken without reflection, like the smoking of a pipe. If you put your foot forward, it must be with the understanding that you cannot go back. I must have that assurance, for I shall be hundreds of pounds out of pocket ere I can get any return for my venture.”

“Have no fear of me or of Moll turning tail at a scarecrow,” says Jack, adding with a sneer, “we are no poets.”

“Reflect upon it. Argue it out with your friend here, whose scruples do not displease me, and let me know your determination when the last word is said. Business carries me to London tomorrow; but you shall meet me at night, and we will close the business—aye or nay—ere supper.”

With that he opens the door and gives us our congee, the most noble in the world; but not offering to give us a bed, we are forced to go out of doors and grope our way through the snow to the cart-shed, and seek a shelter there from the wind, which was all the keener and more bitter for our leaving a good fire. And I believe the shrewd Spaniard had put us to this pinch as a foretaste of the misery we must endure if we rejected his design, and so to shape our inclinations to his.

Happily, the landlord, coming out with a lantern, and finding us by the chattering of our teeth, was moved by the consideration shown us by Don Sanchez to relax his severity; and so, unlocking the stable door, he bade us get up into the loft, which we did, blessing him as if he had been the best Christian in the world. And then, having buried ourselves in hay, Jack Dawson and I fell to arguing the matter in question, I sticking to my scruples (partly from vanity), and he stoutly holding t’other side; and I, being warmed by my own eloquence, and he not less heated by liquor (having taken best part of the last bowl to his share), we ran it pretty high, so that at one point Jack was for lighting a candle end he had in his pocket and fighting it out like men. But, little by little, we cooled down, and towards morning, each giving way something, we came to the conclusion that we would have Don Sanchez show us the steward, that we might know the truth of his story (which I misdoubted, seeing that it was but a roguish kind of game at best that he would have us take part in), and that if we found all things as he represented them, then we would accept his offer. And also we resolved to be down betimes and let him know our determination before he set out for London, to the end that we might not be left fasting all the day. But herein we miscalculated the potency of liquor and a comfortable bed of hay, for ’twas nine o’clock before either of us winked an eye, and when we got down, we learnt that Don Sanchez had been gone a full hour, and so no prospect of breaking our fast till nightfall.

Presently comes Moll, all fresh and pink from the house, and falls to exclaiming upon the joy of sleeping betwixt clean sheets in a feather bed, and could speak of nothing else, saying she would give all the world to sleep so well every day of her life.

“Eh,” whispers her father in my ear, “you see how luxuries do tempt the poor child, and what kind of a bed she is like to lie in if our hopes miscarry.”

On which, still holding to my scruples, I says to Moll:

“’Tis easy to say you would give the world, Moll, but I know full well you would give nothing for all the comfort possible that was not your own.”

“Nay,” says she, crossing her hands on her breast, and casting up her eyes with the look of a saint, “what are all the fruits of the earth to her who cannot take them with an easy conscience? Honesty is dearer to me than the bread of life.”

Then, as Jack and I are looking at each other ruefully in the face at this dash to our knavish project, she bursts into a merry peal of laughter, like a set of Christmas bells chiming, whereupon we, turning about to find the cause of her merriment, she pulls another demure face, and, slowly lifting her skirt, shows us a white napkin tied about her waist, stuffed with a dozen delicacies she had filched from Don Sanchez’s table in coming down from her room.

CHAPTER IV.

Of the several parts that we are appointed to play.

Finding a sheltered secret corner, we made a very hasty breakfast of these stolen dainties, and since we had not the heart to restore them to our innkeeper, so we had not the face to chide Moll for her larceny, but made light of the business and ate with great content and some mirth.

A drizzly rain falling and turning the snow into slush, we kept under the shelter of the shed, and this giving us scope for the reflection Don Sanchez had counselled, my compunctions were greatly shaken by the consideration of our present position and the prospect of worse. When I thought of our breakfast that Moll had stolen, and how willingly we would all have eaten a dinner got by the same means, I had to acknowledge that certainly we were all thieves at heart; and this conclusion, together with sitting all day doing nothing in the raw cold, did make the design of Don Sanchez seem much less heinous to me than it appeared the night before, when I was warm and not exceedingly sober, and indeed towards dusk I came to regard it as no bad thing at all.

About six comes back our Don on a fine horse, and receives our salutations with a cool nod—we standing there of a row, looking our sweetest, like hungry dogs in expectation of a bone. Then in he goes to the house without a word, and now my worst fear was that he had thought better of his offer and would abandon it. So there we hang about the best part of an hour, now thinking the Don would presently send for us, and then growing to despair of everything but to be left in the cold forgotten; but in the end comes Master Landlord to tell us his worship in the Cherry room would see us. So, after the same formalities of cleansing ourselves as the night afore, upstairs we go at the heels of a drawer, carrying a roast pig, which to our senses was more delightful than any bunch of flowers.

With a gesture of his hands, after saluting us with great dignity, Don Sanchez bade us take our places at the table and with never a word of question as to our decision; but that was scarce necessary, for it needed no subtle observation to perceive that we would accept any conditions to get our share of that roast pig. This supper differed not greatly from the former, save that our Moll was taken with a kind of tickling at the throat which presently attracted our notice.

“What ails you, Molly, my dear?” asks Jack. “Has a bit of crackling gone down the wrong way?”

She put it off as if she would have us take no notice of it, but it grew worse and worse towards the end of the meal, and became a most horrid, tearing cough, which she did so natural as to deceive us all and put us in great concern, and especially Don Sanchez, who declared she must have taken a cold by being exposed all day to the damp weather.

“If I have,” says she, very prettily, after wiping the tears from her eyes upon another fit, “’tis surely a most ungrateful return for the kindness with which you sheltered me last night, Señor.”

“I shall take better care to shelter you in the future, my poor child,” replies the Don, ringing the bell. Then, the maid coming, he bids her warm a bed and prepare a hot posset against Moll was tucked up in the blankets. “And,” says he, turning to Moll, “you shall not rise till noon, my dear; your breakfast shall be brought to you in your room, where a fire shall be made, and such treatment shown you as if you were my own child.”

“Oh! what have I done that you should be so gentle to me?” exclaims Moll, smothering another cough. And with that she reaches out her leg under the table and fetches me a kick of the shin, looking all the while as pitiful and innocent as any painted picture. “Would it be well to fetch in a doctor?” says Don Sanchez, when Moll was gone barking upstairs. “The child looks delicate, though she eats with a fairly good appetite.”

“’Tis nothing serious,” replies Jack, who had doubtless received the same hint from Moll she had given me. “I warrant she will be mended in a day or so, with proper care. ’Tis a kind of family complaint. I am taken that way at times,” and with that he rasps his throat as a hint that he would be none the worse for sleeping a night between sheets.

This was carrying the matter too far, and I thought it had certainly undone us; for stopping short, with a start, in crossing the room, he turns and looks first at Dawson, then at me, with anything but a pleasant look in his eyes as finding his dignity hurt, to be thus bustled by a mere child. Then his dark eyebrows unbending with the reflection, maybe, that it was so much the better to his purpose that Moll could so act as to deceive him, he seats himself gravely, and replies to Jack:

“Your family wit may get you a night’s lodging, but I doubt if you will ever merit it so well as your daughter.”

“Well,” says Jack, with a laugh, “what wit we have amongst us we are resolved to employ in your honour’s service, so that you show us this steward-fellow is a rascal that deserves to be bounced, and we do no great injury to any one else.”

“Good,” says Don Sanchez. “We will proceed to that without delay. And now, as we have no matter to discuss, and must be afoot early tomorrow, I will ring for a light to take you to bed.”

So we up presently to a good snug room with a bed to each of us fit for a prince. And there, with the blankets drawn up to our ears, we fell blessing our stars that we were now fairly out of our straits, and after that to discussing whether we should consult Moll’s inclination to this business. First, Dawson was for telling her plump out all about our project, saying that being so young she had no conscience to speak of, and would like nothing better than to take part in any piece of mischief. But against this I protested, seeing that it would be dangerous to our design to let her know so much (she having a woman’s tongue in her head), and also of a bad tendency to make her, as it were, at the very beginning of her life, a knowing active party to what looked like nothing more nor less than a piece of knavery. Therefore I proposed we should, when necessary, tell her just so much of our plan as was expedient, and no more. And this agreeing mightily with Jack’s natural turn for taking of short cuts out of difficulties, he fell in with my views at once, and so, bidding God bless me, he lays the clothes over his head and was snoring the next minute.

In the morning we found the Don just as kind to us as the day before he had been careless, and so made us eat breakfast with him, to our great content. Also, he sent a maid up to Moll to enquire of her health, and if she could eat anything from our table, to which the baggage sends reply that she feels a little easier this morning and could fancy a dish of black puddings. These delicacies her father carried to her, being charged by the Don to tell her that we should be gone for a couple of days, and that in our absence she might command whatever she felt was necessary to her complete recovery against our return. Then I told Don Sanchez how we had resolved to tell Moll no more of our purpose than was necessary for the moment, which pleased him, I thought, mightily, he saying that our success or failure depended upon secrecy as much as anything, for which reason he had kept us in the dark as much as ever it was possible.

About eight o’clock three saddle nags were brought to the door, and we, mounting, set out for London, where we arrived about ten, the roads being fairly passable save in the marshy parts about Shoreditch, where the mire was knee-deep; so to Gracious Street, and there leaving our nags at the Turk inn, we walked down to the Bridge stairs, and thence with a pair of oars to Greenwich. Here, after our tedious chilly voyage, we were not ill-pleased to see the inside of an inn once more, and Don Sanchez, taking us to the King’s posting-house, orders a fire to be lighted in a private room, and the best there was in the larder to be served us in the warm parlour. While we were at our trenchers Don Sanchez says:

“At two o’clock two men are coming hither to see me. One is a master mariner named Robert Evans, the other a merchant adventurer of his acquaintance whom I have not yet seen. Now you are to mark these two men well, note all they say and their manner of speaking, for tomorrow you will have to personate these characters before one who would be only too glad to find you at fault.”

“Very good, Señor,” says Dawson; “but which of these parts am I to play?”

“That you may decide when you have seen the men, but I should say from my knowledge of Robert Evans that you may best represent his character. For in your parts today you are to be John and Christopher Knight, two needy cousins of Lady Godwin, whose husband, Sir Richard Godwin, was lost at sea seven years ago. I doubt if you will have to do anything in these characters beyond looking eager and answering merely yes and no to such questions as I may put.”

Thus primed, we went presently to the sitting-room above, and the drawer shortly after coming to say that two gentlemen desired to see Don Sanchez, Jack and I seated ourselves side by side at a becoming distance from the Don, holding our hats on our knees as humbly as may be. Then in comes a rude, dirty fellow with a patch over one eye and a most peculiar bearish gait, dressed in a tarred coat, with a wool shawl about his neck, followed by a shrewd-visaged little gentleman in a plain cloth suit, but of very good substance, he looking just as trim and well-mannered as t’other was uncouth and rude.

“Well, here am I,” says Evans (whom we knew at once for the master mariner), flinging his hat and shawl in a corner. “There’s his excellency Don Sanchez, and here’s Mr. Hopkins, the merchant I spoke on yesterday; and who be these?” turning about to fix us with his one blue eye.

“Two gentlemen related to Mrs. Godwin, and very anxious for her return,” replies the Don.

“Then we being met friends all, let’s have up a bottle and heave off on this here business without more ado,” says Evans; and with that he seats himself in the Don’s chair, pokes up the fire with his boots, and spits on the hearth.

The Don graciously places a chair for Mr. Hopkins, rings the bell, and seats himself. Then after a few civilities while the bottle was being opened and our glasses filled, he says:

“You have doubtless heard from Robert Evans the purpose of our coming hither, Mr. Hopkins.”

“Roughly,” replies Mr. Hopkins, with a dry little cough. “But I should be glad to have the particulars from you, that I may judge more clearly of my responsibilities in this undertaking.”

“Oh, Lord!” exclaims Evans, in disgust. “Here give us a pipe of tobacco if we’re to warp out half a day ere we get a capful of wind.”

CHAPTER V.

Don Sanchez puts us in the way of robbing with an easy conscience.

Promising to make his story as short as he possibly could, Don Sanchez began:

“On the coming of our present king to his throne, Sir Richard Godwin was recalled from Italy, whither he had been sent as embassador by the Protector. He sailed from Livorno with his wife and his daughter Judith, a child of nine years old at that time, in the Seahawk.”

“I remember her,” says Evans, “as stout a ship as ever was put to sea.”

“On the second night of her voyage the Seahawk became parted from her convoy, and the next day she was pursued and overtaken by a pair of Barbary pirates, to whom she gave battle.”

“Aye, and I’d have done the same,” cries Evans, “though they had been a score.”

“After a long and bloody fight,” continues Don Sanchez, “the corsairs succeeded in boarding the Seahawk and overcoming the remnant of her company.”

“Poor hearts! would I had been there to help ’em,” says Evans.

“Exasperated by the obstinate resistance of these English and their own losses, the pirates would grant no mercy, but tying the living to the dead they cast all overboard save Mrs. Godwin and her daughter. Her lot was even worse; for her wounded husband, Sir Richard, was snatched from her arms and flung into the sea before her eyes, and he sank crying farewell to her.”

“These Turks have no hearts in their bellies, you must understand,” explains Evans. “And nought but venom in their veins.”

“The Seahawk was taken to Alger, and there Mrs. Godwin and her daughter were sold for slaves in the public market-place.”

“I have seen ’em sold by the score there,” says Evans, “and fetch but an onion a head.”

“By good fortune the mother and daughter were bought by Sidi ben Moula, a rich old merchant who was smitten by the pretty, delicate looks of Judith, whom he thenceforth treated as if she had been his own child. In this condition they lived with greater happiness than falls to the lot of most slaves, until the beginning of last year, when Sidi died, and his possessions fell to his brother, Bare ben Moula. Then Mrs. Godwin appeals to Bare for her liberty and to be sent home to her country, saying that what price (in reason) he chooses to set upon their heads she will pay from her estate in England—a thing which she had proposed before to Sidi, but he would not hear of it because of his love for Judith and his needing no greater fortune than he had. But this Bare, though he would be very well content, being also an old man, to have his household managed by Mrs. Godwin and to adopt Judith as his child, being of a more avaricious turn than his brother, at length consents to it, on condition that her ransoms be paid before she quits Barbary. And so, casting about how this may be done, Mrs. Godwin finds a captive whose price has been paid, about to be taken to Palma in the Baleares, and to him she entrusts two letters.” Here Don Sanchez pulls two folded sheets of vellum from his pocket, and presenting one to me, he says:

“Mayhap you recognise this hand, Mr. Knight.”

And I, seeing the signature Elizabeth Godwin, answers quickly enough: “Aye, ’tis my dear cousin Bess, her own hand.”

“This,” says the Don, handing the other to Evans, “you may understand.”

“I can make out ’tis writ in the Moorish style,” says Evans, “but the meaning of it I know not, for I can’t tell great A from a bull’s foot though it be in printed English.”

“’Tis an undertaking on the part of Bare ben Moula,” says the Don, “to deliver up at Dellys in Barbary the persons of Mrs. Godwin and her daughter against the payment of five thousand gold ducats within one year. The other writing tells its own story.”

Mr. Hopkins took the first sheet from me and read it aloud. It was addressed to Mr. Richard Godwin, Hurst Court, Chislehurst in Kent, and after giving such particulars of her past as we had already heard from Don Sanchez, she writes thus: “And now, my dear nephew, as I doubt not you (as the nearest of my kindred to my dear husband after us two poor relicts) have taken possession of his estate in the belief we were all lost in our voyage from Italy, I do pray you for the love of God and of mercy to deliver us from our bondage by sending hither a ship with the money for our ransoms forthwith, and be assured by this that I shall not dispossess you of your fortune (more than my bitter circumstances do now require), so that I but come home to die in a Christian country and have my sweet Judith where she may be less exposed to harm than in this infidel country. I count upon your love—being ever a dear nephew—and am your most hopeful, trusting, and loving aunt, Elizabeth Godwin.”

“Very well, sir,” says Mr. Hopkins, returning the letter. “You have been to Chislehurst.”

“I have,” answers the Don, “and there I find the estate in the hands of a most curious Puritanical steward, whose honesty is rather in the letter than the spirit. For though I have reason to believe that not one penny’s value of the estate has been misemployed since it has been in his hands, yet will he give nothing—no, not a maravedi to the redemption of his mistress, saying that the letter is addressed to Richard Godwin and not to him, etc., and that he hath no power to pay out monies for this purpose, even though he believed the facts I have laid before him—which for his own ends doubtless he fains to misdoubt.”

“As a trader, sir,” says Mr. Hopkins, “I cannot blame his conduct in that respect. For should the venture fall through, the next heir might call upon him to repay out of his own pocket all that he had put into this enterprise. But this Mr. Richard Godwin, what of him?”

“He is nowhere to be found. The only relatives I have been able to discover are these two gentlemen.”

“Who,” remarks Mr. Hopkins, with a shrewd glance at our soiled clothes, “are not, I venture to think, in a position to pay their cousin’s ransom.”

“Alas, no, sir,” says Jack. “We are but two poor shopkeepers of London undone by the great fire.”

“Well now, sir,” says Mr. Hopkins, fetching an inkpot, a pen, and a piece of paper from his pocket. “I may conclude that you wish me to adventure upon the redemption of these two ladies in Barbary, upon the hazard of being repaid by Mrs. Godwin when she recovers her estate.” And the Don making him a reverence, he continues, “We must first learn the extent of our liabilities. What sum is to be paid to Bare ben Moula?”

“Five thousand gold ducats—about two thousand pounds English.”

“Two thousand,” says Mr. Hopkins, writing. “Then, Robert Evans, what charge is yours for fetching the ladies from Dellys?”

“Master Hopkins, I have said fifteen hundred pounds,” says he, “and I won’t go from my word though all laugh at me for a madman.”

“That seems a great deal of money,” says Mr. Hopkins.

“Well, if you think fifteen hundred pounds too much for my carcase and a ship of twenty men, you can go seek a cheaper market elsewhere.”

“You think there is very small likelihood of coming back alive?”

“Why, comrade, ’tis as if you should go into a den of lions and hope to get out whole; for though I have the Duke’s pass, these Moors are no fitter to be trusted than a sackful of serpents. ’Tis ten to one our ship be taken, and we fools all sold into slavery.”

“Ten to one,” says Mr. Hopkins; “that is to say, you would make this voyage for the tenth part of what you ask were you sure of returning safe.”

“I would go as far anywhere outside the straits for an hundred pounds with a lighter heart.”

Mr. Hopkins nods his head, and setting down some figures on his paper, says:

“The bare outlay in hard money amounts to thirty-five hundred pounds. Reckoning the risk at Robert Evans’ own valuation (which I take to be a very low one), I must see reasonable prospect of winning thirty-five thousand pounds by my hazard.”

“Mrs. Godwin’s estate I know to be worth double that amount.”

“But who will promise me that return?” asks Mr. Hopkins. “Not you?” (The Don shook his head.) “Not you?” (turning to us, with the same result). “Not Mrs. Godwin, for we have no means of communicating with her. Not the steward—you have shown me that. Who then remains but this Richard Godwin who cannot be found? If,” adds he, getting up from his seat, “you can find Richard Godwin, put him in possession of the estate, and obtain from him a reasonable promise that this sum shall be paid on the return of Mrs. Godwin, I may feel disposed to consider your proposal more seriously. But till then I can do nothing.”

“Likewise, masters all,” says Evans, fetching his hat and shawl from the corner, “I can’t wait for a blue moon; and if so be we don’t sign articles in a week, I’m off of my bargain, and mighty glad to get out of it so cheap.”

“You see,” says Don Sanchez, when they were gone out of the room, “how impossible it is that Mrs. Godwin and her daughter shall be redeemed from captivity. Tomorrow I shall show you what kind of a fellow the steward is that he should have the handling of this fortune rather than we.”

Then presently, with an indifferent, careless air, as if ’twas nought, he gives us a purse and bids us go out in the town to furnish ourselves with what disguise was necessary to our purpose. Therewith Dawson gets him some seaman’s old clothes at a Jew’s, and I a very neat, presentable suit of cloth, etc., and the rest of the money we take back to Don Sanchez without taking so much as a penny for our other uses; but he, doing all things very magnificent, would have none of it, but bade us keep it against our other necessities. And now having his money in our pockets, we felt ’twould be more dishonest to go back from this business than to go forward with it, lead us whither it might.

Next morning off we go betimes, Jack more like Robert Evans than his mother’s son, and I a most seeming substantial man (so that the very stable lad took off his hat to me), and on very good horses a long ride to Chislehurst And there coming to a monstrous fine park, Don Sanchez stayed us before the gates, and bidding us look up a broad avenue of great oaks to a most surprising brave house, he told us this was Hurst Court, and we might have it for our own within a year if we were so minded.

Hence, at no great distance we reach a square plain house, the windows all barred with stout iron, and the most like a prison I did ever see. Here Don Sanchez ringing a bell, a little grating in the door is opened, and after some parley we are admitted by a sturdy fellow carrying a cudgel in his hand. So we into a cold room, with not a spark of fire on the hearth but a few ashes, no hangings to the windows, nor any ornament or comfort at all, but only a table and half a dozen wooden stools, and a number of shelves against the wall full of account books and papers protected by a grating of stout wire secured with sundry padlocks. And here, behind a tableful of papers, sat our steward, Simon Stout-in-faith, a most withered, lean old man, clothed all in leather, wearing no wig but his own rusty grey hair falling lank on his shoulders, with a sour face of a very jaundiced complexion, and pale eyes that seemed to swim in a yellowish rheum, which he was for ever a-mopping with a rag.

“I am come, Mr. Steward,” says Don Sanchez, “to conclude the business we were upon last week.”

“Aye,” cries Dawson, for all the world in the manner of Evans, “but ere we get to this dry matter let’s have a bottle to ease the way, for this riding of horseback has parched up my vitals confoundedly.”

“If thou art athirst,” says Simon, “Peter shall fetch thee a jug of water from the well; but other liquor have we none in this house.”

“Let Peter drown in your well,” says Dawson, with an oath; “I’ll have none of it. Let’s get this matter done and away, for I’d as lief sit in a leaky hold as in this here place for comfort.”

“Here,” says Don Sanchez, “is a master mariner who is prepared to risk his life, and here a merchant adventurer of London who will hazard his money, to redeem your mistress and her daughter from slavery.”

“Praise the Lord, Peter,” says the steward. Whereupon the sturdy fellow with the cudgel fell upon his knees, as likewise did Simon, and both in a snuffling voice render thanks to Heaven in words which I do not think it proper to write here. Then, being done, they get up, and the steward, having dried his eyes, says:

“So far our prayers have been answered. Put me in mind, friend Peter, that tonight we pray these worthy men prosper in their design.”

“If they succeed,” says Don Sanchez, “it will cost your mistress five-and-thirty thousand pounds.”

The steward clutched at the table as if at the fortune about to turn from him; his jaw fell, and he stared at Don Sanchez in bewilderment, then getting the face to speak, he gasps out, “Thirty-five thousand pounds!” and still in a maze asks: “Art thou in thy right senses, friend?”

The Don hunches his shoulders and turns to me. Whereupon I lay forth in pretty much the same words as Mr. Hopkins used, the risk of the venture, etc., to all which this Simon listened with starting eyes and gaping mouth.

“Thirty-five thousand pounds!” he says again; “why, friend, ’tis half of all I have made of the estate by a life of thrift and care and earnest seeking.”

“’Tis in your power, Simon,” says Don Sanchez, “to spare your mistress this terrible charge, for which your fine park must be felled, your farms cut up, and your economies be scattered. The master here will fetch your mistress home for fifteen hundred pounds.”

“Why, even that is an extortion.”

“Nay,” says Jack, “if you think fifteen hundred pounds too much for my carcase and a ship of twenty men, you may seek a cheaper market and welcome, for I’ve no stomach to risk my life and property for less.”

“To the fifteen hundred pounds you must add the ransom of two thousand pounds. Thus Mrs. Godwin and her daughter may be redeemed for thirty-five hundred pounds to her saving of thirty-one thousand five hundred pounds,” says the Don.

And here Dawson and I were secretly struck by his honesty in not seeking to affright the steward from an honest course, but rather tempting him to it by playing upon his parsimony and avarice.

“Three thousand five hundred,” says Simon, putting it down in writing, that he might the better realise his position. “But you say, friend merchant, that the risk is as ten to one against seeing thy money again.”

“I will run the risk for thirty-one thousand pounds, and no less,” says I.

“But if it may be done for a tenth part, how then?”

“Why, ’tis your risk, sir, and not mine,” says I.

“Yea, yea, my risk. And you tell me, friend sailor, that you stand in danger of being plundered by these infidels.”

“Aye, more like than not.”

“Why, then we may count half the estate gone; and the peril is to be run again, and thus all cast away for nought.”

In this manner did Simon halt betwixt two ways like one distracted, but only he did mingle a mass of sacred words with his arguments which seemed to me nought but profanity, his sole concern being the gain of money. Then he falls to the old excuses Don Sanchez had told us of, saying he had no money of his own, and offering to show his books that we might see he had taken not one penny beyond his bare expenses from the estate, save his yearly wage, and that no more than Sir Richard had given him in his lifetime. And on Don Sanchez showing Mrs. Godwin’s letter as a fitting authority to draw out this money for her use, he first feigns to doubt her hand, and then says he: “If an accident befalls these two women ere they return to justify me, how shall I answer to the next heir for this outlay? Verily” (clasping his hands) “I am as one standing in darkness, and I dare not move until I am better enlightened; so prithee, friend, give me time to commune with my conscience.”

Don Sanchez hunches up his shoulders and turns to us.

“Why, look here, Master,” says Dawson. “I can’t see as you need much enlightenment to answer yes or no to a fair offer, and as for me, I’m not going to hang in a hedge for a blue moon. So if you won’t clap hands on the bargain without more ado, I throw this business overboard and shall count I’ve done the best day’s work of my life in getting out of the affair.”

Then I made as if I would willingly draw out of my share in the project.

“My friends,” says Simon, “there can be scarce any hope at all if thou wilt not hazard thy money for such a prodigious advantage.” Then turning to Peter as his last hope, he asks in despair, “What shall we do, my brother?”

“We can keep on a-praying, friend Simon,” replies Peter, in a snivelling voice.

“A blessed thought!” exclaims the steward in glee. “Surely that is more righteous than to lay faith in our own vain effort. So do thou, friend” (turning to me), “put thy money to this use, for I will none.”

“I cannot do that, sir,” says I, “without an assurance that Mrs. Godwin’s estate will bear this charge.” With wondrous alacrity Simon fetches a book with a plan of the estate, whereby he showed us that not a holding on the estate was untenanted, not a single tenant in arrear with his rent, and that the value of the property with all deductions made was sixty-five thousand pounds.

“Very good sir,” says I. “Now you must give me a written note, stating what you have shown, with your sanction to my making this venture on Mrs. Godwin’s behalf, that I may justify my claim hereafter.”

But this Simon stoutly refused to do, saying his conscience would not allow him to sign any bond (clearly with the hope that he might in the end shuffle out of paying anything at all), until Don Sanchez, losing patience, declared he would certainly hunt all London through to find that Mr. Richard Godwin, who was the next of kin, hinting that he would certainly give us such sanction as we required if only to prove his right to the succession should our venture fail.

This put the steward to a new taking; but the Don holding firm, he at length agreed to give us this note, upon Don Sanchez writing another affirming that he had seen Mrs. Godwin and her daughter in Barbary, and was going forth to fetch them, that should Mr. Richard Godwin come to claim the estate he might be justly put off.

And so this business ended to our great satisfaction, we saying to ourselves that we had done all that man could to redeem the captives, and that it would be no harm at all to put a cheat upon the miserly steward. Whether we were any way more honest than he in shaping our conduct according to our inclinations is a question which troubled us then very little.

CHAPTER VI.

Moll is cast to play the part of a fine lady; doubtful promise for this undertaking.

On our way back to Greenwich we stayed at an inn by the road to refresh ourselves, and there, having a snug parlour to ourselves, and being seated about a fine cheese with each a full measure of ale, Don Sanchez asks us if we are satisfied with our undertaking.

“Aye, that we are,” replies Dawson, mightily pleased as usual to be a-feasting. “We desire nothing better than to serve your honour faithfully in all ways, and are ready to put our hands to any bond you may choose to draw up.”

“Can you show me the man,” asks the Don, lifting his eyebrows contemptuously, “who ever kept a treaty he was minded to break? Men are honest enough when nought’s to be gained by breaking faith. Are you both agreed to this course?”

“Yes, Señor,” says I, “and my only compunction now is that I can do so little to forward this business.”

“Why, so far as I can see into it,” says Dawson, “one of us must be cast for old Mrs. Godwin, if Moll is to be her daughter, and you’re fitter to play the part than I, for I take it this old gentlewoman should be of a more delicate, sickly composition than mine.”

“We will suppose that Mrs. Godwin is dead,” says the Don, gravely.

“Aye, to be sure; that simplifies the thing mightily. But pray, Señor, what parts are we to play?”

“The parts you have played today. You go with me to fetch Judith Godwin from Barbary.”

“This hangs together and ought to play well; eh, Kit?”

I asked Don Sanchez how long, in the ordinary course of things an expedition of this kind would take.

“That depends upon accidents of many kinds,” answers he. “We may very well stretch it out best part of a year.”

“A year,” says Jack, scratching his ear ruefully, for I believe he had counted upon coming to live like a lord in a few weeks. “And what on earth are we to do in the meanwhile?”

“Teach Moll,” answers the Don.

“She can read anything print or scrip,” says Jack, proudly, “and write her own name.”

“Judith Godwin,” says the Don, reflectively, “lived two years in Italy. She would certainly remember some words of Italian. Consider this: it is not sufficient merely to obtain possession of the Godwin estate; it must be held against the jealous opposition of that shrewd steward and of the presumptive heir, Mr. Richard Godwin, who may come forward at any time.”

“You’re in the right, Señor. Well, there’s Kit knows the language and can teach her a smattering of the Italian, I warrant, in no time.”

“Judith would probably know something of music,” pursues the Don.

“Why, Moll can play Kit’s fiddle as well as he.”

“But, above all,” continues the Don, as taking no heed of this tribute to Moll’s abilities, “Judith Godwin must be able to read and write the Moorish character and speak the tongue readily, answer aptly as to their ways and habits, and to do these things beyond suspect. Moll must live with these people for some months.”

“God have mercy on us!” cries Jack. “Your honour is not for taking us to Barbary.”

“No,” answers the Don, dryly, passing his long fingers with some significance over the many seams in his long face, “but we must go where the Moors are to be found, on the hither side of the straits.”

“Well,” says Dawson, “all’s as one whither we go in safety if we’re to be out of our fortune for a year. There’s nothing more for our Moll to learn, I suppose, señor.”

“It will not be amiss to teach her the manners of a lady,” replies the Don, rising and knitting his brows together unpleasantly, “and especially to keep her feet under her chair at table.”

With this he rings the bell for our reckoning, and so ends our discussion, neither Dawson nor I having a word to say in answer to this last hit, which showed us pretty plainly that in reaching round with her long leg for our shins, Moll had caught the Don’s shanks a kick that night she was seized with a cough.

So to horse again and a long jog back to Greenwich, where Dawson and I would fain have rested the night (being unused to the saddle and very raw with our journey), but the Don would not for prudence, and therefore, after changing our clothes, we make a shift to mount once more, and thence another long horrid jolt to Edmonton very painfully.

Coming to the Bell (more dead than alive) about eight, and pitch dark, we were greatly surprised that we could make no one hear to take our horses, and further, having turned the brutes into the stable ourselves, to find never a soul in the common room or parlour, so that the place seemed quite forsaken. But hearing a loud guffaw of laughter from below, we go downstairs to the kitchen, which we could scarce enter for the crowd in the doorway. And here all darkness, save for a sheet hung at the further end, and lit from behind, on which a kind of phantasmagory play of Jack and the Giant was being acted by shadow characters cut out of paper, the performer being hid by a board that served as a stage for the puppets. And who should this performer be but our Moll, as we knew by her voice, and most admirably she did it, setting all in a roar one minute with some merry joke, and enchanting ’em the next with a pretty song for the maid in distress.

We learnt afterwards that Moll, who could never rest still two minutes together, but must for ever be a-doing something new, had cut out her images and devised the show to entertain the servants in the kitchen, and that the guests above hearing their merriment had come down in time to get the fag end, which pleased them so vastly that they would have her play it all over again.

“This may undo us,” says Don Sanchez, in a low voice of displeasure, drawing us away. “Here are a dozen visitors who will presently be examining Moll as a marvel. Who can say but that one of them may know her again hereafter to our confusion? We must be seen together no more than is necessary, until we are out of this country. I shall leave here in the morning, and you will meet me next at the Turk, in Gracious Street, tomorrow afternoon.” Therewith he goes up to his room, leaving us to shift for ourselves; and we into the parlour to warm our feet at the fire till we may be served with some victuals, both very silent and surly, being still sore, and as tired as any dogs with our day’s jolting.

While we are in this mood, Moll, having finished her play, comes to us in amazing high spirits, and all aglow with pleasure shows us a handful of silver given her by the gentry; then, pulling up a chair betwixt us, she asks us a dozen questions of a string as to where we have been, what we have done, etc., since we left her. Getting no answer, she presently stops, looks first at one, then at the other, and bursting into a fit of laughter, cries: “Why, what ails you both to be so grumpy?”

“In the first place, Moll,” says Jack, “I’ll have you to know that I am your father, and will not be spoken to save with becoming respect.”

“Why, I did but ask you where you have been.”

“Children of your age should not ask questions, but do as they’re bid, and there’s an end of it.”

“La, I’m not to ask any questions. Is there nothing else I am not to do?”

“Yes; I’ll not have you playing of Galimaufray to cook wenches and such stuff. I’ll have you behave with more decency. Take your feet off the hearth, and put ’em under your chair. Let me have no more of these galanty-shows. Why, ’twill be said I cannot give you a basin of porridge, that you must go a-begging of sixpences like this!”

“Oh, if you begrudge me a little pocket-money,” cries she, springing up with the tears in her eyes, “I’ll have none of it.”

And with that she empties her pocket on the chair, and out roll her sixpences together with a couple of silver spoons.

“What,” cries Jack, after glancing round to see we were alone. “You have filched a couple of spoons, Moll?”

“And why not?” asks she, her little nose turning quite white with passion. “If I am to ask no questions, how shall I know but we may have never a spoon tomorrow for your precious basin of porridge?”

CHAPTER VII.

Of our journey through France to a very horrid pass in the Pyraneans.

Skipping over many unimportant particulars of our leaving Edmonton, of our finding Don Sanchez at the Turk in Gracious Street, of our going thence (the next day) to Gravesend, of our preparation there for voyage, I come now to our embarking, the 10th March, in the Rose, for Bordeaux in France. Nor shall I dwell long on that journey, neither, which was exceedingly long and painful, by reason of our nearing the equinoctials, which dashed us from our course to that degree that it was the 26th before we reached our port and cast anchor in still water. And all those days we were prostrated with sickness, and especially Jack Dawson, because of his full habit, so that he declared he would rather ride a-horseback to the end of the earth than go another mile on sea.

We stayed in Bordeaux, which is a noble town, but dirty, four days to refresh ourselves, and here the Don lodged us in a fine inn and fed us on the best; and also he made us buy new clothes and linen (which we sadly needed after the pickle we had lain in a fortnight) and cast away our old; but no more than was necessary, saying ’twould be better to furnish ourselves with fresh linen as we needed it, than carry baggage, etc. “And let all you buy be good goods,” says he, “for in this country a man is valued at what he seems, and the innkeepers do go in such fear of their seigneurs that they will charge him less for entertainment than if he were a mean fellow who could ill afford to pay.”

So not to displease him we dressed ourselves in the French fashion, more richly than ever we had been clad in our lives, and especially Moll did profit by this occasion to furnish herself like any duchess; so that Dawson and I drew lots to decide which of us should present the bill to Don Sanchez, thinking he would certainly take exception to our extravagance; but he did not so much as raise his eyebrows at the total, but paid it without ever a glance at the items. Nay, when Moll presents herself in her new equipment, he makes her a low reverence and pays her a most handsome compliment, but in his serious humour and without a smile. He himself wore a new suit all of black, not so fine as ours, but very noble and becoming, by reason of his easy, graceful manner and his majestic, high carriage.

On the last day of March we set forth for Toulouse. At our starting Don Sanchez bade Moll ride by his side, and so we, not being bid, fell behind; and, feeling awkward in our new clothes, we might very well have been taken for their servants, or a pair of ill-bred friends at the best, for our Moll carried herself not a whit less magnificent than the Don, to the admiration of all who looked at her.

To see these grand airs of hers charmed Jack Dawson.

“You see, Kit,” whispers he, “what an apt scholar the minx is, and what an obedient, dutiful, good girl. One word from me is as good as six months’ schooling, for all this comes of that lecture I gave her the last night we were at Edmonton.”

I would not deny him the satisfaction of this belief, but I felt pretty sure that had she been riding betwixt us in her old gown, instead of beside the Don as his daughter, all her father’s preaching would not have stayed her from behaving herself like an orange wench.

We journey by easy stages ten days through Toulouse, on the road to Perpignan, and being favoured with remarkably fine weather, a blue sky, and a bright sun above us, and at every turn something strange or beautiful to admire, no pleasure jaunt in the world could have been more delightful. At every inn (which here they call hotels) we found good beds, good food, excellent wine, and were treated like princes, so that Dawson and I would gladly have given up our promise of a fortune to have lived in this manner to the end of our days. But Don Sanchez professed to hold all on this side of the Pyrenese Mountains in great contempt, saying these hotels were as nothing to the Spanish posadas, that the people here would rob you if they dared, whereas, on t’other side, not a Spaniard would take so much as the hair of your horse’s tail, though he were at the last extremity, that the food was not fit for aught but a Frenchman, and so forth. And our Moll, catching this humour, did also turn up her nose at everything she was offered, and would send away a bottle of wine from the table because ’twas not ripe enough, though but a few weeks before she had been drinking penny ale with a relish, and that as sour as verjuice. And, indeed, she did carry it mighty high and artificial, wherever respect and humility were to be commanded. But it was pretty to see how she would unbend and become her natural self where her heart was touched by some tender sentiment. How she would empty her pockets to give to any one with a piteous tale, how she would get from her horse to pluck wild-flowers by the roadside, and how, one day, overtaking a poor woman carrying a child painfully on her back, she must have the little one up on her lap and carry it till we reached the hamlet where the woman lived, etc. On the fifteenth day we stayed at St. Denys, and going thence the next morning, had travelled but a couple of hours when we were caught in a violent storm of hailstones as big as peas, that was swept with incredible force by a wind rushing through a deep ravine in the mountains, so that ’twas as much as we could make headway through it and gain a village which lay but a little distance from us. And here we were forced to stay all day by another storm of rain, that followed the hail and continued till nightfall. Many others besides ourselves were compelled to seek refuge at our inn, and amongst them a company of Spanish muleteers, for it seems we were come to a pass leading through the mountains into Spain. These were the first Spaniards we had yet seen (save the Don), and for all we had heard to their credit, we could not admire them greatly, being a low-browed, coarse-featured, ragged crew, and more picturesque than cleanly, besides stinking intolerably of garlic. By nightfall there was more company than the inn could accommodate; nevertheless, in respect to our quality, we were given the best rooms in the house to ourselves.

About eight o’clock, as we were about to sit down to supper, our innkeeper’s wife comes in to tell us that a Spanish grandee is below, who has been travelling for hours in the storm, and then she asked very humbly if our excellencies will permit her to lay him a bed in our room when we have done with it, as she can bestow him nowhere else (the muleteers filling her house to the very cock loft), and has not the heart to send him on to St. Denys in this pitiless driving rain. To this Don Sanchez replies, that a Spanish gentleman is welcome to all we can offer him, and therewith sends down a mighty civil message, begging his company at our table.

Moll has just time to whip on a piece of finery, and we to put on our best manners, when the landlady returns, followed by a stout, robust Spaniard, in an old coat several times too small for him, whom she introduced as Señor Don Lopez de Calvados.

Don Lopez makes us a reverence, and then, with his shoulders up to his ears and like gestures, gives us an harangue at some length, but this being in Spanish, is as heathen Greek to our ears. However, Don Sanchez explains that our visitor is excusing his appearance as being forced to change his wet clothes for what the innkeeper can lend him, and so we, grinning to express our amiability, all sit down to table and set to—Moll with her most finicking, delicate airs and graces, and Dawson and I silent as frogs, with understanding nothing of the Dons’ conversation. This, we learn from Don Sanchez after supper, has turned chiefly on the best means of crossing into Spain, from which it appears there are two passes through the mountains, both leading to the same town, but one more circuitous than the other. Don Lopez has come by the latter, because the former is used by the muleteers, who are not always the most pleasant companions one can have in a dangerous road; and for this reason he recommends us to take his way, especially as we have a young lady with us, which will be the more practicable, as the same guides who conducted him will be only too glad to serve us on their return the next morning. To this proposition we very readily agree, and supper being ended, Don Sanchez sends for the guides, two hardy mountaineers, who very readily agree to take us this way the next morning, if the weather permits. And so we all, wishing Don Lopez a good-night, to our several chambers.

I was awoke in the middle of the night, as it seemed to me, by a great commotion below of Spanish shouting and roaring with much jingling of bells; and looking out of window I perceived lanterns hanging here and there in the courtyard, and the muleteers packing their goods to depart, with a fine clear sky full of stars overhead. And scarce had I turned into my warm bed again, thanking God I was no muleteer, when in comes the Don with a candle, to say the guide will have us moving at once if we would reach Ravellos (our Spanish town) before night. So I to Dawson’s chamber, and he to Moll’s, and in a little while we all shivering down to the great kitchen, where is never a muleteer left, but only a great stench of garlic, to eat a mess of soup, very hot and comforting. And after that out into the dark (there being as yet but a faint flush of green and primrose colour over towards the east), where four fresh mules (which Don Sanchez overnight had bargained to exchange against our horses, as being the only kind of cattle fit for this service) are waiting for us with other two mules, belonging to our guides, all very curiously trapped out with a network of wool and little jingling bells. Then when Don Sanchez had solemnly debated whether we should not awake Don Lopez to say farewell, and we had persuaded him that it would be kinder to let him sleep on, we mounted into our high, fantastic saddles, and set out towards the mountains, our guides leading, and we following close upon their heels as our mules could get, but by no guidance of ours, though we held the reins, for these creatures are very sagacious and so pertinacious and opiniastre that I believe though you pulled their heads off they would yet go their own way.

Our road at first lay across a rising plain, very wild and scrubby, as I imagine, by the frequent deviations of our beast, and then through a forest of cork oaks, which keep their leaves all the year through, and here, by reason of the great shade, we went, not knowing whither, as if blindfold, only we were conscious of being on rough, rising ground, by the jolting of our mules and the clatter of their hoofs upon stones; but after a wearisome, long spell of this business, the trees growing more scattered and a thin grey light creeping through, we could make out that we were all together, which was some comfort. From these oaks, we passed into a wood of chestnuts, and still going up and up, but by such devious, unseen ways, that I think no man, stranger to these parts, could pick it out for himself in broad daylight, we came thence into a great stretch of pine trees, with great rocks scattered amongst them, as if some mountain had been blown up and fallen in a huge shower of fragments.

And so, still for ever toiling and scambling upwards, we found ourselves about seven o’clock, as I should judge by the light beyond the trees and upon the side of the mountain, with the whole champaign laid out like a carpet under us on one side, prodigious slopes of rock on either hand, with only a shrub or a twisted fir here and there, and on the further side a horrid stark ravine with a cascade of water thundering down in its midst, and a peak rising beyond, covered with snow, which glittered in the sunlight like a monstrous heap of white salt.

After resting at this point half an hour to breathe our mules, the guides got into their saddles, and we did likewise, and so on again along the side of the ravine, only not of a cluster as heretofore, but one behind the other in a long line, the mules falling into this order of themselves as if they had travelled the path an hundred times; but there was no means of going otherwise, the path being atrociously narrow and steep, and only fit for wild goats, there being no landrail, coping, or anything in the world to stay one from being hurled down a thousand feet, and the mountain sides so inclined that ’twas a miracle the mules could find foothold and keep their balance. From the bottom of the ravine came a constant roar of falling water, though we could spy it only now and then leaping down from one chasm to another; and more than once our guides would cry to us to stop (and that where our mules had to keep shifting their feet to get a hold) while some huge boulder, loosened by the night’s rain, flew down across our path in terrific bounds from the heights above, making the very mountain tremble with the shock. Not a word spoke we; nay, we had scarce courage at times to draw breath, for two hours and more of this fearful passage, with no encouragement from our guides save that one of them did coolly take out a knife and peel an onion as though he had been on a level, broad road; and then, reaching a flat space, we came to a stand again before an ascent that promised to be worse than that we had done. Here we got down, Moll clinging to our hands and looking around her with large, frighted eyes.

“Shall we soon be there?” she asked.

And the Don, putting this question in Spanish to the guides, they pointed upwards to a gap filled with snow, and answered that was the highest point. This was some consolation, though we could not regard the rugged way that lay betwixt us and that without quaking. Indeed, I thought that even Don Sanchez, despite the calm, unmoved countenance he ever kept, did look about him with a certain kind of uneasiness. However, taking example from our guides, we unloosed our saddle bags, and laid out our store of victuals with a hogskin of wine which rekindled our spirits prodigiously.

While we were at this repast, our guides, starting as if they had caught a sound (though we heard none save the horrid bursting of water), looked down, and one of them, clapping two dirty fingers in his mouth, made a shrill whistle. Then we, looking down, presently spied two mules far below on the path we had come, but at such a distance that we could scarce make out whether they were mounted or not.

“Who are they?” asks Don Sanchez, sternly, as I managed to understand.

“Friends,” replies one of the fellows, with a grin that seemed to lay his face in two halves.

CHAPTER VIII.

How we were entertained in the mountains, and stand in a fair way to have our throats cut.

“We will go on when you are ready,” says Don Sanchez, turning to us.

“Aye,” growled Jack in my ear, “with all my heart. For if these friends be of the same kidney as Don Lopez, we may be persuaded to take a better road, which God forbid if this be a sample of their preference.”

So being in our saddles forth we set once more and on a path no easier than before, but worse—like a very housetop for steepness, without a tinge of any living thing for succour if one fell, but only sharp, jagged rocks, and that which now added to our peril was here and there a patch of snow, so that the mules must cock their ears and feel their way before advancing a step, now halting for dread, and now scuttling on with their tails betwixt their legs as the stones rolled under them.

But the longest road hath an end, and so at length reaching that gap we had seen from below, to our great content we beheld through an angle in the mountain a tract of open country below, looking mighty green and sweet in the distance. And at the sight of this, Moll clapt her hands and cried out with joy; indeed, we were all as mad as children with the thought that our task was half done. Only the Don kept his gravity. But turning to Moll, he stretches out his hand towards the plain and says with prodigious pride, “My country!”

And now we began the descent, which was actually more perilous than the ascent, but we made light of it, being very much enlivened by the high mountain air and the relief from dread uncertainty, shouting out our reflections one to another as we jolted down the rugged path.

“After all, Jack,” says I to him at the top of my voice, being in advance and next to Don Sanchez; “after all, Don Lopez was not such a bad friend to us.”

Upon which, the Don, stopping his mule at the risk of being cast down the abyss, turns in his saddle, and says:

“Fellow, Don Lopez is a Spaniard. A Castilian of noble birth—” but here his mule deciding that this was no fit place for halting, bundled onward at a trot to overtake the guides, and obliged his rider to turn his attention to other matters.

By the look of the sun it must have been about two in the afternoon when, rounding a great bluff of rock, we came upon a kind of tableland which commanded a wide view of the plain below, most dazzling to our eyes after the gloomy recesses of the pass; and here we found trees growing and some rude attempt at cultivation, but all very poor and stunted, being still very high and exposed to the bleak winds issuing from the gorges.

Our guides, throwing themselves on the ground, repaired once more to their store of onions, and we, nothing loath to follow their examples, opened our saddle bags, and with our cold meat and the hogskin of wine made another good repast and very merry. And the Don, falling into discourse with the guides, pointed out to us a little white patch on the plain below, and told us that was Ravellos, where we should find one of the best posadas in the world, which added to our satisfaction. “But” says he, “’tis yet four hours’ march ere we reach it, so we had best be packing quickly.”

Thereupon we finished our meal in haste, the guides still lying on the ground eating onions, and when we were prepared to start they still lay there and would not budge. On this ensued another discussion, very indignant and passionate on the part of Don Sanchez, and as cool and phlegmatic on the side of the guides, the upshot of which was, as we learned from Don, that these rascals maintained they had fulfilled their bargain in bringing us over into Spain, but as to carrying us to Ravellos they would by no means do that without the permission of their zefe, who was one of those they had whistled to from our last halting place, and whom they were now staying for.

Then, beginning to quake a bit at the strangeness of this treatment, we looked about us to see if we might venture to continue our journey alone. But Lord! one might as easily have found a needle in a bundle of hay as a path amidst this labyrinth of rocks and horrid fissures that environed us; and this was so obvious that the guides, though not yet paid for their service, made no attempt to follow or to stay us, as knowing full well we must come back in despair. So there was no choice but to wait the coming up of the zefe, the Don standing with his legs astride and his arms folded, with a very storm of passion in his face, in readiness to confront the tardy zefe with his reproaches for this delay and the affront offered to himself, we casting our eye longingly down at Ravellos, and the guides silently munching their onions. Thus we waited until the fine ear of our guides catching a sound, they rose to their feet muttering the word “zefe,” and pull off their hats as two men mounted on mules tricked out like our own, came round the corner and pulled up before us. But what was our surprise to see that the foremost of these fellows was none other than the Don Lopez de Calvados we had entertained to supper the night before, and of whose noble family Don Sanchez had been prating so highly, and not a thread better dressed than when we saw him last, and full as dirty. That which gave us most uneasiness, however, was to observe that each of these “friends” carried an ugly kind of musket slung across his back, and a most unpleasant long sheath knife in his waist cloth.

Not a word says our Don Sanchez, but feigning still to believe him a man of quality, he returns the other Don’s salutation with all the ceremony possible. Then Don Lopez, smiling from ear to ear, begs us (as I learnt afterwards) to pardon him for keeping us waiting, which had not happened, he assures us, if we had not suffered him to oversleep himself. He then informs us that we are now upon his domain, and begs us to accept such hospitality as his Castillo will furnish, in return for our entertainment of last night. To this Don Sanchez replies with a thousand thanks that we are anxious to reach Ravellos before nightfall, and that, therefore, we will be going at once if it is all the same to him. With more bowing and scraping Don Lopez amiably but firmly declines to accept any refusal of his offer or to talk of business before his debt of gratitude is paid. With that he gives a sign to our guides, who at once lead off our mules at a brisk trot, leaving us to follow on foot with Don Lopez and his companion, whom he introduces as Don Ruiz del Puerto—as arrant a cut-throat rascal to look at as ever I clapt eyes on.

So we with very dismal forebodings trudge on, having no other course to take, Don Sanchez, to make the best of it, warranting that no harm shall come to us while we are under the hospitable protection of a Spaniard, but to no great effect—our faith being already shaken in his valuation of Spaniards.

Quitting the tableland, ten minutes of leaping and scrambling brought us to a collection of miserable huts built all higgledy-piggledy along the edge of a torrent, overtopped by a square building of more consequence, built of grey stone and roofed with slate shingles, but with nothing but ill-shaped holes for windows; and this, Don Lopez with some pride told us was his castillo. A ragged crew of women and children, apprised of our coming by the guide, maybe, trooped out of the village to meet us and hailed our approach with shouts of joy, “for all the world like a pack of hounds at the sight of their keeper with a dish of bones,” whispers Jack Dawson in my ear ominously. But it was curious to see how they did all fall back in two lines, those that had hats taking them off as Don Lopez passed, he bowing to them right and left, like any prince in his progress.

So we up to the castillo, where all the men of the village are assembled and all armed like Don Lopez, and they greet us with cries of “Hola!” and throwing up of hats. They making way for us with salutations on both sides, we enter the castillo, where we find one great ill-paved room with a step-ladder on one side leading to the floor above, but no furniture save a table and some benches of wood, all black and shining with grease and dirt. But indeed the walls, the ceiling, and all else about us was beyond everything for blackness, and this was easily to be understood, for a wench coming in with a cauldron lights a faggot of wood in a corner, where was no chimney to carry off the smoke, but only a hole in the wall with a kind of eaves over it, so that presently the place was so filled with the fumes ’twas difficult to see across it.

Don Lopez (always as gracious as a cat with a milkmaid) asks Moll through Don Sanchez if she would like to make her toilette, while dinner is preparing, and at this offer all of us jump—choosing anything for a change; so he takes us up the step-ladder to the floor above, which differs from that below in being cut up into half a dozen pieces by some low partition of planks nailed loosely together like cribs for cattle, with some litter of dry leaves and hay in each, but in other respects being just as naked and grimy, with a cloud of smoke coming up through the chinks in the floor.

“You will have the sole use of these chambers during your stay,” says Don Lopez, “and for your better assurance you can draw the ladder up after you on retiring for the night.”

But for the gravity of our situation and prospects I could have burst out laughing when Don Sanchez gave us the translation of this promise, for the idea of regarding these pens as chambers was not less ludicrous than the air of pride with which Don Lopez bestowed the privilege of using ’em upon us.

Don Lopez left us, promising to send a maid with the necessary appointments for Moll’s toilette.

“A plague of all this finery!” growled Dawson. “How long may it be, think you, Señor, ere we can quit this palace and get to one of those posadas you promised us?”

Don Sanchez hunched his shoulders for all reply and turned away to hide his mortification. And now a girl comes up with a biggin of water on her head, a broken comb in her hand, and a ragged cloth on her arm that looked as if it had never been washed since it left the loom, and sets them down on a bench, with a grin at Moll; but she, though not over-nice, turns away with a pout of disgust, and then we to get a breath of fresh air to a hole in the wall on the windward side, where we stand all dumb with disappointment and dread until we are called down to dinner. But before going down Don Sanchez warns us to stand on our best behaviour, as these Spaniards, for all their rude seeming, were of a particularly punctilious, ticklish disposition, and that we might come badly out of this business if we happened to displease them.

“I cannot see reason in that, Señor,” says Dawson; “for the less we please ’em, the sooner they are likely to send us hence, and so the better for us.”

“As you please,” replies the Don, “but my warning is to your advantage.”

Down we go, and there stands Don Lopez with a dozen choice friends, all the raggedest, dirty villains in the world; and they saluting us, we return their civility with a very fair pretence and take the seats offered us—they standing until we are set. Then they sit down, and each man lugs out a knife from his waist-cloth. The cauldron, filled with a mess of kid stewed in a multitude of onions, is fetched from the fire, and, being set upon a smooth board, is slid down the table to our host, who, after picking out some titbits for us, serves himself, and so slides it back, each man in turn picking out a morsel on the end of his knife. Bearing in mind Don Sanchez’s warning, we do our best to eat of this dish; but, Heaven knows! with little relish, and mighty glad when the cauldron is empty and that part of the performance ended. Then the bones being swept from the table, a huge skin of wine is set before Don Lopez, and he serves us each with about a quart in an odd-shaped vessel with a spout, which Don Sanchez and his countrymen use by holding it above their heads and letting the wine spurt into their mouths; but we, being unused to this fashion, preferred rather to suck it out of the spout, which seemed to them as odd a mode as theirs was to us. However, better wine, drink it how you may, there is none than the wine of these parts, and this reconciling us considerably to our condition, we listened with content to their singing of ditties, which they did very well for such rude fellows, to the music of a guitar and a tambourine. And so when our pots came to be replenished a second time, we were all mighty merry and agreeable save Jack Dawson, who never could take his liquor like any other man, but must fall into some extravagant humour, and he, I perceived, regarded some of the company with a very sour, jealous eye because, being warmed with drink, they fell to casting glances at Moll with a certain degree of familiarity. Especially there was one fellow with a hook nose, who stirred his bile exceedingly, sitting with his elbows on the table and his jaws in his hands, and would scarcely shift his eyes from Moll. And since he could not make his displeasure understood in words, and so give vent to it and be done, Jack sat there in sullen silence watching for an opportunity to show his resentment in some other fashion. The other saw this well enough, but would not desist, and so these two sat fronting each other like two dogs ready to fly at each other’s throats. At length, the hook-nosed rascal, growing bolder with his liquor, rises as if to reach for his wine pot, and stretching across the table, chucks Moll under the chin with his grimy fingers. At this Jack flinging out his great fist with all the force of contained passion, catches the other right in the middle of the face, with such effect that the fellow flies clean back over his bench, his head striking the pavement with a crash. Then, in an instant, all his fellows spring to their feet, and a dozen long knives flash out from their sheaths.

CHAPTER IX.

Of the manner in which we escaped pretty fairly out of the hands of Señor Don Lopez and his brigands.

Up starts Jack Dawson, catching Moll by the arm and his joint stool by the leg, and stepping back a pace or two not to be taken in the flank, he swings his stool ready to dash the brains out of the first that nears him. And I do likewise, making the same show of valour with my stool, but cutting a poor figure beside Dawson’s mighty presence.

Seeing their fellow laid out for dead on the floor, with his hook nose smashed most horridly into his face, the others had no stomach to meet the same fate, but with their Spanish cunning began to spread out that so they might attack us on all sides; and surely this had done our business but that Don Lopez, flinging himself before us with his knife raised high, cries out at the top of his voice, “Rekbah!”—a word of their own language, I am told, taken from the Moorish, and signifying that whosoever shall outrage the laws of hospitality under his roof shall be his enemy to the death. And at this word every man stood still as if by inchantment, and let fall his weapon. Then in the same high voice he gives them an harangue, showing them that Dawson was in the right to avenge an insult offered his daughter, and the other justly served for his offence to us. “For his offence to me as the host of these strangers,” adds he, “Jose shall answer to me hereafter if he live; if he be dead, his body shall be flung to the vultures of the gorge, and his name be never uttered again beneath this roof.”

“I bear no grudges, not I,” says Dawson, when Don Sanchez gave him the English of this. “If he live, let his nose be set; and if dead, let him be buried decently in a churchyard. But hark ye, Señor, lest we fall out again and come out worse the next bout, do pray ask his worship if we may not be accommodated with a guide to take us on our way at once. We have yet two hours of daylight before us, there’s not a cloud in the sky, and with such a moon as we had the night before last, we may get on well enough.”

Poor Moll, who was all of a shake with the terror of another catastrophe, added her prayers to Dawson’s, and Don Sanchez with a profusion of civilities laid the proposal before Don Lopez, who, though professing the utmost regret to lose us so soon, consented to gratify our wish, adding that his mules were so well accustomed to the road that they could make the journey as well in the dark as in broad day.

“Well, then,” says Dawson, when this was told us, “let us settle the business at once, and be off.”

And now, when Don Sanchez proposed to pay for the service of our guides, it was curious to see how every rascal at the table craned forward to watch the upshot. Don Lopez makes a pretence of leaving the payment to Don Sanchez’s generosity; and he, not behindhand in courtesy, lugs out his purse and begs the other to pay himself. Whereupon, with more apologies, Don Lopez empties the money on the table and carefully counts it, and there being but about a score of gold pieces and some silver, he shakes his head and says a few words to Don Sanchez in a very reproachful tone of remonstrance, to which our Don replies by turning all the trifles out of his pocket, one after the other, to prove that he has no money.

“I thought as much,” growls Jack in my ear. “A pretty nest of hornets we’re fallen into.” The company, seeing there was no more to be got out of Don Sanchez, began to murmur and cast their eyes at us; whereupon Dawson, seeing how the land lay, stands up and empties his pockets on the table, and I likewise; but betwixt us there was no more than some French pennies and a few odds and ends of no value at all. Fetching a deep sigh, Don Lopez takes all these possessions into a heap before him, and tells Don Sanchez that he cannot believe persons of our quality could travel with so little, that he feels convinced Don Sanchez must have dropped a purse on the way, and that until it is found he can on no account allow us to leave the neighbourhood.

“This comes of being so mighty fine!” says Dawson, when Don Sanchez had explained matters. “Had we travelled as became our condition, this brigand would never have ensnared us hither. And if they won’t believe your story, Señor, I can’t blame ’em; for I would have sworn you had a thousand pounds to your hand.”

“Do you reproach me for my generosity?” asks the Don.

“Nay, Master, I love you for being free with your money while you have it, but ’tis a queer kind of generosity to bring us into these parts with no means of taking us back again. Hows’ever, we’ll say no more about that if we get out of this cursed smoke-hole; and as we are like to come off ill if these Jack-thieves keep us here a week or so and get nothing by it, ’twill be best to tell ’em the honest truth, and acquaint them that we are no gentle folk, but only three poor English mountebanks brought hither on a wild goose chase.”

This was a bitter pill for Don Sanchez to swallow; however, seeing no other cure for our ills, he gulped it down with the best face he could put on it. But from the mockery and laughter of all who heard him, ’twas plain to see they would not believe a word of his story.

“What would you have me do now?” asks the Don, turning to us when the clamour had subsided, and he told us how he had tried to persuade them we were dancers he was taking for a show to the fair at Barcelona, which they, by our looks, would not believe, and especially that a man of such build as Jack Dawson could foot it, even to please such heavy people as the English.

“What!” cries Jack. “I can’t dance! We will pretty soon put them to another complexion if they do but give us space and a fair trial. You can strum a guitar, Kit, for I’ve heard you. And Moll, my chick, do you dash the tears from your cheek and pluck up courage to show these Portugals what an English lass can do.”

The brigands agreeing to this trial, the table is shoved back to give us a space in the best light, and our judges seat themselves conveniently. Moll brushes her eyes (to a little murmur of sympathy, as I thought), and I, striking out the tune, Jack, with all the magnificence of a king, takes her hand and leads her out to a French pavan; and sure no one in the world ever stepped it more gracefully than our poor little Moll (now put upon her mettle), nor more lightly than Dawson, so that every rascal in our audience was won to admiration, clapping hands and shouting “Hola!” when it was done. And this warming us, we gave ’em next an Italian coranto, and after that, an English pillow dance; and, in good faith, had they all been our dearest friends, these dirty fellows could not have gone more mad with delight. And then Moll and her father sitting down to fetch their breath, a dispute arose among the brigands which we were at a loss to understand, until Don Sanchez explained that a certain number would have it we were real dancers, but that another party, with Don Lopez, maintained these were but court dances, which only proved the more we were of high quality to be thus accomplished.

“We’ll convince ’em yet, Moll, with a pox of their doubts,” cries Dawson, starting to his feet again. “Tell ’em we will give ’em a stage dance of a nymph and a wild man, Señor, with an excuse for our having no costume but this. Play us our pastoral, Kit. And sing you your ditty of ‘Broken Heart,’ Moll, in the right place, that I may get my wind for the last caper.”

Moll nods, and with ready wit takes the ribbon from her head, letting her pretty hair tumble all about her shoulders, and then whipping up her long skirt, tucks one end under her girdle, thereby making a very dainty show of pink lining against the dark stuff, and also giving more play for her feet. And so thus they dance their pastoral, Don Sanchez taking a tambourine and tapping it lightly to the measure, up to Moll’s song, which so ravished these hardy, stony men by the pathetic sweetness of her voice—for they could understand nothing save by her expression—that they would not let the dance go on until she had sung it through again. To conclude, Jack springs up as one enamoured to madness and flings out his last steps with such vigour and agility as to quite astound all.

And now the show being ended, and not one but is a-crying of “Hola!” and “Animo!” Moll snatches the tambourine from Don Sanchez’s hand, and stepping before Don Lopez drops him a curtsey, and offers it for her reward. At this Don Lopez, glancing at the money on the table by his side, and looking round for sanction to his company (which they did give him without one voice of opposition), he takes up two of the gold pieces and drops them on the parchment. Thus did our Moll, by one clever hit, draw an acknowledgment from them that we were indeed no fine folks, but mere players, which point they might have stumbled over in their cooler moments.

But we were not quit yet; for on Don Sanchez’s begging that we should now be set upon our road to Ravellos, the other replies that though he will do us this service with great pleasure, yet he cannot permit us to encounter the danger again of being taken for persons of quality. “Fine dress,” says he, “may be necessary to the Señor and his daughter for their court dances, and they are heartily welcome to them for the pleasure they have given us, but for you and the musician who plays but indifferent well, meaner garb is more suitable; and so you will be good enough to step upstairs, the pair of you, and change your clothing for such as we can furnish from our store.”

And upstairs we were forced to go, Don Sanchez and I, and there being stripped we were given such dirty foul rags and so grotesque, that when we came down, Jack Dawson and Moll fell a-laughing at us, as though they would burst. And, in truth, we made a most ludicrous spectacle, —especially the Don, whom hitherto we had seen only in the neatest and most noble of clothes—looking more like a couple of scarecrows than living men.

Don Sanchez neither smiled nor frowned at this treatment, taking this misfortune with the resignation of a philosopher; only to quiet Dawson’s merriment he told him that in the clothes taken from him was sewed up a bond for two hundred pounds, but whether this was true or not I cannot tell.

And now, to bring an end to this adventure, we were taken down the intricate passes of the mountain in the moonlight, as many of the gang as could find mules coming with us for escort, and brought at last to the main road, where we were left with nought but what we stood in (save Moll’s two pieces), the robbers bidding us their adios with all the courtesy imaginable. But even then, robbed of all he had even to the clothes of his back, Don Sanchez’s pride was unshaken, for he bade us note that the very thieves in Spain were gentlemen.

As we trudged along the road toward Ravellos, we fell debating on our case, as what we should do next, etc., Don Sanchez promising that we should have redress for our ill-treatment, that his name alone would procure us a supply of money for our requirements, etc., to my great content. But Dawson was of another mind.

“As for seeking redress,” says he, “I would as soon kick at a hive for being stung by a bee, and the wisest course when you’ve been once bit by a dog is to keep out of his way for the future. With respect of getting money by your honour’s name, you may do as you please, and so may you, Kit, if you’re so minded. But for my part, henceforth I’ll pretend to be no better than I am, and the first suit of rags I can get will I wear in the fashion of this country. And so shall you, Moll, my dear; so make up your mind to lay aside your fine airs and hold up your nose no longer as if you were too good for your father.”

“Why, surely, Jack,” says I, “you would not quit us and go from your bargain.”

“Not I, and you should know me well enough, Kit, to have no doubt on that score. But ’tis no part of our bargain that we should bustle anybody but Simon the steward.”

“We have four hundred miles to go ere we reach Elche,” says Don Sanchez. “Can you tell me how we are to get there without money?”

“Aye, that I can, and I warrant my plan as good as your honour’s. How many tens are there in four hundred, Kit?”

“Forty.”

“Well, we can walk ten miles a day on level ground, and so may do this journey in six weeks or thereabouts, which is no such great matter, seeing we are not to be back in England afore next year. We can buy a guitar and a tabor out of Moll’s pieces; with them we can give a show wherever we stay for the night, and if honest men do but pay us half as much as the thieves of this country, we may fare pretty well.”

“I confess,” says Don Sanchez, “your scheme is the best, and I would myself have proposed it but that I can do so little for my share.”

“Why, what odds does that make, Señor?” cries Jack. “You gave us of the best while you had aught to give, and ’tis but fair we should do the same now. Besides which, how could we get along without you for a spokesman, and I marked that you drummed to our dance very tunefully. Come, is it a bargain, friend?”

And on Don Sanchez’s consenting, Jack would have us all shake hands on it for a sign of faith and good fellowship. Then, perceiving that we were arrived at the outskirts of the town, we ended our discussion.

CHAPTER X.

Of our merry journeying to Alicante.

We turned into the first posada we came to—a poor, mean sort of an inn and general shop, to be sure, but we were in no condition to cavil about trifles, being fagged out with our journey and the adventures of the day, and only too happy to find a house of entertainment still open. So after a dish of sausages with very good wine, we to our beds and an end to the torment of fleas I had endured from the moment I changed my French habit for Spanish rags.

The next morning, when we had eaten a meal of goats’ milk and bread and paid our reckoning, which amounted to a few rials and no more, Don Sanchez and I, taking what rested of Moll’s two pieces, went forth into the town and there bought two plain suits of clothes for ourselves in the mode of the country, and (according to his desire) another of the same cut for Dawson, together with a little jacket and petticoat for Moll. And these expenditures left us but just enough to buy a good guitar and a tambourine—indeed, we should not have got them at all but that Don Sanchez higgled and bargained like any Jew, which he could do with a very good face now that he was dressed so beggarly. Then back to our posada, where in our room Jack and I were mighty merry in putting on our new clothes; but going below we find Moll still dressed in her finery, and sulking before the petticoat and jacket we had bought for her, which she would not put on by any persuasion until her father fell into a passion of anger. And the sight of him fuming in a short jacket barely covering his loins, and a pair of breeches so tight the seams would scarce hold together, so tickled her sense of humour that she fell into a long fit of laughter, and this ending her sulks she went upstairs with a good grace and returned in her hated petticoat, carrying her fine dress in a bundle. But I never yet knew the time when this sly baggage would not please herself for all her seeming yielding to others, and we were yet to have more pain from her than she from us in respect of that skirt. For ere we had got half way through the town she, dawdling behind to look first in this shop and then in that, gave us the slip, so that we were best part of an hour hunting the streets up and down in the utmost anxiety. Then as we were sweating with our exercise and trouble, lo! she steps out of a shop as calm as you please in a petticoat and jacket of her own fancy (and ten times more handsome than our purchase), a red shawl tied about her waist, and a little round hat with a bright red bob in it, set on one side of her head, and all as smart as a carrot.

“Da!” says she, “where have you been running all this time?”

And we, betwixt joy at finding her and anger at her impudence, could say nothing; and yet we were fain to admire her audacity too. But how, not knowing one word of the language, she had made her wants known was a mystery, and how she had obtained this finery was another, seeing that we had spent all there was of her two pieces. Certainly she had not changed her French gown and things for them, for these in a cumbrous bundle had her father been carrying up and down the town since we lost the minx.

“If you han’t stole ’em,” says Dawson, finding his tongue at last, “where did you find the money to pay for those trappings, slut?”

“In my pocket, sir,” says she, with a curtsey, “where you might have found yours had you not emptied it so readily for the robbers yesterday. And I fancy,” adds she slyly, “I may still find some left to offer you a dinner at midday if you will accept of it.”

This hint disposed us to make light of our grievance against her, and we went out of Ravellos very well satisfied to know that our next meal depended not solely upon chance. And this, together with the bright sunlight and the sweet invigorating morning air, did beget in us a spirit of happy carelessness, in keeping with the smiling gay aspect of the country about us.

It was strange to see how easily Moll fell into our happy-go-lucky humour, she, who had been as stately as any Roman queen in her long gown, being now, in her short coloured petticoat, as frolicsome and familiar as a country wench at a fair; but indeed she was a born actress and could accommodate herself as well to one condition as another with the mere change of clothes. But I think this state was more to her real taste than the other, as putting no restraint upon her impulses and giving free play to her healthy, exuberant mirth. Her very step was a kind of dance, and she must needs fall a-carolling of songs like a lark when it flies. Then she would have us rehearse our old songs to our new music. So, slinging my guitar in front of me, I put it in tune, and Jack ties his bundle to his back that he may try his hand at the tambourine. And so we march along singing and playing as if to a feast, and stopping only to laugh prodigiously when one or other fell out of tune—the most mad, light-hearted fools in the world;—but I speak not of Don Sanchez, who, feel what he might, never relaxed his high bearing or unbent his serious countenance.

One thing I remember of him on this journey. Having gone about five miles, we sat us down on a bridge to rest a while, and there the Don left us to go a little way up the course of the stream that flowed beneath, and he came back with a posey of sweet jonquils set off with a delicate kind of fern very pretty, and this he presents to Moll with a gracious little speech, which act, it seemed to me, was to let her know that he respected her still as a young gentlewoman in spite of her short petticoat, and Moll was not dull to the compliment neither; for, after the first cry of delight in seeing these natural dainty flowers (she loving such things beyond all else in the world), she bethought her to make him a curtsey and reply to his speech with another as good and well turned, as she set them in her waist scarf. Also I remember on this road we saw oranges and lemons growing for the first time, but full a mile after Moll had first caught their wondrous perfume in the air. And these trees, which are about the size of a crab tree, grew in close groves on either side of the road, with no manner of fence to protect them, so that any one is lief to pluck what he may without let, so plentiful are they, and curious to see how fruit and blossom grow together on the same bush, the lemons, as I hear, giving four crops in the year, and more delicious, full, and juicy than any to be bought in England at six to the groat.

We got a dinner of bread and cheese (very high) at a roadside house, and glad to have that, only no meat of any kind, but excellent good wine with dried figs and walnuts, which is the natural food of this country, where one may go a week without touching flesh and yet feel as strong and hearty at the end. And here very merry, Jack in his pertinacious, stubborn spirit declaring he would drink his wine in the custom of the country or none at all, and so lifting up the spouted mug at arm’s length he squirts the liquor all over his face, down his new clothes and everywhere but into his mouth, before he could arrive to do it like Don Sanchez; but getting into the trick of it, he so mighty proud of his achievement that he must drink pot after pot until he got as drunk as any lord. So after that, finding a retired place—it being midday and prodigious hot (though only now in mid-April)—we lay down under the orange trees and slept a long hour, to our great refreshment. Dawson on waking remembered nothing of his being drunk, and felt not one penny the worse for it. And so on another long stretch through sweet country, with here and there a glimpse of the Mediterranean, in the distance, of a surprising blueness, before we reached another town, and that on the top of a high hill. But it seems that all the towns in these parts (save those armed with fortresses) are thus built for security against the pirates, who ravage the seaboard of this continent incessantly from end to end. And for this reason the roads leading up to the town are made very narrow, tortuous, and difficult, with watch-towers in places, and many points where a few armed men lying in ambush may overwhelm an enemy ten times as strong. The towns themselves are fortified with gates, the streets extremely narrow and crooked, and the houses massed all together with secret passages one to another, and a network of little alleys leading whither only the inhabitants knew, so that if an enemy do get into them ’tis ten to one he will never come out alive.

It being market day in this town, here Jack and his daughter gave a show of dancing, first in their French suits, which were vastly admired, and after in their Spanish clothes; but then they were asked to dance a fandango, which they could not. However, we fared very well, getting the value of five shillings in little moneys, and the innkeepers would take nothing for our entertainment, because of the custom we had brought his house, which we considered very handsome on his part.

We set out again the next morning, but having shown how we passed the first day I need not dwell upon those which followed before we reached Barcelona, there being nothing of any great importance to tell. Only Moll was now all agog to learn the Spanish dances, and I cannot easily forget how, after much coaxing and wheedling on her part, she at length persuaded Don Sanchez to show her a fandango; for, surely, nothing in the world was ever more comic than this stately Don, without any music, and in the middle of the high road, cutting capers, with a countenance as solemn as any person at a burying. No one could be more quick to observe the ludicrous than he, nor more careful to avoid ridicule; therefore it said much for Moll’s cajolery, or for the love he bore her even at this time, to thus expose himself to Dawson’s rude mirth and mine in order to please her.

We reached Barcelona the 25th of April, and there we stayed till the 1st of May, for Moll would go no further before she had learnt a bolero and a fandango—which dances we saw danced at a little theatre excellently well, but in a style quite different to ours, and the women very fat and plain. And though Moll, being but a slight slip of a lass, in whom the warmer passions were unbegotten, could not give the bolero the voluptuous fervour of the Spanish dancers, yet in agility and in pretty innocent grace she did surpass them all to nought, which was abundantly proved when she danced it in our posada before a court full of Spaniards, for there they were like mad over her, casting their silk handkerchiefs at her feet in homage, and filling Jack’s tambourine three times over with cigarros and a plentiful scattering of rials. And I believe, had we stayed there, we might have made more money than ever we wanted at that time—though not so much as Don Sanchez had set his mind on; wherefore he would have us jogging again as soon as Moll could be brought to it.

From Barcelona, we journeyed a month to Valencia, growing more indolent with our easier circumstances, and sometimes trudging no more than five or six miles in a day. And we were, I think, the happiest, idlest set of vagabonds in existence. But, indeed, in this country there is not that spur to exertion which is for ever goading us in this. The sun fills one’s heart with content, and for one’s other wants a few halfpence a day will suffice, and if you have them not ’tis no such great matter. For these people are exceeding kind and hospitable; they will give you a measure of wine if you are thirsty, as we would give a mug of water, and the poorest man will not sit down to table without making you an offer to share what he has. Wherever we went we were well received, and in those poor villages where they had no money to give they would pay us for our show in kind, one giving us bed, another board, and filling our wallets ere we left ’em with the best they could afford.

‘Twas our habit to walk a few miles before dinner, to sleep in the shade during the heat of the day, and to reach a town (if possible) by the fall of the sun. There would we spend half the night in jollity, and lie abed late in the morning. The inns and big houses in these parts are built in the form of squares, enclosing an open court with a sort of arcade all round, and mostly with a grape-vine running over the sunnier side, and in this space we used to give our performance, by the light of oil lamps hung here and there conveniently, with the addition, maybe, of moonlight reflected from one of the white walls. Here any one was free to enter, we making no charge, but taking only what they would freely give. And this treatment engenders a feeling of kindness on both sides (very different to our sentiment at home, where we players as often as not dread the audience as a kind of enemy, ready to tear us to pieces if we fail to please), and ours was as great a pleasure to amuse as theirs to be amused. I can recall to mind nothing of any moment occurring on this journey, save that we spent some time every day in perfecting our Spanish dances, I getting to play the tunes correctly, which at first I made sad bungling of, and Dawson in learning of his steps. Also, he and Moll acquired the use of a kind of clappers, called costagnettes, which they play with their hands in these fandangos and boleros, with a very pleasing effect.

At Valencia we stayed a week and three days, lingering more than was necessary, in order to see a bull-fight. And this pastime they do not as we with dogs, but with men, and the bull quite free, and, save for the needless killing of horses, I think this a very noble exercise, being a fair trial of human address against brute force. And ’tis not nearly so beastly as seeing a prize fought by men, and not more cruel, I take it, than the shooting of birds and hares for sport, seeing that the agony of death is no greater for a sturdy bull than for a timid coney, and hath this advantage, that the bull, when exhausted, is despatched quickly, whereas the bird or hare may just escape capture, to die a miserable long death with a shattered limb.

From Valencia we travelled five weeks (growing, I think, more lazy every day), over very hilly country to Alicante, a seaport town very strongly protected by a castle on a great rock, armed with guns of brass and iron, so that the pirates dare never venture near. And here I fully thought we were to dawdle away another week at the least, this being a very populous and lively city, promising much entertainment. For Moll, when not playing herself, was mad to see others play, and she did really govern, with her subtle wiles and winning smiles, more than her father, for all his masterful spirit, or Don Sanchez with his stern authority. But seeing two or three English ships in the port, the Don deemed it advisable that we should push on at once for Elche, and, to our great astonishment, Moll consented to our speedy going without demur, though why, we could not then discover, but did soon after, as I shall presently show.

CHAPTER XI.

Of our first coming to Elche and the strangeness of that city.

Being resolved to our purpose overnight, we set out fairly early in the morning for Elche, which lies half a dozen leagues or thereabouts to the west of Alicante. Our way lay through gardens of oranges and spreading vineyards, which flourish exceedingly in this part, being protected from unkind winds by high mountains against the north and east; and here you shall picture us on the white, dusty road, Moll leading the way a dozen yards in advance, a tambourine slung on her back with streaming ribbons of many colours, taking two or three steps on one foot, and then two or three steps on t’other, with a Spanish twist of her hips at each turn, swinging her arms as she claps her costagnettes to the air of a song she had picked up at Barcelona, and we three men plodding behind, the Don with a guitar across his back, Dawson with our bundle of clothes, and I with a wallet of provisions hanging o’ one side and a skin of wine on the other—and all as white as any millers with the dust of Moll’s dancing.

“It might be as well,” says Don Sanchez, in his solemn, deliberate manner, “if Mistress Moll were advised to practise her steps in our rear.”

“Aye, Señor,” replied Dawson, “I’ve been of the same mind these last ten minutes. But with your consent, Don Sanchez, I’ll put her to a more serious exercise.”

The Don consenting with a bow, Jack continues:

“You may have observed that I haven’t opened my lips since we left the town, and the reason thereof is that I’ve been turning over in my mind whether, having come thus far, it would not be advisable to let my Moll know of our project. Because, if she should refuse, the sooner we consider some other plan, the better, seeing that now she is in good case and as careless as a bird on the bough, and she is less tractable to our purposes than when she felt the pinch of hunger and cold and would have jumped at anything for a bit of comfort.”

“Does she not know of our design?” asks the Don, lifting his eyebrows.

“No more than the man in the moon, Señor,” answers Jack. “For, though Kit and I may have discoursed of it at odd times, we have been mighty careful to shut our mouths or talk of a fine day at her approach.”

“Very good,” says Don Sanchez. “You are her father.”

“And she shall know it,” says Jack, with resolution, and taking a stride or two in advance he calls to her to give over dancing and come to him.

“Have you forgot your breeding,” he asks as she turns and waits for him, “that you have no more respect for your elders than to choke ’em with dust along of your shuffling?”

“What a thoughtless thing am I!” cries she, in a voice of contrition. “Why, you’re floured as white as a shade!”

Then taking up a corner of her waist-shawl, she gently rubs away the dust from the tip of his nose, so that it stood out glowing red from his face like a cherry through a hole in a pie-crust, at which she claps her hands and rings out a peal of laughter.

“I counted to make a lady of you, Moll,” says Jack, in sorrow, “but I see plainly you will ever be a fool, and so ’tis to no purpose to speak seriously.”

“Surely, father, I have ever been what you wish me to be,” answers she, demurely, curious now to know what he would be telling her.

“Then do you put them plaguy clappers away, and listen to me patiently,” says he.

Moll puts her hands behind her, and drawing a long lip and casting round eyes at us over her shoulder, walks along very slowly by her father’s side, while he broaches the matter to her. And this he did with some difficulty (for ’tis no easy thing to make a roguish plot look innocent), as we could see by his shifting his bundle from one shoulder to the other now and again, scratching his ear and the like; but what he said, we, walking a pace or two behind, could not catch, he dropping to a very low tone as if ashamed to hear his own voice. To all he has to tell she listens very attentively, but in the end she says something which causes him to stop dead short and turn upon her gaping like a pig.

“What!” he cries as we came up. “You knew all this two months ago?”

“Yes, father,” answers she, primly, “quite two months.”

“And pray who told you?” he asks.

“No one, father, since you forbade me to ask questions. But though I may be dumb to oblige you, I can’t be deaf. Kit and you are for ever a-talking of it.”

“Maybe, child,” says Dawson, mightily nettled. “Maybe you know why we left Alicante this morning.”

“I should be dull indeed if I didn’t,” answers she. “And if you hadn’t said when we saw the ships that we might meet more Englishmen in the town than we might care to know hereafter, why—well, maybe we should have been in Alicante now.”

“By denying yourself that satisfaction,” says Don Sanchez, “we may conclude that the future we are making for you is not unacceptable.”

Moll stopped and says with some passion:

“I would turn back now and go over those mountains the way we came to ride through France in my fine gown like a lady.”

“Brava! bravamente!” says the Don, in a low voice, as she steps on in front of us, holding her head high with the recollection of her former state.

“She was ever like that,” whispers Dawson, with pride. “We could never get her to play a mean part willingly; could we, Kit? She was for ever wanting the part of a queen writ for her.”

The next day about sundown, coming to a little eminence, Don Sanchez points out a dark patch of forest lying betwixt us and the mountains, and says:

“That is Elche, the place where we are to stay some months.”

We could make out no houses at all, but he told us the town lay in the middle of the forest, and added some curious particulars as how, lying on flat ground and within easy access of the sea, it could not exist at all but for the sufferance of the Spaniards on one side and of the Barbary pirates on the other, how both for their own convenience respected it as neutral ground on which each could exchange his merchandise without let or hindrance from the other, how the sort of sanctuary thus provided was never violated either by Algerine or Spaniard, but each was free to come and go as he pleased, etc., and this did somewhat reassure us, though we had all been more content to see our destination on the crest of a high hill.

From this point we came in less than half an hour to Santa Pola, a small village, but very bustling, for here the cart-road from Alicante ends, all transport of commodities betwixt this and Elche being done on mules; so here great commotion of carriers setting down and taking up merchandise, and the way choked with carts and mules and a very babel of tongues, there being Moors here as well as Spaniards, and all shouting their highest to be the better understood of each other. These were the first Moors we had seen, but they did not encourage us with great hopes of more intimate acquaintance, wearing nothing but a kind of long, ragged shirt to their heels, with a hood for their heads in place of a hat, and all mighty foul with grease and dirt.

Being astir betimes the next morning, we reached Elche before midday, and here we seemed to be in another world, for this region is no more like Spain than Spain is like our own country. Entering the forest, we found ourselves encompassed on all sides by prodigious high palm trees, which hitherto we had seen only singly here and there, cultivated as curiosities. And noble trees they are, standing eighty to a hundred feet high, with never a branch, but only a great spreading crown of leaves, with strings of dates hanging down from their midst. Beneath, in marshy places, grew sugar-canes as high as any haystack; and elsewhere were patches of rice, which grows like corn with us, but thrives well in the shade, curiously watered by artificial streams of water. And for hedges to their property, these Moors have agaves, with great spiky leaves which no man can penetrate, and other strange plants, whereof I will mention only one, they call the fig of Barbary, which is no fig at all, but a thing having large, fleshy leaves, growing one out of the other, with fruit and flower sprouting out of the edges, and all monstrous prickly. To garnish and beautify this formidable defence, nature had cast over all a network of creeping herbs with most extraordinary flowers, delightful both to see and smell, but why so prickly, no man can say.

“Surely, this must be paradise,” cries Moll, staying to look around her.

And we were of the same thinking, until we came to the town, which, as I have said, lies in the midst of this forest, and then all our hopes and expectations were dashed to the ground. For we had looked to find a city in keeping with these surroundings—of fairy palaces and stately mansions; in place whereof was nought but a wilderness of mean, low, squalid houses, with meandering, ill-paved alleys, and all past everything for unsavoury smells—heaps of refuse lying before every door, stark naked brats of children screaming everywhere, and a pack of famished dogs snapping at our heels.

Don Sanchez leads the way, we following, with rueful looks one at the other, till we reach the market-place, and there he takes us into a house of entertainment, where a dozen Moors are squatting on their haunches in groups about sundry bowls of a smoking mess, called cuscusson, which is a kind of paste with a little butter in it and a store of spices. Their manner of eating it is simple enough: each man dips his hand in the pot, takes out a handful, and dances it about till it is fashioned into a ball, and then he eats it with all the gusto in the world. For our repast we were served with a joint of roast mutton, and this being cut up, we had to take up in our hands and eat like any savages—their religion denying these Moors anything but the bare necessities of life. Also, their law forbids the drinking of wine, which did most upset Jack Dawson, he having for drink with his meat nothing but the choice of water and sour milk; but which he liked least I know not, for he would touch neither, saying he would rather go dry any day than be poisoned with such liquor.

Whilst we were at our meal, a good many Moors came in to stare at us, as at a raree show, and especially at Moll, whose bright clothes and loose hair excited their curiosity, for their women do rarely go abroad, except they be old, and wear only long dirty white robes, muffling the lower part of their faces. None of them smiled, and it is noticeable that these people, like our own Don, do never laugh, taking such demonstration as a sign of weak understanding and foolishness, but watching all our actions very intently. And presently an old Moor, with a white beard and more cleanly dressed than the rest, pushing the crowd aside to see what was forward, recognised Don Sanchez, who at once rose to his feet; we, not to be behind him in good manners, rising also.

“May Baba,” says the old Moor; and repeating this phrase thrice (which is a sure sign of hearty welcome), he claps the Don’s hand, without shaking it, and lays his own upon his breast, the Don doing likewise. Then Don Sanchez, introducing us as we understood by his gestures, the old Moor bends his head gravely, putting his right hand first to his heart, next to his forehead, and then kissing the two foremost fingers laid across his lips, we replying as best we could with a bowing and scraping. These formalities concluded, the Don and the old Moor walk apart, and we squat down again to our mutton bones.

After a lengthy discussion the old Moor goes, and Don Sanchez, having paid the reckoning, leads us out of the town by many crooked alleys and cross-passages; he speaking never a word, and we asking no questions, but marvelling exceedingly what is to happen next. And, following a wall overhung by great palms, we turn a corner, and find there our old Moor standing beside an open door with a key in his hand. The old Moor gives the key into Don Sanchez’s hand, and with a very formal salutation, leaves us.

Then following the Don through the doorway, we find ourselves in a spacious garden, but quite wild for neglect; flower and weed and fruit all mingling madly together, but very beautiful to my eye, nevertheless, for the abundance of colour, the richness of the vegetables, and the graceful forms of the adjacent palms.

A house stood in the midst of this wilderness, and thither Don Sanchez picked his way, we at his heels still too amazed to speak. Beside the house was a well with a little wall about it, and seating himself on this, Don Sanchez opens his lips for the first time.

“My friend, Sidi ben Ahmed, has offered me the use of this place as long as we choose to stay here,” says he. “Go look in the house and tell me if you care to live in it for a year.”

CHAPTER XII.

How Don Sanchez very honestly offers to free us of our bargain if we will; but we will not.

The house, like nearly all Moorish houses of this class, was simply one large and lofty room, with a domed ceiling built of very thick masonry, to resist the heat of the sun. There was neither window nor chimney, the door serving to admit light and air, and let out the smoke if a fire were lighted within. One half of this chamber was dug out to a depth of a couple of feet, for the accommodation of cattle (the litter being thrown into the hollow as it is needed, and nought removed till it reaches the level of the other floor), and above this, about eight feet from the ground and four from the roof, was a kind of shelf (the breadth and length of that half), for the storage of fodder and a sleeping-place for the inhabitants, with no kind of partition, or any issue for the foul air from the cattle below.

“Are we to live a year in this hutch?” asks Moll, in affright.

“Have done with your chatter, Moll!” answers Jack, testily. “Don’t you see I’m a-thinking? Heaven knows there’s enough to swallow without any bugbears of your raising.”

With that, having finished his inspection of the interior, he goes out and looks at it outside.

“Well,” says Don Sanchez, “what think you of the house?”

“Why, Señor, ’tis no worse as I can see than any other in these parts, and hath this advantage, which they have not, of being in a sweet air. With a bit of contrivance we could make a shift to live here well enough. We should not do amiss neither for furniture, seeing that ’tis the custom of the country to eat off the floor and sit upon nothing. A pot to cook victuals in is about all we need in that way. But how we are to get anything to cook in it is one mystery, and” (clacking his tongue) “what we are going to drink is another, neither of which I can fathom. For, look you, Señor, if one may judge of men’s characters by their faces or of their means by their habitations, we may dance our legs off ere ever these Moors will bestow a penny piece upon us, and as for their sour milk, I’d as lief drink hemlock, and liefer. Now, if this town had been as we counted on, like Barcelona, all had gone as merry as a marriage bell, for then might we have gained enough to keep us in jollity as long as you please; but here, if we die not of the colicks in a week, ’twill be to perish of starvation in a fortnight. What say you, Kit?”

I was forced to admit that I had never seen a town less likely to afford a subsistence than this.

Then Don Sanchez, having heard us with great patience, and waited a minute to see if we could raise any further objections, answers us in measured tones.

“I doubt not,” says he, “that with a little ingenuity you may make the house habitable and this wilderness agreeable. My friend, Sidi ben Ahmed, has offered to provide us with what commodities are necessary to that end. I agree with you that it would be impossible to earn the meanest livelihood here by dancing; it would not be advisable if we could. For that reason, my knowledge of various tongues making me very serviceable to Sidi ben Ahmed (who is the most considerable merchant of this town), I have accepted an office in his house. This will enable me to keep my engagement with you. You will live at my charge, as I promised, and you shall want for nothing in reason. If the Moors drink no wine themselves, they make excellent for those who will, and you shall not be stinted in that particular.”

“Come, this sounds fair enough,” cries Dawson. “But pray, Señor, are we to do nothing for our keep?”

“Nothing beyond what we came here to do,” replies he, with a meaning glance at Moll.

“What!” cries poor Moll, in pain. “We are to dance no more!”

The Don shook his head gravely; and, remembering the jolly, vagabond, careless, adventurous life we had led these past two months and more, with a thousand pleasant incidents of our happy junketings, we were all downcast at the prospect of living in this place—though a paradise—for a year without change.

“Though I promised you no more than I offer,” says the Don, “yet if this prospect displease you, we will cry quits and part here. Nay,” adds he, taking a purse from his pocket, “I will give you the means to return to Alicante, where you may live as better pleases you.”

It seemed to me that there was an unfeigned carelessness in his manner, as if he would as lief as not throw up this hazardous enterprise for some other more sure undertaking. And, indeed, I believe he was then balancing another alternative in his mind.

At this generous offer Moll dashed away the tears that had sprung to her eyes, brightening up wonderfully, but then, casting her eyes upon the Don, her face fell again as at the thought of leaving him. For we all admired him, and she prodigiously, for his great reserve and many good qualities which commanded respect, and this feeling was tinged in her case, I believe, with a kind of growing affection.

Seeing this sentiment in her eyes, the Don was clearly touched by it, and so, laying his hand gently on her shoulder, he says:

“My poor child, remember you the ugly old women we saw dancing at Barcelona? They were not more than forty; what will they be like in a few years? Who will tolerate them? who love them? Is that the end you choose for your own life—that the estate to which our little princess shall fall?”

“No, no, no!” cries she, in a passion, clenching her little hands and throwing up her head in disdain.

“And no, no, no, say I,” cries Dawson. “Were our case ten times as bad, I’d not go back from my word. As it is, we are not to be pitied, and I warrant ere long we make ourselves to be envied. Come, Kit, rouse you out of your lethargies, and let us consult how we may improve our condition here; and do you, Señor, pray order us a little of that same excellent wine you spoke of, if it be but a pint, when you feel disposed that way.”

The Don inclined his head, but lingered, talking to Moll very gravely, and yet tenderly, for some while, Dawson and I going into the house to see what we could make of it; and then, telling us we should see him no more till the next day, he left us. But for some time after he was gone Moll sat on the side of the well, very pensive and wistful, as one to whom the future was opened for the first time.

Anon comes a banging at our garden gate, which Moll had closed behind the Don; and, going to it, we find a Moorish boy with a barrow charged with many things. We could not understand a word he said, but Dawson decided these chattels were sent us by the Don, by perceiving a huge hogskin of wine, for which he thanked God and Don Sanchez an hundred times over. So these commodities we carried up to the house, marvelling greatly at the Don’s forethought and generosity, for here were a score of things over and above those we had already found ourselves lacking; namely, earthen pipkins and wooden vessels, a bag of charcoal, a box of carpenters’ tools (which did greatly like Dawson, he having been bred a carpenter in his youth), instruments for gardening (to my pleasure, as I have ever had a taste for such employment), some very fine Moorish blankets, etc. So when the barrow was discharged, Dawson gives the lad some rials out of his pocket, which pleased him also mightily.

Then, first of all, Dawson unties the leg of the hogskin, and draws off a quart of wine, very carefully securing the leg after, and this we drank to our great refreshment; and next Moll, being awoke from her dreams and eager to be doing, sets herself to sort out our goods, such as belong to us (as tools, etc.), on one side, and such as belong to her (as pipkins and the rest) on the other. Leaving her to this employment, Dawson and I, armed with a knife and bagging hook, betake ourselves to a great store of canes stacked in one corner of the garden, and sorting out those most proper to our purpose, we lopped them all of an equal length, and shouldering as many as we could carried them up to our house. Here we found Moll mighty jubilant in having got her work done, and admirably she had done it, to be sure. For, having found a long recess in the wall, she had brushed it out clean with a whisp of herbs, and stored up her crocks according to their size, very artificial, with a dish of oranges plucked from the tree at our door on one side, and a dish of almonds on the other, a pipkin standing betwixt ’em with a handsome posey of roses in it. She had spread a mat on the floor, and folded up our fine blankets to serve for cushions; and all that did not belong to her she had bundled out of sight into that hollowed side I have mentioned as being intended for cattle.

After we had sufficiently admired the performance, she told us she had a mind to give us a supper of broth. “But,” says she, “the Don has forgotten that we must eat, and hath sent us neither bread nor flesh nor salt.”

This put us to a stumble, for how to get these things we knew not; but Moll declared she would get all she needed if we could only find the money.

“Why, how?” asks Jack. “You know not their gibberish.”

“That may be,” answers she, “but I warrant the same language that bought me this petticoat will get us a supper.”

So we gave her what money we had, and she went off a-marketing, with as much confidence as if she were a born Barbary Moor. Then Jack falls to thanking God for blessing him with such a daughter, at the same time taking no small credit to himself for having bred her to such perfection, and in the midst of his encomiums, being down in the hollow searching for his hammer, he cries:

“Plague take the careless baggage! she has spilled all our nails, and here’s an hour’s work to pick ’em up!”

This accident was repaired, however, and Moll’s transgression forgotten when she returned with an old woman carrying her purchases. Then were we forced to admire her skill in this business, for she had bought all that was needful for a couple of meals, and yet had spent but half our money. Now arose the difficult question how to make a fire, and this Jack left us to settle by our own devices, he returning to his own occupation. Moll resolved we should do our cooking outside the house, so here we built up a kind of grate with stones; and, contriving to strike a spark with the back of a jack-knife and a stone, upon a heap of dried leaves, we presently blew up a fine flame, and feeding this with the ends of cane we had cut and some charcoal, we at last got a royal fire on which to set our pot of mutton. And into this pot we put rice and a multitude of herbs from the garden, which by the taste we thought might serve to make a savoury mess. And, indeed, when it began to boil, the odour was so agreeable that we would have Jack come out to smell it. And he having praised it very highly, we in return went in to look at his handiwork and praise that. This we could do very heartily and without hypocrisy, for he had worked well and made a rare good job, having built a very seemly partition across the room, by nailing of the canes perpendicularly to that kind of floor that hung over the hollowed portion, thus making us now three rooms out of one. At one end he had left an opening to enter the cavity below and the floor above by the little ladder that stood there, and these canes were set not so close together but that air and light could pass betwixt them, and yet from the outer side no eye could see within, which was very commodious. Also upon the floor above, he had found sundry bundles of soft dried leaves, and these, opened out upon the surface of both chambers, made a very sweet, convenient bed upon which to lie. Then Dawson offering Moll her choice, she took the upper floor for her chamber, leaving us two the lower; and so, it being near sundown by this time, we to our supper in the sweet, cool air of evening, all mightily content with one another, and not less satisfied with our stew, which was indeed most savoury and palatable. This done, we took a turn round our little domain, admiring the many strange and wonderful things that grew there (especially the figs, which, though yet green, were wondrous pleasant to eat); and I laying out my plans for the morrow, how to get this wilderness into order, tear out the worthless herbs, dig the soil, etc., Dawson’s thoughts running on the building of an outhouse for the accommodation of our wine, tools, and such like, and Moll meditating on dishes to give us for our repasts. And at length, when these divers subjects were no more to be discussed, we turned into our dormitories, and fell asleep mighty tired, but as happy as princes.

CHAPTER XIII.

A brief summary of those twelve months we spent at Elche.

The surprising activity with which we attacked our domestic business at Elche lasted about two days and a half—Dawson labouring at his shed, I at the cultivation of the garden, and Moll quitting her cooking and household affairs, as occasion permitted, to lend a helping hand first to her father and then to me. And as man, when this fever of enterprise is upon him, must for ever be seeking to add to his cares, we persuaded Don Sanchez to let us have two she-goats to stall in the shed and consume our waste herbage, that we might have milk and get butter, which they do in these parts by shaking the cream in a skin bag (a method that seems simple enough till you have been shaking the bag for twenty minutes in vain on a sultry morning) without cost. But the novelty of the thing wearing off, our eagerness rapidly subsided, and so about the third day (as I say), the heat being prodigious, we toiled with no spirit at all.

Dawson was the first to speak his mind. Says he, coming to me whilst I was still sweating over my shovel:

“I’ve done it, but hang me if I do more. There’s a good piece of work worth thirty shillings of any man’s money, but who’ll give me a thank ye for it when we leave here next year?”

And then he can find nothing better to do than fall a-commenting on my labours, saying there was but precious little to show for my efforts, that had he been in my place he would have ordered matters otherwise, and begun digging t’other end, wagering that I should give up my job before it was quarter done, etc., all which was mighty discouraging and the more unpleasant because I felt there was a good deal of truth in what he said.

Consequently, I felt a certain malicious enjoyment the next morning upon finding that the goats had burst out one side of his famous shed, and got loose into the garden, which enabled me to wonder that two such feeble creatures could undo such a good thirty shillings’ worth of work, etc. But ere I was done galling him, I myself was mortified exceedingly to find these mischievous brutes had torn up all the plants I had set by the trees in the shade as worthy of cultivation, which gave Jack a chance for jibing at me. But that which embittered us as much as anything was to have Moll holding her sides for laughter at our attempts to catch these two devilish goats, which to our cost we found were not so feeble, after all; for getting one up in a corner, she raises herself up on her hind legs and brings her skull down with such a smack on my knee that I truly thought she had broke my cramp-bone, whilst t’other, taking Dawson in the ankles with her horns, as he was reaching forward to lay hold of her, lay him sprawling in our little stream of water. Nor do I think we should ever have captured them, but that, giving over our endeavours from sheer fatigue, they of their own accord sauntered into the shed for shelter from the sun, where Moll clapt to the door upon them, and set her back against the gap in the side, until her father came with a hammer and some stout nails to secure the planks. So for the rest of that day Jack and I lay on our backs in the shade, doing nothing, but exceedingly sore one against the other for these mischances.

But our heart burnings ended not there; for coming in to supper at sundown, Moll has nothing to offer us but dry bread and a dish of dates, which, though it be the common supper of the Moors in this place, was little enough to our satisfaction, as Dawson told her in pretty round terms, asking her what she was good for if not to give us a meal fit for Christians, etc., and stating very explicitly what he would have her prepare for our dinner next day. Moll takes her upbraiding very humbly (which was ever a bad sign), and promises to be more careful of our comfort in the future. And so ended that day.

The next morning Dawson and I make no attempt at work, but after breakfast, by common accord, stretch us out under the palms to meditate; and there about half past ten, Don Sanchez, coming round to pay us a visit, finds us both sound asleep. A sudden exclamation from him aroused us, and as we stumbled to our feet, staring about us, we perceived Moll coming from the house, but so disfigured with smuts of charcoal all over her face and hands, we scarce knew her.

“God’s mercy!” cries the Don. “What on earth have you been doing, child?”

To which Moll replies with a curtsey:

“I am learning to be a cook-wench, Señor, at my father’s desire.”

“You are here,” answers the Don, with a frown, “to learn to be a lady. If a cook-wench is necessary, you shall have one” (this to us), “and anything else that my means may afford. You will do well to write me a list of your requirements; but observe,” adds he, turning on his heel, “we may have to stay here another twelvemonth, if my economies are not sufficient by the end of the first year to take us hence.”

This hint brought us to our senses very quickly, and overtaking him ere he reached our garden gate, Dawson and I assured the Don we had no need of any servant, and would be careful that Moll henceforth did no menial office; that we would tax his generosity no more than we could help, etc., to our great humiliation when we came to reflect on our conduct.

Thenceforth Dawson charged himself with the internal economy of the house, and I with that part which concerned the custody and care of the goats, the cultivation of pot-herbs and with such instruction of Moll in the Italian tongue as I could command. But to tell the truth, we neither of us did one stroke of work beyond what was absolutely necessary, and especially Dawson, being past everything for indolence, did so order his part that from having two dishes of flesh a day, we came, ere long, to getting but one mess a week; he forcing himself and us to be content with dates and bread for our repasts, rather than give himself the trouble of boiling a pot. Beyond browsing my goats, drawing their milk (the making of butter I quickly renounced), and watering my garden night and morn (which is done by throwing water from the little stream broadcast with a shovel on either side), I did no more than Dawson, but joined him in yawning the day away, for which my sole excuse is the great heat of this region, which doth beget most slothful humours in those matured in cooler climes.

With Moll, however, the case was otherwise; for she, being young and of an exceeding vivacious, active disposition, must for ever be doing of something, and lucky for us when it was not some mischievous trick at our expense—as letting the goats loose, shaking lemons down on our heads as we lay asleep beneath it, and the like. Being greatly smitten with the appearance of the Moorish women (who, though they are not permitted to wander about at will like our women, are yet suffered to fetch water from the public fountains), she surprised us one morning by coming forth dressed in their mode. And this dress, which seems to be nought but a long sheet wound loosely twice or thrice about the body, buckled on the shoulder, with holes for the arms to be put through in the manner of the old Greeks, became her surprisingly; and we noticed then for the first time that her arms were rounder and fuller than when we had last seen them bare. Then, to get the graceful, noble bearing of the Moors, she practised day after day carrying a pitcher of water on her head as they do, until she could do this with perfect ease and sureness. In this habit the Don, who was mightily pleased with her looks, took her to the house of his friend and employer, Sidi ben Ahmed, where she ingratiated herself so greatly with the women of his household that they would have her come to them again the next day, and after that the next—indeed, thenceforth she spent far more of her time with these new friends than with us. And here, from the necessity of making herself understood, together with an excellent memory and a natural aptitude, she learned to speak the Moorish tongue in a marvellously short space of time. Dawson and I were frequently asked to accompany Moll, and we went twice to this house, which, though nothing at all to look at outside, was very magnificently furnished within, and the entertainment most noble. But Lord! ’twas the most tedious, wearisome business for us, who could make out never a word of the civil speeches offered us without the aid of Don Sanchez and Moll, and then could think of no witty response, but could only sit there grinning like Gog and Magog. Still, it gave us vast pleasure to see how Moll carried herself with this company, talking as freely as they, yet holding herself with the dignity of an equal, and delighting all by her vivacity and sly, pretty ways.

I think no country in Europe can be richer than this Elche in fruits and vegetation, more beautiful in its surrounding aspects of plain and mountain, more blessed with constant, glorious sunlight; and the effect of these charms upon the quick, receptive spirit of our Molly was like a gentle May upon a nightingale, so that the days were all too short for her enjoyment, and she must need vent her happiness in song; but on us they made no more impression than on two owls in a tower, nay, if anything they did add to that weariness which arose from our lack of occupation. For here was no contrast in our lives, one day being as like another as two peas in a pod, and having no sort of adversities to give savour to our ease, we found existence the most flat, insipid, dull thing possible. I remember how, on Christmas day, Dawson did cry out against the warm sunshine as a thing contrary to nature, wishing he might stand up to his knees in snow in a whistling wind, and taking up the crock Moll had filled with roses (which here bloom more fully in the depth of winter than with us in the height of summer), he flung it out of the door with a curse for an unchristian thing to have in the house on such a day.

As soon as the year had turned, we began to count the days to our departure, and thenceforth we could think of nought but what we would do with our fortune when we got it; and, the evenings being long, we would set the bag of wine betwixt us after our supper of dates, and sit there for hours discussing our several projects. Moll being with us (for in these parts no womankind may be abroad after sundown), she would take part in these debates with as much gusto as we. For though she was not wearied of her life here as we were, yet she was possessed of a very stirring spirit of adventure, and her quick imagination furnished endless visions of lively pleasures and sumptuous living. We agreed that we would live together, and share everything in common as one family, but not in such an outlandish spot as Chislehurst. That estate we would have nothing to do with; but, selling it at once, have in its place two houses—one city house in the Cheap, and a country house not further from town than Bednal Green, or Clerkenwell at the outside, to the end that when we were fatigued with the pleasures of the town, we might, by an easy journey, resort to the tranquillity of rural life, Dawson declaring what wines he would have laid down in our cellars, I what books should furnish our library, and Moll what dresses she would wear (not less than one for every month of the year), what coaches and horses we should keep, what liveries our servants should wear, what entertainments we would give, and so forth. Don Sanchez was not excluded from our deliberations; indeed, he encouraged us greatly by approving of all our plans, only stipulating that we would guard one room for him in each of our houses, that he might feel at home in our society whenever he chanced to be in our neighbourhood. In all these arguments, there was never one word of question from any of us as to the honesty of our design. We had settled that, once and for all, before starting on this expedition; and since then, little by little, we had come to regard the Godwin estate as a natural gift, as freely to be taken as a blackberry from the hedge. Nay, I believe Dawson and I would have contested our right to it by reason of the pains we were taking to possess it.

And now, being in the month of June, and our year of exile (as it liked us to call it) nigh at an end, Dawson one night put the question to Don Sanchez, which had kept us fluttering in painful suspense these past six months, whether he had saved sufficient by his labours, to enable us to return to England ere long.

“Yes,” says he, gravely, at which we did all heave one long sigh of relief, “I learn that a convoy of English ships is about to sail from Alicante in the beginning of July, and if we are happy enough to find a favourable opportunity, we will certainly embark in one of them.”

“Pray, Señor,” says I, “what may that opportunity be; for ’tis but two days’ march hence to Alicante, and we may do it with a light foot in one.”

“The opportunity I speak of,” answers he, “is the arrival, from Algeria, of a company of pirates, whose good service I hope to engage in putting us aboard an English ship under a flag of truce as redeemed slaves from Barbary.”

“Pirates!” cry we, in a low breath.

“What, Señor!” adds Dawson, “are we to trust ourselves to the mercy and honesty of Barbary pirates on the open sea?”

“I would rather trust to their honesty,” answers the Don, dropping his voice that he might not be heard by Moll, who was leading home the goats, “than to the mercy of an English judge, if we should be brought to trial with insufficient evidence to support our story.”

Jack and I stared at each other aghast at this talk of trial, which had never once entered into our reckoning of probabilities.

“If I know aught of my fellow-men,” continues the Don, surely and slow, “that grasping steward will not yield up his trust before he has made searching enquiry into Moll’s claim, act she her part never so well. We cannot refuse to give him the name of the ship that brought us home, and, learning that we embarked at Alicante, jealous suspicion may lead him to seek further information there; with what result?”

“Why, we may be blown with a vengeance, if he come ferreting so nigh as that,” says Dawson, “and we are like to rot in gaol for our pains.”

“You may choose to run that risk; I will not,” says the Don.

“Nor I either,” says Dawson, “and God forgive me for overlooking such a peril to my Moll. But, do tell me plainly, Señor, granting these pirates be the most honest thieves in the world, is there no other risk to fear?”

The Don hunched his shoulders.

“Life itself is a game,” says he, “in which the meanest stroke may not be won without some risk; but, played as I direct, the odds are in our favour. Picked up at sea from an Algerine boat, who shall deny our story when the evidence against us lies there” (laying his hand out towards the south), “where no man in England dare venture to seek it?”

“Why, to be sure,” says Dawson; “that way all hangs together to a nicety. For only a wizard could dream of coming hither for our undoing.”

“For the rest,” continues the Don, thoughtfully, “there is little to fear. Judith Godwin has eyes the colour of Moll’s, and in all else Simon must expect to find a change since he last saw his master’s daughter. They were in Italy three years. That would make Judith a lisping child when she left England. He must look to find her altered. Why,” adds he, in a more gentle voice, as if moved by some inner feeling of affection and admiration, nodding towards Moll, “see how she has changed in this little while. I should not know her for the raw, half-starved spindle of a thing she was when I saw her first playing in the barn at Tottenham Cross.”

Looking at her now (browsing the goats amongst my most cherished herbs), I was struck also by this fact, which, living with her day by day, had slipped my observation somewhat. She was no longer a gaunt, ungainly child, but a young woman, well proportioned, with a rounded cheek and chin, brown tinted by the sun, and, to my mind, more beautiful than any of their vaunted Moorish women. But, indeed, in this country all things do mature quickly; and ’twas less surprising in her case because her growth had been checked before by privation and hardship, whereas since our coming hither it had been aided by easy circumstances and good living.

CHAPTER XIV.

Of our coming to London (with incidents by the way), and of the great address whereby Moll confounds Simon, the steward.

On the third day of July, all things falling in pat with the Don’s design, we bade farewell to Elche, Dawson and I with no sort of regret, but Moll in tears at parting from those friends she had grown to love very heartily. And these friends would each have her take away something for a keepsake, such as rings to wear on her arms and on her ankles (as is the Moorish fashion), silk shawls, etc., so that she had quite a large present of finery to carry away; but we had nothing whatever but the clothes we stood in, and they of the scantiest, being simply long shirts and “bernouses” such as common Moors wear. For the wise Don would let us take nought that might betray our sojourn in Spain, making us even change our boots for wooden sandals, he himself being arrayed no better than we. Nor was this the only change insisted on by our governor; for on Dawson bidding Moll in a surly tone to give over a shedding of tears, Don Sanchez turns upon him, and says he:

“It is time to rehearse the parts we are to play. From this day forth your daughter is Mistress Judith Godwin, you are Captain Robert Evans, and you” (to me), “Mr. Hopkins, the merchant. Let us each play our part with care, that we do not betray ourselves by a slip in a moment of unforeseen danger.”

“You are in the right, Señor,” answers Jack, “for I doubt it must be a hard task to forget that Mistress Judith is my daughter, as it is for a loving father to hold from chiding of his own flesh and blood; so I pray you, Madam” (to Moll), “bear that in mind and vex me no more.”

We lay this lesson seriously to heart, Dawson and I, for the Don’s hint that we might end our career in gaol did still rankle woundily in our minds. And so very soberly we went out of the forest of Elche in the night on mules lent us by Sidi ben Ahmed, with a long cavalcade of mules charged with merchandise for embarking on board the pirates’ vessel, and an escort of some half-dozen fierce-looking corsairs armed with long firelocks and a great store of awesome crooked knives stuck in their waist-cloths.

After journeying across the plain, we came about midday to the seaboard, and there we spied, lying in a sheltered bay, a long galley with three masts, each dressed with a single cross-spar for carrying a leg-of-mutton sail, and on the shore a couple of ship’s boats with a company of men waiting to transport our goods and us aboard. And here our hearts quaked a bit at the thought of trusting ourselves in the hands of these same murderous-looking pirates. Nevertheless, when our time came we got us into their boat, recommending ourselves very heartily to God’s mercy, and so were rowed out to the galley, where we were very civilly received by an old Moor with a white beard, who seemed well acquainted with Don Sanchez. Then the merchandise being all aboard, and the anchor up, the men went to their oars, a dozen of each side, and rowed us out of the bay until, catching a little wind of air, the sails were run up, and we put out to sea very bravely.

“Señor,” says Dawson, “I know not how I am to play this part of a sea-captain when we are sent on board an English ship, for if they ask me any questions on this business of navigating, I am done for a certainty.”

“Rest easy on that score, Evans,” replies the Don. “I will answer for you, for I see very clearly by your complexion that you will soon be past answering them yourself.”

And this forecast was quickly verified; for ere the galley had dipped a dozen times to the waves, poor Dawson was laid low with a most horrid sickness like any dying man.

By sundown we sighted the island of Maggiore, and in the roads there we cast anchor for the night, setting sail again at daybreak; and in this latitude we beat up and down a day and a night without seeing any sail, but on the morning of the third day a fleet of five big ships appeared to the eastward, and shifting our course we bore down upon them with amazing swiftness. Then when we were near enough to the foremast to see her English flag and the men aboard standing to their deck guns for a defence, our old Moor fires a gun in the air, takes in his sails, and runs up a great white flag for a sign of peace. And now with shrewd haste a boat was lowered, and we were set in it with a pair of oars, and the old pirate bidding us farewell in his tongue, clapt on all sail and stood out before the wind, leaving us there to shift for ourselves. Don Sanchez took one oar, and I t’other—Dawson lying in the bottom and not able to move a hand to save his life—and Moll held the tiller, and so we pulled with all our force, crying out now and then for fear we should not be seen, till by God’s providence we came alongside the Talbot of London, and were presently hoisted aboard without mishap. Then the captain of the Talbot and his officers gathering about us were mighty curious to know our story, and Don Sanchez very briefly told how we had gone in the Red Rose of Bristol to redeem two ladies from slavery; how we had found but one of these ladies living (at this Moll buries her face in her hands as if stricken with grief); how, on the eve of our departure, some of our crew in a drunken frolic had drowned a Turk of Alger, for which we were condemned by their court to pay an indemnity far and away beyond our means; how they then made this a pretext to seize our things, though we were properly furnished with the Duke’s pass, and hold our men in bond; and how having plundered us of all we had, and seeing there was no more to be got, they did offer us our freedom for a written quittance of all they had taken for their justification if ever they should be brought to court; and finally, how, accepting of these conditions, we were shipped aboard their galley with nothing in the world but a few trifles, begged by Mistress Judith in remembrance of her mother.

This story was accepted without any demur; nay, Captain Ballcock, being one of those men who must ever appear to know all things, supported it in many doubtful particulars, saying that he remembered the Rose of Bristol quite well; that he himself had seen a whole ship’s crew sold into slavery for no greater offence than breaking a mosque window; that the Duke’s pass counted for nothing with these Turks; that he knew the galley we were brought in as well as he knew Paul’s Church, having chased it a dozen times, yet never got within gunshot for her swift sailing, etc., which did much content us to hear.

But the officers were mighty curious to know what ailed Captain Robert Evans (meaning Dawson), fearing he might be ill of the plague; however, on the Don’s vowing that he was only sick of a surfeit, Captain Ballcock declared he had guessed it the moment he clapt eyes on him, as he himself had been taken of the same complaint with only eating a dish of pease pudding. Nevertheless, he ordered the sick man to be laid in a part of the ship furthest from his quarters, and so great was the dread of pestilence aboard that (as his sickness continued) not a soul would venture near him during the whole voyage except ourselves, which also fell in very well with our wishes. And so after a fairly prosperous voyage we came up the Thames to Chatham, the third day of August.

We had been provided with some rough seamen’s clothes for our better covering on the voyage; but now, being landed, and lodged in the Crown inn at Chatham, Don Sanchez would have the captain take them all back.

“But,” says he, “if you will do us yet another favour, Captain, will you suffer one of your men to carry a letter to Mistress Godwin’s steward at Chislehurst, that he may come hither to relieve us from our present straits?”

“Aye,” answers he, “I will take the letter gladly, myself; for nothing pleases me better than a ramble in the country where I was born and bred.”

So Moll writes a letter at once to Simon, bidding him come at once to her relief; and Captain Ballcock, after carefully enquiring his way to this place he knew so well (as he would have us believe), starts off with it, accompanied by his boatswain, a good-natured kind of lick-spittle, who never failed to back up his captain’s assertions, which again was to our great advantage; for Simon would thus learn our story from his lips, and find no room to doubt its veracity.

As soon as these two were out of the house, Dawson, who had been carried from the ship and laid in bed, though as hale since we passed the Godwins as ever he was in his life before, sprang up, and declared he would go to bed no more, for all the fortunes in the world, till he had supped on roast pork and onions—this being a dish he greatly loved, but not to be had at Elche, because the Moors by their religion forbid the use of swine’s flesh—and seeing him very determined on this head, Don Sanchez ordered a leg of pork to be served in our chamber, whereof Dawson did eat such a prodigious quantity, and drank therewith such a vast quantity of strong ale (which he protested was the only liquor an Englishman could drink with any satisfaction), that in the night he was seized with most severe cramp in his stomach. This gave us the occasion to send for a doctor in the morning, who, learning that Jack had been ill ever since we left Barbary, and not understanding his present complaint, pulled a very long face, and, declaring his case was very critical, bled him copiously, forbade him to leave his bed for another fortnight, and sent him in half a dozen bottles of physic. About midday he returns, and, finding his patient no better, administers a bolus; and while we are all standing about the bed, and Dawson the colour of death, and groaning, betwixt the nausea of the drug he had swallowed and the cramp in his inwards, in comes our Captain Ballcock and the little steward.

“There!” cries he, turning on Simon, “did not I tell you that my old friend Evans lay at death’s door with the treatment he hath received of these Barbary pirates? Now will you be putting us off with your doubts and your questionings? Shall I have up my ship’s company to testify to the truth of my history? Look you, Madam,” (to Moll), “we had all the trouble in the world to make this steward of yours do your bidding; but he should have come though we had to bring him by the neck and heels, and a pox to him—saving your presence.”

“But this is not Simon,” says Moll, with a pretty air of innocence. “I seem to remember Simon a bigger man than he.”

“You must consider, Madam,” says Don Sanchez, “that then you were very small, scarce higher than his waist, maybe, and so you would have to look up into his face.”

“I did not think of that. And are you really Simon, who used to scold me for plucking fruit?”

“Yea, verily,” answers he. “Doubt it not, for thou also hast changed beyond conception. And so it hath come to pass!” he adds, staring round at us in our Moorish garb like one bewildered. “And thou art my mistress now” (turning again to Moll).

“Alas!” says she, bowing her head and covering her eyes with her hand.

“Han’t I told you so, unbelieving Jew Quaker!” growls Captain Ballcock, in exasperation. “Why will you plague the unhappy lady with her loss?”

“We will leave Evans to repose,” says Moll, brushing her eyes and turning to the door. “You will save his life, Doctor, for he has given me mine.”

The doctor vowed he would, if bleeding and boluses could make him whole, and so, leaving him with poor groaning Dawson, we went into the next chamber. And there Captain Ballcock was for taking his leave; but Moll, detaining him, says:

“We owe you something more than gratitude—we have put you to much expense.”

“Nay,” cries he. “I will take nought for doing a common act of mercy.”

“You shall not be denied the joy of generosity,” says she, with a sweet grace. “But you must suffer me to give your ship’s company some token of my gratitude.” Then turning to Simon with an air of authority, she says, “Simon, I have no money.”

The poor man fumbled in his pocket, and bringing out a purse, laid it open, showing some four or five pieces of silver and one of gold, which he hastily covered with his hand.

“I see you have not enough,” says Moll, and taking up a pen she quickly wrote some words on a piece of paper, signing it “Judith Godwin.” Then showing it to Simon, she says, “You will pay this when it is presented to you,” and therewith she folds it and places it in the captain’s hand, bidding him farewell in a pretty speech.

“A hundred pounds! a hundred pounds!” gasps Simon, under his breath, in an agony and clutching up his purse to his breast.

“I am astonished,” says Moll, returning from the door, and addressing Simon, with a frown upon her brow, “that you are not better furnished to supply my wants, knowing by my letter how I stand.”

“Mistress,” replies he, humbly, “here is all I could raise upon such sudden notice”—laying his purse before her.

“What is this?” cries she, emptying the contents upon the table. “’Tis nothing. Here is barely sufficient to pay for our accommodation in this inn. Where is the money to discharge my debt to these friends who have lost all in saving me? You were given timely notice of their purpose.”

“Prithee, be patient with me, gentle mistress. ’Tis true, I knew of their intent, but they were to have returned in six months, and when they came not at the end of the year I did truly give up all for lost; and so I made a fresh investment of thy fortune, laying it out all in life bonds and houses, to great worldly advantage, as thou shalt see in good time. Ere long I may get in some rents—”

“And in the meanwhile are we to stay in this plight—to beg for charity?” asks Moll, indignantly. “Nay, mistress. Doubtless for your present wants this kind merchant friend—”

“We have lost all,” says I, “Evans his ship, and I the lading in which all my capital was embarked.”

“And I every maravedi I possessed,” adds the Don.

“And had they not,” cries Moll, “were they possessed now of all they had, think you that I with an estate, as I am told, of sixty thousand pounds would add to the debt I owe them by one single penny!”

“If I may speak in your steward’s defence, Madam,” says I, humbly, “I would point out that the richest estate is not always readily converted into money. ’Tis like a rich jewel which the owner, though he be starving, must hold till he find a market.”

“Thee hearest him, mistress,” cries Simon, in delight. “A man of business—a merchant who knows these things. Explain it further, friend, for thine are words of precious wisdom.”

“With landed property the case is even more difficult. Tenants cannot be forced to pay rent before it is due, nor can their messuages be sold over their heads. And possibly all your capital is invested in land—”

“Every farthing that could be scraped together,” says Simon, “and not a rood of it but is leased to substantial men. Oh! what excellent discourse! Proceed further, friend.”

“Nevertheless,” says I, “there are means of raising money upon credit. If he live there still, there is a worthy Jew in St. Mary Axe, who upon certain considerations of interest—”

“Hold, friend,” cries Simon. “What art thee thinking of? Wouldst deliver my simple mistress into the hands of Jew usurers?”

“Not without proper covenants made out by lawyers and attorneys.”

“Lawyers, attorneys, and usurers! Heaven have mercy upon us! Verily, thee wouldst infest us with a pest, and bleed us to death for our cure.”

“I will have such relief as I may,” says Moll; “so pray, sir, do send for these lawyers and Jews at once, and the quicker, since my servant seems more disposed to hinder than to help me.”

“Forbear, mistress; for the love of God, forbear!” cries Simon, in an agony, clasping his hands. “Be not misguided by this foolish merchant, who hath all to gain and nought to lose by this proceeding. Give me but a little space, and their claims shall be met, thy desires shall be satisfied, and yet half of thy estate be saved, which else must be all devoured betwixt these ruthless money-lenders and lawyers. I can make a covenant more binding than any attorney, as I have proved again and again, and” (with a gulp) “if money must be raised at once, I know an honest, a fairly honest, goldsmith in Lombard Street who will lend at the market rate.”

“These gentlemen,” answers Moll, turning to us, “may not choose to wait, and I will not incommode them for my own convenience.”

“Something for our present need we must have, Madam,” says the Don, with a significant glance at his outlandish dress; “but those wants supplied, I am content to wait.”

“And you, sir?” says Moll to me.

“With a hundred or two,” says I, taking Don Sanchez’s hint, “we may do very well till Michaelmas.”

“Be reasonable, gentlemen,” implores Simon, mopping his eyes, which ran afresh at this demand. “’Tis but some five or six weeks to Michaelmas; surely fifty pounds—”

“Silence!” cries Moll, with an angry tap of her foot. “Will three hundred content you, gentlemen? Consider, the wants of our good friend, Captain Evans, may be more pressing than yours.”

“He is a good, honest, simple man, and I think we may answer for his accepting the conditions we make for ourselves. Then, with some reasonable guarantee for our future payment—”

“That may be contrived to our common satisfaction, I hope,” says Moll, with a gracious smile. “I owe you half my estate; share my house at Chislehurst with me till the rest is forthcoming. That will give me yet a little longer the pleasure of your company. And there, sir,” turning to me, “you can examine my steward’s accounts for your own satisfaction, and counsel me, mayhap, upon the conduct of my affairs, knowing so much upon matters of business that are incomprehensible to a simple, inexperienced maid. Then, should you find aught amiss in my steward’s books, anything to shake your confidence in his management, you will, in justice to your friends, in kindness to me, speak your mind openly, that instant reformation may be made.”

Don Sanchez and I expressed our agreement to this proposal, and Moll, turning to the poor, unhappy steward, says in her high tone of authority:

“You hear how this matter is ordered, Simon. Take up that purse for your own uses. Go into the town and send such tradesmen hither as may supply us with proper clothing. Then to your goldsmith in Lombard Street and bring me back six hundred pounds.”

“Six—hundred—pounds!” cries he, hardly above his breath, and with a pause between each word as if to gain strength to speak ’em.

“Six hundred. Three for these gentlemen and three for my own needs; when that is done, hasten to Chislehurst and prepare my house; and, as you value my favour, see that nothing is wanting when I come there.”

And here, lest it should be thought that Moll could not possibly play her part so admirably in this business, despite the many secret instructions given by the longheaded Don, I do protest that I have set down no more than I recollect, and that without exaggeration. Further, it must be observed that in our common experience many things happen which would seem incredible but for the evidence of our senses, and which no poet would have the hardihood to represent. ’Tis true that in this, as in other more surprising particulars to follow, Moll did surpass all common women; but ’tis only such extraordinary persons that furnish material for any history. And I will add that anything is possible to one who hath the element of greatness in her composition, and that it depends merely on the accident of circumstances whether a Moll Dawson becomes a great saint or a great sinner—a blessing or a curse to humanity.

CHAPTER XV.

Lay our hands on six hundred pounds and quarter ourselves in Hurst Court, but stand in a fair way to be undone by Dawson, his folly.

The next day comes Simon with a bag of six hundred pounds, which he tells over with infinite care, groaning and mopping his eyes betwixt each four or five pieces with a most rueful visage, so that it seemed he was weeping over this great expenditure, and then he goes to prepare the Court and get servants against Moll’s arrival. By the end of the week, being furnished with suitable clothing and equipment, Moll and Don Sanchez leave us, though Dawson was now as hale and hearty as ever he had been, we being persuaded to rest at Chatham yet another week, to give countenance to Jack’s late distemper, and also that we might appear less like a gang of thieves.

Before going, Don Sanchez warned us that very likely Simon would pay us a visit suddenly, to satisfy any doubts that might yet crop up in his suspicious mind; and so, to be prepared for him, I got in a good store of paper and books, such as a merchant might require in seeking to reestablish himself in business, and Dawson held himself in readiness to do his share of this knavish business.

Sure enough, about three days after this, the drawer, who had been instructed to admit no one to my chamber without my consent, comes up to say that the little old man in leather, with the weak eyes, would see me; so I bade him in a high voice bid Mr. Simon step up, and setting myself before my table of paper, engage in writing a letter (already half writ), while Dawson slips out into the next room.

“Take a seat, Mr. Steward,” says I, when Simon entered, cap in hand, and casting a very prying, curious look around. “I must keep you a minute or two”; and so I feign to be mighty busy, and give him scope for observation.

“Well, sir,” says I, finishing my letter with a flourish, and setting it aside. “How do you fare?”

He raised his hands, and dropped them like so much lead on his knees, casting up his eyes and giving a doleful shake of his head for a reply.

“Nothing is amiss at the Court, I pray—your lady Mistress Godwin is well?”

“I know not, friend,” says he. “She hath taken my keys, denied me entrance to her house, and left me no privilege of my office save the use of the lodge house. Thus am I treated like a faithless servant, after toiling night and day all these years, and for her advantage, rather than mine own.”

“That has to be proved, Mr. Steward,” says I, severely; “for you must admit that up to this present she has had no reason to love you, seeing that, had her fate been left in your hands, she would now be in Barbary, and like to end her days there. How, then, can she think but that you had some selfish, wicked end in denying her the service we, who are strangers, have rendered her?”

“Thee speakest truth, friend, and yet thee knowest that I observed only the righteous prudence of an honest servant.”

“We will say no more on that head, but you may rest assured on my promise—knowing as I do the noble, generous nature of your mistress—that if she has done you wrong in suspecting you of base purpose, she will be the first to admit her fault and offer you reparation.”

“I seek no reparation, no reward, nothing in the world but the right to cherish this estate,” cries he, in passion; and, upon my looking at him very curiously, as not understanding the motive of such devotion, he continues: “Thee canst not believe me, and yet truly I am neither a liar nor a madman. What do others toil for? A wife—children—friends—the gratification of ambition or lust! I have no kith or kin, no ambition, no lust; but this estate is wife, child, everything, to me. ’Tis like some work of vanity—a carved image that a man may give his whole life to making, and yet die content if he achieves but some approach to the creation of his soul. I have made this estate out of nothing; it hath grown larger and larger, richer and more rich, in answer to my skill; why should I not love it, and put my whole heart in the accomplishment of my design, with the same devotion that you admire in the maker of graven images?”

Despite his natural infirmities, Simon delivered this astonishing rhapsody with a certain sort of vehemence that made it eloquent; and indeed, strange as his passion was, I could not deny that it was as reasonable in its way as any nobler act of self-sacrifice.

“I begin to understand you, Mr. Steward,” says I.

“Then, good friend, as thee wouldst help the man in peril of being torn from his child, render me this estate to govern; save it from the hands of usurers and lawyers, men of no conscience, to whom this Spanish Don would deliver it for the speedy satisfaction of his greed.”

“Nay, my claim’s as great as his,” says I, “and my affairs more pressing” (with a glance at my papers), “I am undone, my credit lost, my occupation gone.”

“Thee shalt be paid to the last farthing. Examine my books, enquire into the value of my securities, and thee wilt find full assurance.”

“Well, one of these days mayhap,” says I, as if to put him off.

“Nay, come at once, I implore thee; for until I am justified to my mistress, I stand like one betwixt life and death.”

“For one thing,” says I, still shuffling, “I can do nothing, nor you either, to the payment of our just claim, before the inheritance is safely settled upon Mistress Godwin.”

“That shall be done forthwith. I understand the intricacies of the law, and know my way” (tapping his head and then his pocket), “to get a seal, with ten times the despatch of any attorney. I promise by Saturday thee shalt have assurance to thy utmost requirement. Say, good friend, thee wilt be at my lodge house on that day.”

“I’ll promise nothing,” says I. “Our poor Captain Evans is still a prisoner in his room.”

“Aye,” says Dawson, coming in from the next room, in his nightgown, seeming very feeble and weak despite his blustering voice, “and I’m like to be no better till I can get a ship of my own and be to sea again. Have you brought my money, Mr. Quaker?”

“Thee shalt have it truly; wait but a little while, good friend, a little while.”

“Wait a little while and founder altogether, eh? I know you land sharks, and would I’d been born with a smack of your cunning; then had I never gone of this venture, and lost my ship and twoscore men, that money’ll ne’er replace. Look at me, a sheer hulk and no more, and all through lending ear to one prayer and another. I doubt you’re minded to turn your back on poor old Bob Evans, as t’others have, Mr. Hopkins—and why not? The poor old man’s worth nothing, and cannot help himself.” With this he fell a-snivelling like any girl.

“I vow I’ll not quit you, Evans, till you’re hale again.”

“Bring him with thee o’ Saturday,” urged Simon. “Surely, my mistress can never have the heart to refuse you shelter at the Court, who owes her life to ye. Come and stay there till thy wage be paid, friend Evans.”

“What! would ye make an honest sailor play bum-bailiff, and stick in a house, willy nilly, till money’s found? Plague of your dry land! Give me a pitching ship and a rolling sea, and a gale whistling in my shrouds. Oh, my reins, my reins! give me a paper of tobacco, Mr. Hopkins, and a pipe to soothe this agony, or I shall grow desperate!”

I left the room as if to satisfy this desire, and Simon followed, imploring me still to come on Saturday to Chislehurst; and I at length got rid of him by promising to come as soon as Evans could be left or induced to accompany me.

I persuaded Dawson, very much against his gree, to delay our going until Monday, the better to hoodwink old Simon; and on that day we set out for Chislehurst, both clad according to our condition—he in rough frieze, and I in a very proper, seemly sort of cloth—and with more guineas in our pockets than ever before we had possessed shillings. And a very merry journey this was; for Dawson, finding himself once more at liberty, and hearty as a lark after his long confinement and under no constraint, was like a boy let loose from school. Carolling at the top of his voice, playing mad pranks with all who passed us on the road, and staying at every inn to drink twopenny ale, so that I feared he would certainly fall ill of drinking, as he had before of eating; but the exercise of riding, the fresh, wholesome air, and half an hour’s doze in a spinney, did settle his liquor, and so he reached Hurst Court quite sober, thanks be to Heaven, though very gay. And there we had need of all our self-command, to conceal our joy in finding those gates open to us, which we had looked through so fondly when we were last here, and to spy Moll, in a stately gown, on the fine terrace before this noble house, carrying herself as if she had lived here all her life, and Don Sanchez walking very deferential by her side. Especially Dawson could scarce bring himself to speak to her in an uncouth, surly manner, as befitted his character, and no sooner were we entered the house but he whips Moll behind a door, and falls a-hugging and kissing her like any sly young lover.

Whilst he was giving way to these extravagances, which Moll had not the heart to rebuff—for in her full, warm heart she was as overjoyed to see him there as he her—Don Sanchez and I paced up and down the spacious hall, I all of a twitter lest one or other of the servants might discover the familiarity of these two (which must have been a fine matter for curious gossip in the household and elsewhere), and the Don mighty sombre and grave (as foreseeing an evil outcome of this business), so that he would make no answer to my civilities save by dumb gestures, showing he was highly displeased. But truly ’twas enough to set us all crazy, but he, with joy, to be in possession of all these riches and think that we had landed at Chatham scarce a fortnight before without decent clothes to our backs, and now, but for the success of our design, might be the penniless strolling vagabonds we were when Don Sanchez lighted on us.

Presently Moll came out from the side room with her father, her hair all tumbled, and as rosy as a peach, and she would have us visit the house from top to bottom, showing us the rooms set apart for us, her own chamber, the state room, the dining-hall, the store closets for plate and linen, etc., all prodigious fine and in most excellent condition; for the scrupulous minute care of old Simon had suffered nothing to fall out of repair, the rooms being kept well aired, the pictures, tapestries, and magnificent furniture all preserved fresh with linen covers and the like. From the hall she led us out on to the terrace to survey the park and the gardens about the house, and here, as within doors, all was in most admirable keeping, with no wild growth or runaweeds anywhere, nor any sign of neglect. But I observed, as an indication of the steward’s thrifty, unpoetic mind, that the garden beds were planted with onions and such marketable produce, in place of flowers, and that instead of deer grazing upon the green slopes of the park there was only such profitable cattle as sheep, cows, etc. And at the sight of all this abundance of good things (and especially the well-stored buttery), Dawson declared he could live here all his life and never worry. And with that, all unthinkingly, he lays his arm about Moll’s waist.

Then the Don, who had followed us up and down stairs, speaking never one word till this, says, “We may count ourselves lucky, Captain Evans, if we are suffered to stay here another week.”

CHAPTER XVI.

Prosper as well as any thieves may; but Dawson greatly tormented.

The next morning I went to Simon at his lodge house, having writ him a note overnight to prepare him for my visit, and there I found him, with all his books and papers ready for my examination. So to it we set, casting up figures, comparing accounts, and so forth, best part of the day, and in the end I came away convinced that he was the most scrupulous, honest steward ever man had. And, truly, it appeared that by his prudent investments and careful management he had trebled the value of the estate, and more, in the last ten years. He showed me, also, that in all his valuations he had set off a large sum for loss by accident of fire, war, etc., so that actually at the present moment the estate, which he reckoned at seventy-five thousand pounds, was worth at the least one hundred and twenty-five thousand. But for better assurance on this head, I spent the remainder of the week in visiting the farms, messuages, etc., on his rent roll, and found them all in excellent condition, and held by good substantial men, nothing in any particular but what he represented it.

Reporting on these matters privily to Don Sanchez and Dawson, I asked the Don what we should now be doing.

“Two ways lie before us,” says he, lighting a cigarro. “Put Simon out of his house—and make an enemy of him,” adds he, betwixt two puffs of smoke, “seize his securities, sell them for what they will fetch, and get out of the country as quickly as possible. If the securities be worth one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds, we may” (puff) “possibly” (puff) “get forty thousand for them” (puff), “about a third of their value—not more. That yields us ten thousand apiece. On ten thousand pounds a man may live like a prince—in Spain. The other way is to make a friend of Simon by restoring him to his office, suffer him to treble the worth of the estate again in the next ten years, and live like kings” (puff) “in England.”

“Pray, which way do you incline, Señor?” says I.

“Being a Spaniard,” answers he, gravely, “I should prefer to live like a prince in Spain.”

“That would not I,” says Dawson, stoutly. “A year and a half of Elche have cured me of all fondness for foreign parts. Besides, ’tis a beggarly, scurvy thing to fly one’s country, as if we had done some unhandsome, dishonest trick. If I faced an Englishman, I should never dare look him straight in the eyes again. What say you, Mr. Hopkins?”

“Why, Evans,” says I, “you know my will without telling. I will not, of my own accord, go from your choice, which way you will.”

“Since we owe everything to Mistress Judith,” observes the Don, “and as she is no longer a child, ought not her wishes to be consulted?”

“No,” says Jack, very decidedly, and then, lowering his voice, he adds, “for was she Judith Godwin ten times told, and as old as my grandmother into the bargain, she is still my daughter, and shall do as I choose her to do. And if, as you say, we owe her everything, then I count ’twould be a mean, dirty return to make her live out of England and feel she has a sneaking coward for a father.”

“As you please,” says the Don. “Give me ten thousand of the sum you are to be paid at Michaelmas, and you are welcome to all the rest.”

“You mean that, Señor,” cries Jack, seizing the Don’s hand and raising his left.

“By the Holy Mother,” answers Don Sanchez, in Spanish.

“Done!” cries Dawson, bringing his hand down with a smack on the Don’s palm. “Nay, I always believed you was the most generous man living. Ten from t’other. Master Hopkins,” says he, turning to me, “what does that leave us?”

“More than a hundred thousand!”

“The Lord be praised for evermore!” cries Jack.

Upon this, Moll, by the advice of Don Sanchez, sends for Simon, and telling him she is satisfied with the account I have given of his stewardship, offers him the further control of her affairs, subject at all times to her decision on any question concerning her convenience, and reserving to herself the sole government of her household, the ordering of her home, lands, etc. And Simon grasping eagerly at this proposal, she then gives him the promise of one thousand pounds for his past services, and doubles the wages due to him under his contract with Sir R. Godwin.

“Give me what it may please thee to bestow that way,” cries he. “All shall be laid out to enrich this property. I have no other use for money, no other worldly end in life but that.”

And when he saw me next he was most slavish in his thanks for my good offices, vowing I should be paid my claim by Michaelmas, if it were in the power of man to raise so vast a sum in such short space. Surely, thinks I, there was never a more strange, original creature than this, yet it do seem to me that there is no man but his passion must appear a madness to others.

I must speak now of Moll, her admirable carriage and sober conduct in these new circumstances, which would have turned the heads of most others. Never once to my knowledge did she lose her self-possession, on the most trying occasion, and this was due, not alone to her own shrewd wit and understanding, but to the subtle intelligence of Don Sanchez, who in the character of an old and trusty friend was ever by her side, watchful of her interest (and his own), ready at any moment to drop in her ear a quiet word of warning or counsel. By his advice she had taken into her service a most commendable, proper old gentlewoman, one Mrs. Margery Butterby, who, as being the widow of a country parson, was very orderly in all things, and particularly nice in the proprieties. This notable good soul was of a cheery, chatty disposition, of very pleasing manners, and a genteel appearance, and so, though holding but the part of housekeeper, she served as an agreeable companion and a respectable guardian, whose mere presence in the house silenced any question that might have arisen from the fact of three men living under the same roof with the young and beautiful mistress of Hurst Court. Moreover, she served us as a very useful kind of mouthpiece; for all those marvellous stories of her life in Barbary, of the pirates we had encountered in redeeming her from the Turk, etc., with which Moll would beguile away any tedious half-hour, for the mere amusement of creating Mrs. Butterby’s wonder and surprise—as one will tell stories of fairies to children—this good woman repeated with many additions of her own concerning ourselves, which, to reflect credit on herself, were all to our advantage. This was the more fitting, because the news spreading that the lost heiress had returned to Hurst Court excited curiosity far and wide, and it was not long before families in the surrounding seats, who had known Sir R. Godwin in bygone times, called to see his daughter. And here Moll’s wit was taxed to the utmost, for those who had known Judith Godwin as an infant expected that she should remember some incident stored in their recollection; but she was ever equal to the occasion, feigning a pretty doubting innocence at first, then suddenly asking this lady if she had not worn a cherry dress with a beautiful stomacher at the time, or that gentleman if he had not given her a gold piece for a token, and it generally happened these shrewd shafts hit their mark: the lady, though she might have forgotten her gown, remembering she had a very becoming stomacher; the gentleman believing that he did give her a lucky penny, and so forth, from very vanity. Then Moll’s lofty carriage and her beauty would remind them of their dear lost friend, Mrs. Godwin, in the heyday of her youth, and all agreed in admiring her beyond anything. And though Moll, from her lack of knowledge, made many slips, and would now and then say things uncustomary to women of breeding, yet these were easily attributed to her living so long in a barbarous country, and were as readily glanced over. Indeed, nothing could surpass Moll’s artificial conduct on these occasions. She would lard her conversation with those scraps of Italian she learnt from me, and sometimes, affecting to have forgot her own tongue, she would stumble at a word, and turning to Don Sanchez, ask him the English of some Moorish phrase. Then one day, there being quite a dozen visitors in her state room, she brings down her Moorish dress and those baubles given her by friends at Elche, to show the ladies, much to the general astonishment and wonder; then, being prayed to dress herself in these clothes, she with some hesitation of modesty consents, and after a short absence from the room returns in this costume, looking lovelier than ever I had before seen, with the rings about her shapely bare arms and on her ankles, and thus arrayed she brings me a guitar, and to my strumming sings a Moorish song, swaying her arms above her head and turning gracefully in their fashion, so that all were in an ecstasy with this strange performance. And the talk spreading, the number of visitors grew apace—as bees will flock to honey—and yielding to their urgent entreaties, she would often repeat this piece of business, and always with a most winning grace, that charmed every one. But she was most a favourite of gentlemen and elderly ladies; for the younger ones she did certainly put their noses out of joint, since none could at all compare with her in beauty nor in manner, either, for she had neither the awkward shyness of some nor the boldness of others, but contrived ever to steer neatly betwixt the two extremes by her natural self-possession and fearlessness.

Of all her new friends, the most eager in courting her were Sir Harry Upton and his lady (living in the Crays); and they, being about to go to London for the winter, did press Moll very hard to go with them, that she might be presented to the king; and, truth to tell, they would not have had to ask her twice had she been governed only by her own inclination. For she was mad to go—that audacious spirit of adventure still working very strong in her—and she, like a winning gamester, must for ever be playing for higher and higher stakes. But we, who had heard enough of his excellent but lawless Majesty’s court to fear the fate of any impulsive, beauteous young woman that came within his sway, were quite against this. Even Don Sanchez, who was no innocent, did persuade her from it with good strong argument—showing that, despite his worldliness, he did really love her as much as ’twas in his withered heart to love any one. As for Dawson, he declared he would sooner see his Moll in her winding-sheet than in the king’s company, adding that ’twould be time enough for her to think of going to court when she had a husband to keep her out of mischief. And so she refused this offer (but with secret tears, I believe). “But,” says she to her father, “if I’m not to have my own way till I’m married, I shall get me a husband as soon as I can.”

And it seemed that she would not have to look far nor wait long for one neither. Before a month was passed, at least half a dozen young sparks were courting her, they being attracted, not only by her wit and beauty, but by the report of her wealth, it being known to all how Simon had enriched the estate. And ’twas this abundance of suitors which prevented Moll from choosing any one in particular, else had there been but one, I believe the business would have been settled very quickly. For now she was in the very flush of life, and the blood that flowed in her veins was of no lukewarm kind.

But here (that I may keep all my strings in harmony) I must quit Moll for a space to tell of her father. That first hint of the Don’s bringing him to his senses somewhat (like a dash of cold water), and the exuberance of his joy subsiding, he quickly became more circumspect in his behaviour, and fell into the part he had to play. And the hard, trying, sorrowful part that was, neither he nor I had foreseen. For now was he compelled for the first time in his life, at any length, to live apart from his daughter, to refrain from embracing her when they met in the morning, to speak to her in a rough, churlish sort when his heart, maybe, was overflowing with love, and to reconcile himself to a cool, indifferent behaviour on her side, when his very soul was yearning for gentle, tender warmth. And these natural cravings of affection were rather strengthened than stilled by repression, as one’s hunger by starving. To add to this, he now saw his Moll more bewitching than ever she was before, the evidence of her wit and understanding stimulating that admiration which he dared not express. He beheld her loved and courted openly by all, whilst he who had deeper feeling for her than any, and more right to caress her, must at each moment stifle his desires and lay fetters on his inclinations, which constraint, like chains binding down a stout, thriving oak, did eat and corrode into his being, so that he did live most of these days in a veritable torment. Yet, for Moll’s sake, was he very stubborn in his resolution; and, when he could no longer endure to stand indifferently by while others were enjoying her sprightly conversation, he would go up to his chamber and pace to and fro, like some she-lion parted from her cub.

These sufferings were not unperceived by Moll, who also had strong feeling to repress, and therefore could comprehend her father’s torture, and she would often seize an opportunity, nay, run great risk of discovery, to hie her secretly to his room, there to throw herself in his arms and strain him to her heart, covering his great face with tender kisses, and whispering words of hope and good cheer (with the tears on her cheek). And one day when Jack seemed more than usual downhearted, she offered him to give up everything and return to her old ways, if he would. But this spurring his courage, he declared he would live in hell rather than she should fall from her high estate, and become a mere vagabond wench again, adding that ’twas but the first effort gave him so much pain, that with practice ’twould all be as nothing; that such sweet kisses as hers once a week did amply compensate him for his fast, etc. Then her tears being brushed away, she would quit him with noiseless step and all precautions, and maybe five minutes afterwards, whilst Jack was sitting pensive at his window pondering her sweetness and love, he would hear her laughing lightly below, as if he were already forgotten.

CHAPTER XVII.

How Dawson for Moll’s good parts company with us, and goes away a lonely man.

On the eve of Michaelmas day old Simon returned from London, whither he had gone two days before, to raise the money he had promised; and calling upon him in the afternoon I found him seated at his table, with a most woe-begone look in his face, and his eyes streaming more copiously than usual. And with most abject humility he told me that doing the utmost that lay in his power, he had not been able to persuade his goldsmith to lend more than ten thousand pounds on the title deeds. Nor had he got that, he declared, but that the goldsmith knew him for an honest and trustworthy man whom he would credit beyond any other in the world; for the seal not yet being given to Judith Godwin’s succession, there was always peril of dispute and lawsuits which might make these papers of no value at all (the king’s ministers vying one with another to please their master by bringing money rightly or wrongly into the treasury), and this, indeed, may have been true enough.

“But,” says he, “all will go well if thee wilt have but a little patience for a while. Tomorrow my rents will come in, and I will exact to the last farthing; and there is a parcel of land I may sell, mayhap, for instant payment, though ’twill be at a fearsome loss” (mopping his eyes), “yet I will do it rather than put thee to greater incommodity; and so, ere the end of the week, thee mayst safely count on having yet another three thousand, which together makes nigh upon half the sum promised. And this, dear good friend,” adds he, slyly, “thee mayst well take on account of thine own share—and none dispute thy right, for ’tis thy money hath done all. And from what I see of him, smoking of pipes in the public way and drinking with any low fellows in alehouses, this Captain Evans is but a paltry, mean man who may be easily put off with a pound or two to squander in his pleasures; and as for the Spanish grandee, he do seem so content to be with our mistress that I doubt he needs no pretext for quitting her, added to which, being of a haughty, proud nature, he should scorn to claim his own, to the prejudice of a merchant who hath nought but his capital to live upon. And I do implore thee, good friend, to lay this matter before my mistress in such a way that she may not be wroth with me.”

I told him I would do all he could expect of me in reason, but bade him understand that his chance of forgiveness for having broke his first engagement depended greatly upon his exactitude in keeping the second, and that he might count on little mercy from us if the other three thousand were not forthcoming as he promised. So I took the money and gave him a quittance for it, signing it with my false name, James Hopkins, but, reflecting on this when I left him, I wished I had not. For I clearly perceived that by this forgery I laid myself open to very grievous consequences; moreover, taking of this solid money, disguise it how I would, appeared to me nothing short of downright robbery, be it whose it might. In short, being now plunged up to my neck in this business, I felt like a foolish lad who hath waded beyond his depth in a rapid current, hoping I might somehow get out of it safely, but with very little expectation. However, the sight of all this gold told up in scores upon the table in our closed room served to quiet these qualms considerably. Nevertheless, I was not displeased to remember our bargain with Don Sanchez, feeling that I should breathe more freely when he had taken this store of gold out of my hands, etc. Thus did my mind waver this way and that, like a weather-cock to the blowing of contrary winds.

‘Twas this day that Moll (as I have said) dressed herself in her Moorish clothes for the entertainment of her new friends, and Dawson, hearing her voice, yet not daring to go into the state room where she was, must needs linger on the stairs listening to her song, and craning his neck to catch a glimpse of her through the open door below. Here he stands in a sort of ravishment, sucking in her sweet voice, and the sounds of delight with which her guests paid tribute to her performance, feeding his passion which, like some fire, grew more fierce by feeding, till he was well-nigh beside himself. Presently, out comes Moll from her state room, all glowing with exercise, flushed with pleasure, a rich colour in her cheek, and wild fire in her eyes, looking more witching than any siren. Swiftly she crosses the hall, and runs up the stairs to gain her chamber and reclothe herself, but half way up Dawson stops her, and clasping her about, cries hoarsely in a transport:

“Thou art my own Moll—my own sweet Moll!” adding, as she would break from him to go her way, “Nay, chick. You shall not go till you have bussed your old dad.”

Then she, hesitating a moment betwixt prudence and her warmer feelings, suddenly yields to the impulse of her heart (her head also being turned maybe with success and delight), and flinging her arms about his neck gives him a hearty kiss, and then bursts away with a light laugh.

Jack watches her out of sight, and then, when the moment of escape is past, he looks below to see if there be any danger, and there he spies Don Sanchez, regarding him from the open door, where he stands, as if to guard it. Without a sign the Don turns on his heel and goes back into the room, while Dawson, with a miserable hangdog look, comes to me in my chamber, where I am counting the gold, and confesses his folly with a shamed face, cursing himself freely for his indiscretion, which at this rate must ruin all ere long.

This was no great surprise to me, for I myself had seen him many a time clip his dear daughter’s hand, when he thought no one was by, and, more than once, the name of Moll had slipped out when he should have spoken of Mistress Judith.

These accidents threw us both into a very grave humour, and especially I was tormented with the reflection that a forgery could be proved against me, if things came to the worst. The danger thereof was not slight; for though all in the house loved Moll dearly and would willingly do her no hurt, yet the servants, should they notice how Mistress Judith stood with Captain Evans, must needs be prating, and there a mischief would begin, to end only the Lord knows where! Thereupon, I thought it as well to preach Jack a sermon, and caution him to greater prudence; and this he took in amazing good part—not bidding me tend my own business as he might at another time, but assenting very submissively to all my hints of disaster, and thanking me in the end for speaking my mind so freely. Then, seeing him so sadly downcast, I (to give a sweetmeat after a bitter draught) bade him take the matter not too much to heart, promising that, with a little practice, he would soon acquire a habit of self-restraint, and so all would go well. But he made no response, save by shaking of his head sorrowfully, and would not be comforted. When all were abed that night, we three men met in my chamber, where I had set the bags of money on the table, together with a dish of tobacco and a bottle of wine for our refreshment, and then the Don, having lit him a cigarro, and we our pipes, with full glasses beside us, I proposed we should talk of our affairs, to which Don Sanchez consented with a solemn inclination of his head. But ere I began, I observed with a pang of foreboding, that Jack, who usually had emptied his glass ere others had sipped theirs, did now leave his untouched, and after the first pull or two at his pipe, he cast it on the hearth as though it were foul to his taste. Taking no open notice of this, I showed Don Sanchez the gold, and related all that had passed between Simon and me.

“Happily, Señor,” says I, in conclusion, “here is just the sum you generously offered to accept for your share, and we give it you with a free heart, Evans and I being willing to wait for what may be forthcoming.”

“Is it your wish both, that I take this?” says he, laying his hand on the money and looking from me to Dawson.

“Aye,” says he, “’tis but a tithe of what is left to us, and not an hundredth part of what we owe to you.”

“Very good,” says the Don. “I will carry it to London tomorrow.”

“But surely, Señor,” says I, “you will not quit us so soon.”

Don Sanchez rolls his cigarro in his lips, looking me straight in the face and somewhat sternly, and asks me quietly if I have ever found him lacking in loyalty and friendship.

“In truth, never, Señor.”

“Then why should you imagine I mean to quit you now when you have more need of a friend in this house” (with a sideward glance as towards Moll’s chamber) “than ever you before had?” Then, turning towards Jack, he says, “What are you going to do, Captain Evans?”

Dawson pauses, as if to snatch one last moment for consideration, and then, nodding at me, “You’ll not leave my—Moll, Kit?” says he, with no attempt to disguise names.

“Why should I leave her; are we not as brothers, you and I?”

“Aye, I’d trust you with my life,” answers he, “and more than that, with my—Moll! If you were her uncle, she couldn’t love you more, Kit. And you will stand by her, too, Señor?”

The Don bowed his head.

“Then when you leave, tomorrow, I’ll go with you to London,” says Jack.

“I shall return the next day,” says Don Sanchez, with significance.

“And I shall not, God help me!” says Jack, bitterly.

“Give me your hand,” says the Don; but I could speak never a word, and sat staring at Jack, in a maze.

“We’ll say nought of this to her,” continues Jack; “there must be no farewells, I could never endure that. But it shall seem that I have gone with you for company, and have fallen in with old comrades who would keep me for a carousing.”

“But without friends—alone—what shall you do there in London?” says I, heart-stricken at the thought of his desolation. The Don answers for Jack.

“Make the best of his lot with a stout heart, like any other brave man,” says he. “There are natural hardships which every man must bear in his time, and this is one of them.” Then lowering his voice, he adds, “Unless you would have her die an old maid, she and her father must part sooner or later.”

“Why, that’s true, and yet, Master,” says Jack, “I would have you know that I’m not so brave but I would see her now and then.”

“That may be ordered readily enough,” says the Don.

“Then do you tell her, Señor, I have but gone a-junketing, and she may look to see me again when my frolic’s over.”

The Don closed his eyes as one in dubitation, and then says, lifting his eyebrows: “She is a clever woman—shrewd beyond any I have ever known; then why treat her as you would a foolish child? You must let me tell her the truth when I come back, and I warrant it will not break her heart, much as she loves you.”

“As you will,” says t’other. “’Twill be all as one to me,” with a sigh.

“This falls out well in all ways,” continues the Don, turning to me. “You will tell Simon, whose suspicion we have most to fear, that we have handed over four thousand of those pieces to Captain Evans as being most in need, we ourselves choosing to stay here till the rest of our claim is paid. That will account for Evans going away, and give us a pretext for staying here.”

“I’ll visit him myself, if you will,” says Jack, “and wring his hand to show my gratitude. I warrant I’ll make him wince, such a grip will I give him. And I’ll talk of nothing else but seas and winds, and the manner of ship I’ll have for his money.”

The following morning before Moll was stirring, Don Sanchez and Dawson set forth on their journey, and I going with them beyond the park gates to the bend of the road, we took leave of each other with a great show of cheerfulness on both sides. But Lord! my heart lay in my breast like any lump of lead, and when Jack turned his back on me, the tears sprang up in my eyes as though indeed this was my brother and I was never to see him more. And long after he was out of sight I sat on the bank by the roadside, sick with pain to think of his sorrow in going forth like this, without one last loving word of parting from his dear Moll, to find no home in London, no friend to cheer him, and he the most companionable man in the world.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Of our getting a painter into the Court, with whom our Moll falls straightway in love.

Being somewhat of a coward, I essayed to put Moll off with a story of her father having gone a-frolicking with Don Sanchez, leaving it to the Don to break the truth to her on his return. And a sorry, bungling business I made of it, to be sure. For, looking me straight in the eyes, whenever I dared lift them, she did seem to perceive that I was lying, from the very first, which so disconcerted me, though she interrupted me by never a word, that I could scarce stammer to the end of my tale. Then, without asking a single question, or once breaking her painful silence, she laid her face in her hands, her shoulders shook, and the tears ran out between her fingers, and fell upon her lap.

“I know, I know,” says she, putting me away, when I attempted to speak. “He has gone away for my sake, and will come back no more; and ’tis all my fault, that I could not play my part better.”

Then, what words of comfort I could find, I offered her; but she would not be consoled, and shut herself up in her room all that morning. Nevertheless, she ate more heartily than I at dinner, and fresh visitors coming in the afternoon, she entertained them as though no grief lay at her heart. Indeed, she recovered of this cruel blow much easier than I looked for; and but that she would at times sit pensive, with melancholy, wistful eyes, and rise from her seat with a troubled sigh, one would have said, at the end of the week, that she had ceased to feel for her father. But this was not so (albeit wounds heal quickly in the young and healthful), for I believe that they who weep the least do ache the most.

Then, for her further excuse (if it be needed), Don Sanchez brought back good tidings of her father—how he was neatly lodged near the Cherry garden, where he could hear the birds all day and the fiddles all night, with abundance of good entertainment, etc. To confirm which, she got a letter from him, three days later, very loving and cheerful, telling how, his landlord being a carpenter, he did amuse himself mightily at his old trade in the workshop, and was all agog for learning to turn wood in a lathe, promising that he would make her a set of egg-cups against her birthday, please God. Added to this, the number of her friends multiplying apace, every day brought some new occupation to her thoughts; also, having now those three thousand pounds old Simon had promised us, Moll set herself to spending of them as quickly as possible, by furnishing herself with all sorts of rich gowns and appointments, which is as pretty a diversion of melancholy from a young woman’s thoughts as any. And so I think I need dwell no longer on this head.

About the beginning of October, Simon comes, cap in hand, and very humble, to the Court to crave Moll’s consent to his setting some men with guns in her park at night, to lie in ambush for poachers, telling how they had shot one man in the act last spring, and had hanged another the year before for stealing of a sheep; adding that a stranger had been seen loitering in the neighbourhood, who, he doubted not, was of their thieving crew.

“What makes you think that?” asks Moll. “He has been seen lingering about here these three days,” answers Simon. “Yet to my knowledge he hath not slept at either of the village inns. Moreover, he hath the look of a desperate, starving rascal, ripe for such work.”

“I will have no man killed for his misfortunes.”

“Gentle mistress, suffer me to point out that if thee lets one man steal with impunity, others, now innocent, are thereby encouraged to sin, and thus thy mercy tends to greater cruelty.”

“No man shall be killed on my land—there is my answer,” says Moll, with passion. “If you take this poor, starved creature, it shall be without doing him bodily hurt. You shall answer for it else.”

“Not a bone shall be broken, mistress. ’Tis enough if we carry him before Justice Martin, a godly, upright man, and a scourge to evil-doers.”

“Nay, you shall not do that, neither, till I have heard his case,” says Moll. “’Tis for me to decide whether he has injured me or not, and I’ll suffer none to take my place.”

Promising obedience, Simon withdrew before any further restrictions might be put upon him; but Moll’s mind was much disturbed all day by fear of mischief being done despite her commands, and at night she would have me take her round the park to see all well. Maybe, she thought that her own father, stealing hither to see her privily, might fall a victim to Simon’s ambushed hirelings. But we found no one, though Simon had certainly hidden these fellows somewhere in the thickets.

Whilst we were at table next morning, we heard a great commotion in the hall; and Mrs. Butterby coming in a mighty pucker, told how the robber had been taken in the park, and how Simon had brought him to the house in obedience to her lady’s command. “But do, pray, have a care of yourself, my dear lady,” says she; “for this hardy villain hath struck Mr. Simon in the face and made most desperate resistance; and Heaven protect us from such wicked outlaws as have the villany to show themselves in broad daylight!”

Moll, smiling, said she would rather face a lion in the day than a mouse by night, and so bade the captive to be brought before her.

Then in comes Simon, with a stout band over one eye, followed by two sturdy fellows holding their prisoner betwixt them. And this was a very passionate man, as was evidenced by the looks of fury he cast from side to side upon his captors as they dragged him this way and that to make a show of their power, but not ill-looking. In his struggles he had lost his hat, and his threadbare coat and shirt were torn open, laying bare his neck and showing a very fair white skin and a good beard of light curling hair. There was nought mean or vile in his face, but rather it seemed to me a noble countenance, though woefully wasted, so that at a glance one might perceive he was no born rascal, but likely enough some ruined man of better sort driven to unlawful ways by his distress. He was of a fair height, but gaunt beyond everything, and so feeble that after one effort to free his arms his chin sank upon his breast as if his forces were all spent.

Seeing this, Moll bade the fellows unbind him, telling them sharply they might see there was no need of such rigour.

Being freed, our prisoner lifts his head and makes a slight reverence to Moll, but with little gratitude in his look, and places himself at the end of the table facing us, who are at the other end, Moll sitting betwixt Don Sanchez and me. And there, setting his hands for support upon the board, he holds his head up pretty proudly, waiting for what might come.

“Who are you?” asks Moll, in a tone of authority.

He waits a moment, as if deliberating with himself whether to speak fairly or not, then, being still sore with his ill-treatment, and angered to be questioned thus by a mere girl (he, as I take it, being a man of thirty or thereabouts), he answers:

“I do not choose to tell. Who I am, what I am, concerns you no more than who and what you are concerns me, and less since I may justly demand by what right these fellows, whom I take to be your servants, have thus laid hands on me.”

“How do you answer this?” asks Moll, turning to Simon.

Then Simon told very precisely, as if he were before a magistrate, how this man, having been seen lingering about the Court several days, and being without home or occupation, had been suspected of felonious purposes; how, therefore, he had set a watch to lay wait for him; how that morning they had entrapped him standing within a covert of the park regarding the house; how he had refused to give his name or any excuse for his being there, and how he had made most desperate attempt to escape when they had lain hands on him.

“Is this true?” asks Moll of the prisoner.

“Yes,” says he.

Moll regards him with incredulous eyes a moment, then, turning to Simon, “What arms had he for this purpose that you speak of?” says she.

“None, mistress; but ’twould be a dread villain verily who would carry the engines of his trade abroad in daylight to betray him.” And then he told how ’tis the habit of these poachers to reconnoitre their ground by day, and keep their nets, guns, etc., concealed in some thicket or hollow tree convenient for their purpose. “But,” adds he, “we may clearly prove a trespass against him, which is a punishable offence, and this assault upon me, whereof I have evidence, shall also count for something with Justice Martin, and so the wicked shall yet come by their deserts.” And with that he gives his fellows a wink with his one eye to carry off their quarry.

“Stay,” says Moll, “I would be further convinced—”

“If he be an honest man, let him show thee his hand,” says Simon.

The man innocently enough stretches out his palm towards us, not perceiving Simon’s end.

“There!” cries Simon. “What said I? Is that a hand that ever did a day’s honest work?”

“’Tis no worse than mine,” says Moll, regarding the hand which in truth was exceeding smooth and well formed. “Come,” adds she, still more kindly, “you see I am no harsh judge. I would not deny a fellow-creature the pleasure that is not grudged the coney that runs across my lawn. Tell me you were there but to gratify a passing caprice, and I’ll forgive you as freely as I’ll believe you.”

This gentle appeal seemed to move the young man greatly, and he made as if he would do more than was demanded of him, and make that free confession which he had refused to force. But ere a word could leave his parted lips a deadly shade passed over his face, his knees gave under him, and staggering to save himself, he fell to the ground in a swoon.

Then, whilst all we men stood fixed in wonderment, Moll, with the quick, helpful impulse of her womanhood, ran swiftly from her place to his side, and dropping on her knees cried for water to be brought her.

“Dead of hunger,” says Don Sanchez, in my ear. “Fetch a flask of brandy.”

And then, laying hold of Simon by the shoulder, he pointed significantly to the open door. This hint Simon was not slow to take, and when I returned from the buttery with a case of strong waters, I found no one in the room but Don Sanchez, and Moll with the fainting man’s head upon her lap, bathing his temples gently. Life had not come back, and the young man’s face looked very handsome in death, the curls pushed back from his brow, and his long features still and colourless like a carved marble.

Then with a “lack-a-day” and “alas,” in bustles Mrs. Butterby with a bottle of cordial in one hand and a bunch of burning feathers in the other.

“Fling that rubbish in the chimney,” says the Don. “I know this malady—well enough,” and pouring some hollands in a cup he put it to the dead man’s parted lips.

In a few moments he breathed again, and hearing Moll’s cry of joy, he opened his eyes as one waking from a dream and turned his head to learn what had happened. Then finding his head in Moll’s lap and her small, soft, cool hand upon his brow, a smile played over his wasted face. And well, indeed, might he smile to see that young figure of justice turned to the living image of tender mercy.

Perceiving him out of danger, and recovering her own wits at the same time, Mrs. Butterby cries: “Lord! Madam, do let me call a maid to take your place; for, dear heart! you have quite spoiled your new gown with this mess of water, and all for such a paltry fellow as this!”

Truly, it must have seemed to her understanding an outrageous thing that a lady of her mistress’ degree should be nursing such a ragged rascal; but to me, knowing Moll’s helpful, impulsive disposition, ’twas no such extraordinary matter, for she at such a moment could not entertain those feelings which might have restrained a lady of more refined breeding.

The pretty speech of Mrs. Butterby, reaching the fallen man’s ear, seemed instantly to quicken his spirits, and, casting off his lethargic humour, he quickly staggered to his feet, while we raised Moll. Then, resting one hand upon the table for support, he craved her pardon for giving so much trouble, but in a very faint, weak voice.

“I would have done as much for a dog,” says Moll. “My friends will render you what further services are fit; and, if it appears that you have been unjustly used (as I do think you have), be sure you shall have reparation.”

“I ask no more,” says he, “than to be treated as I may merit in your esteem.”

“Justice shall be done,” says Don Sanchez, in his stern voice, and with that he conducts Moll to the door.

But Moll was not content with this promise of justice. For the quality of mercy begetteth love, so that one cannot moderate one’s anger against an enemy, but it doth breed greater compassion and leniency by making one better content with oneself, and therefore more indulgent to others. And so, when she had left the room, she sends in her maid to fetch me, and taking me aside says with vivacity:

“I will have no punishment made upon that man.”

“Nay,” says I, “but if ’tis proved that his intent was to rob you—”

“What then!” says she. “Hath he not as much right to this estate as we? And are we one whit the better than he, save in the more fortunate issue of our designs? Understand me,” adds she, with passion; “I will have nothing added to his unhappiness.”

I found the young man seated at the table, and Don Sanchez gravely setting food before him. But he would take nothing but bread, and that he ate as though it were the sweetest meat in all the world. I lead the Don to the window, and there, in an undertone, told him of Moll’s decision; and, whether her tone of supreme authority amused him or not, I cannot say, because of his impassive humour, but he answered me with a serious inclination of his head, and then we fell speaking of other matters in our usual tone, until the young man, having satisfied the cravings of nature, spoke:

“When you are at liberty, gentlemen,” says he, “to question my conduct, I will answer you.”

CHAPTER XIX.

Of the business appointed to the painter, and how he set about the same.

The young man had risen and was standing by the table when we turned from the window; he seemed greatly refreshed, his face had lost its livid hue of passion and death, and looked the better for a tinge of colour. He met our regard boldly, yet with no braggart, insolent air, but the composure of a brave man facing his trial with a consciousness of right upon his side.

“I would ask you,” says the Don, seating himself on t’other side the table, “why you refused to do that before?”

“Sir,” answers he, “I have lost everything in the world save some small modicum of pride, which, being all I have, I do cherish, maybe, unduly. And so, when these unmannerly hinds took me by the throat, calling on me to tell my name and business, this spirit within me flaring up, I could not answer with the humility of a villain seeking to slink out of danger by submissive excuses.”

“Be seated,” says the Don, accepting this explanation with a bow. “How may we call you?”

“In Venice,” replies the other, with some hesitation, “I was called Dario—a name given me by my fellow-scholars because my English name was not to their taste.”

“Enough,” says the Don. “I can understand a man of better fortune, as I perceive you have been, wishing in such a position as this to retain his incognito. There are no parks in Venice, to my knowledge, but surely, sir, you would not enter a palazzo there uninvited without some reasonable pretext.”

“It would be sufficient that in such a house as this I thought I might find some employment for a painter.”

“You are a painter?” says I.

“A poor one, as you see,” replies Dario, with a significant glance at his clothes.

Don Sanchez turned to me, hunching his shoulders.

“’Tis clear,” says he, “that Signor Dario has been grossly abused by our lady’s over-zealous steward. You have but to tell us, sir, what reparation we can make you.”

“I’ll not refuse it,” answers Dario, eagerly. “You shall grant me permission to prove the honesty of my story—and something more than that. Somewhere here,” adds he, glancing around him, “I’d leave a tribute to the grace of that dear lady who brought me back to life.”

Don Sanchez assents with a bow to this proposal, but with a rueful glance at the rich panels of the wall, as fearing this painter might be as poor in talent as in his clothes—the latter reflecting discredit on the former—and would disfigure the handsome walls with some rude daub.

“Ah!” cries Dario, casting his eye upon the ceiling, which was plastered in the Italian mode and embellished with a poor design of cherubs and clouds, “this ceiling is ill done. I could paint a fresco that would less disgrace the room.”

“You will need materials,” says the Don, laying his purse upon the table. “When you return with them, you may rely upon having our lady’s consent to your wishes.”

The painter took the purse with a bow of acknowledgment, and no more hesitation than one gentleman would show in receiving an obligation from another, and presently left us.

“Shall we see him again, think ye, Señor?” I asked when we were left to ourselves.

He nodded, but with such a reflective, sombre air, that I was impelled to ask him if he lacked confidence in the story told us by the painter.

“His story may be true enough, but whether Signor Dario be an honest man or not is another matter. A painter’s but a man. A ruined gentleman will accommodate his principles to circumstances” (with a side glance that seemed to say, “I am a ruined gentleman”)—“and my mind would be easier if I knew by what curious accident a painter in need should find himself in the heart of Kent, and why fixing on this house to seek employment he should linger to the point of starvation before he can pluck up courage to ask a simple question. We must keep our eyes open, Mr. Hopkins, and,” adds he, dropping his voice, “our mouths shut.”

I could not sleep that night for thinking of house-breakings and bloody struggles for dear life; for ’tis a matter of common report that this sort of robbers, ere they make attack, do contrive to get one of their number into the house that he may learn where good goods are stowed, which part is easiest of attack, etc. I know not whether these quakings were shared by the Don, but certainly our misgivings never entered Moll’s little head. Nay, rather, her romantic disposition did lead her (when she heard our narration) to conceive that this mysterious Dario might be some wandering genius, whose work upon our ceiling would make the Court for ever glorious. And while in this humour she bade me go to Simon, whose presence she would not tolerate in her house, and make him acquainted with her high displeasure, and furthermore, to command that he should make satisfactory apology to Dario upon his return. So to him I went, and he wringing his hands in anguish deplored that his best endeavours to serve his mistress served only to incense her the more against him. But for his apology he declared that has been made the moment he heard of the gentleman’s release, at the same time that he restored to him his hat and a pocket-book which had fallen from his pocket.

This did somewhat reassure me, knowing full well that Simon would not have given up this book without first acquainting himself with its contents, and urging that had there been anything in it to incriminate him, he had certainly laid it before his mistress for his own justification.

A couple of days after this, as Don Sanchez and I were discoursing in the great avenue, Dario presents himself, looking all the better for a decent suit of clothes and a more prosperous condition, and Moll joining us at that moment, he makes her a very handsome obeisance and standing uncovered before her, begs to know if it is her will that he should paint the ceiling of her dining-hall.

As he spoke, the colour rose on his cheek, and a shaft of sunlight falling on his curling hair, which shone with the lustre of health, made him look as comely a man as ever I did see, and a good five years younger than when he stood before us in the extremity of distress.

“Sir,” says Moll, “were you my debtor as much as I am yours, I could not ask for better payment.”

Don Sanchez put an end to this pretty exchange of courtesies—which maybe he considered overmuch as between a lady of Moll’s degree and one who might turn out to be no more than an indifferent painter at the best—by proposing that Dario should point out what disposition he would have made for his convenience in working. So he went within doors, and there Dario gave orders to our gardener, who was a handy sort of Jack-of-all-trades, what pieces of furniture should be removed, how the walls and floor should be protected, and how a scaffold should be set up for him to work on. And the gardener promising to carry out all these instructions in the course of the day, Dario took his leave of us in a very polished style, saying he would begin his business the next morning betimes.

Sure enough, we were awoke next day by a scraping below, and coming down, we found our painter in a scull-cap and a smock that covered him to his heels, upon his scaffold, preparing the ceiling in a very workmanlike manner. And to see him then, with his face and beard thickly crusted over with a mess of dry plaster and paint, did I think somewhat dispel those fanciful illusions which our Moll had fostered—she, doubtless, expecting to find him in a very graceful attitude and beautiful to look at, creating a picture as if by inchantment. Her mortification was increased later in the day when, we having invited him on her insistence to dine at our table, he declined (civilly enough), saying he had brought his repast with him, and we presently found him seated astride one of his planks with a pocket knife in one hand and a thumb-piece of bread and bacon in the other, which he seemed to be eating with all the relish in the world.

“Why, he is nought but a common labourer,” says Moll, disgusted to see him regaling himself in this fashion, as we returned to our room. “A pretty picture we are like to get for all this mess and inconvenience!”

And her idol being broken (as it were), and all her fond fancies dashed, she would not as much as look at him again nor go anigh the room, to be reminded of her folly.

However, on the third day Dario sent to ask if she would survey his outlines and decide whether the design pleased her or not. For this purpose he had pushed aside his scaffold, and here we saw a perspective done on the ceiling in charcoal, representing a vaulted roof with an opening to the sky in the middle, surrounded by a little balcony with trailing plants running over it, and flowers peeping out betwixt the balusters. And this, though very rough, was most artificial, making the room look twice its height, and the most admirable, masterly drawing that I did ever see.

And now Moll, who had prepared a courteous speech to cover the contempt she expected to feel for the work, could say nought for astonishment, but stood casting her eyes round at the work like one in a maze.

“If you would prefer an allegory of figures,” says Dario, misconceiving her silence.

“Nay,” answers she, “I would have nothing altered. ’Tis wonderful how such effect can be made with mere lines of black. I can scarce believe the ceiling is flat.” And then she drops her eyes upon Dario, regarding him with wonder, as if doubting that such a dirty-looking man could have worked this miracle.

“You must have seen better designs in Rome,” says he.

At this I took alarm, not thinking for the moment that he might have picked up some particulars of Judith Godwin’s history from Mrs. Butterby, or the curious servants who were ever prying in the room.

“’Tis so long ago,” says Moll, readily.

“I think I have seen something like it in the Holy City,” observes the Don, critically.

“Probably. Nothing has been left undone in Rome—I am told. It has not been my good fortune to get so far.”

This was good news; for otherwise he might have put some posers to Moll, which she had found it hard to answer without betraying her ignorance.

Having Moll’s approval, Dario set to work forthwith to colour his perspective; and this he did with the sure firm hand of one who understands his business, and with such nice judgment, that no builder, whose design is ordered by fixed rule and line, could accomplish his work with greater truth and justice. He made it to appear that the lower part of his vaulted roof was wainscoted in the style of the walls, and to such perfection that ’twould have puzzled a conjurer to decide where the oaken panels ended and the painted ones began.

And now Moll suffers her fancies to run wild again, and could not sufficiently marvel over this poor painter and his work, of which she would discourse to such lengths, that both the Don and I at times had some ado to stifle our yawns. She would have it that he was no common man, but some great genius, compelled by misfortune or the persecution of rivals, to wander abroad in disguise, taking for evidence the very facts which had lately led her to condemn him, pointing out that, whereas those young gentlemen who courted her so persistently did endeavour, on all occasions, to make their estate and natural parts appear greater than they were, this Dario did not, proving that he had no such need of fictitious advancement, and could well afford to let the world judge of his worth by his works, etc. This point we did not contest, only we were very well content to observe that he introduced no one into the house, had no friends in the village (to our knowledge), and that nought was lacking from our store of plate.

She never tired of watching him at his work—having the hardihood to mount upon the scaffold where he stood, and there she would sit by the hour on a little stool, chatting like any magpie, when the nature of his occupation allowed his thoughts to wander, silent as a mouse when she perceived that his mind was absorbed in travail—ready at any moment to fetch this or hold t’other, and seizing every opportunity to serve him. Indeed, I believe she would gladly have helped him shift the heavy planks, when he would have their position altered, had he permitted her this rough usage of her delicate hands. One day, when he was about to begin the foliage upon his balcony, he brought in a spray of ivy for a model; then Moll told him she knew where much better was to be found, and would have him go with her to see it. And she, coming back from this expedition, with her arms full of briony and herbage, richly tinted by the first frost, I perceived that there was a new kind of beauty in her face, a radiance of great happiness and satisfaction which I had never seen there before.

Here was herbage enough for a week, but she must have fresh the next morning, and thenceforth every day they would go out ere the sun was high, hunting for new models.

To prepare for these early excursions, Mistress Moll, though commonly disposed to lie abed late in the morning, must have been up by daybreak. And, despite her admiration of Dario’s simplicity in dress, she showed no inclination to follow his example in this particular; but, on the contrary, took more pains in adorning her person at this time than ever she had done before; and as she would dress her hair no two mornings alike, so she would change the fashion of her dress with the same inconstancy until the sly hussy discovered which did most please Dario’s taste; then a word of approval from him, nay, a glance, would suffice to fix her choice until she found that his admiration needed rekindling. And so, as if her own imagination was not sufficiently forcible, she would talk of nothing with her friends but the newest fashions at court, with the result that her maids were for ever a-brewing some new wash for her face (which she considered too brown), compounding charms to remove a little mole she had in the nape of her neck, cutting up one gown to make another, and so forth. One day she presented herself with a black patch at the corner of her lip, and having seen nought of this fashion before, I cried out in alarm:

“Lord, child! have you injured your face with that mess Betty was stewing yesterday?”

“What an absurd, old-fashioned creature you are!” answers she, testily. “Don’t you know that ’tis the mode now for ladies to wear spots? Signor Dario,” adds she, her eyes lighting up, “finds it mighty becoming.” When I saw her thus disfiguring her pretty face (as I considered it then, though I came to admire this embellishment later on) to please Signor Dario, I began to ask myself how this business was likely to end.

CHAPTER XX.

Of Moll’s ill humour and what befel thereby.

Feeling, in the absence of Dawson, that I stood in the position of a guardian to his daughter, and was responsible for her welfare, my mind grew very uneasy about the consequences of her extravagant admiration for the painter; and, knowing that Don Sanchez, despite his phlegmatic humour, loved Moll very sincerely at heart, I took him aside one day, and asked him if he had observed nothing particular in Moll’s behaviour of late.

“One would be blind,” says he, “not to see that she is enamoured of Dario, if that’s what you mean.”

I admitted that my suspicions inclined that way, and, explaining my concern on her behalf, I asked him what he would do in my place.

“In my country,” says he, “matters never would have been suffered to go so far, and Mistress Judith would have been shut up a prisoner in her room these past three weeks. But I doubt if our maidens are any the safer or better for such treatment, and I am quite sure that such treatment would be worse than useless for an English girl, and especially such an one as this. For, guard her how you might, she would assuredly find means to break her prison, and then no course is open to her but to throw herself in the arms of the man she loves, trusting to mere accident whether he abuses her devotion or not. You might as well strive to catch the wind and hold it as stay and stem the course of youthful passion.”

“Aye, Señor,” says I, “this may be all very true. But what should you do in my place?”

“Nothing,” says he.

This was a piece of advice which set me scratching my head in dubitation.

“Beware,” continues he, “how you suggest the thing you fear to one who needs but a hint to act. I have great faith in the natural modesty of women (and I do think no child more innocent than Mistress Judith), which, though it blind them to their danger, does, at the same time, safeguard them against secret and illicit courses of more fatal consequences. Let her discourse with him, openly, since it pleases her. In another fortnight or so Dario’s work will be finished, he will go away, our young lady will shed secret tears and be downcast for a week. Then another swain will please her, and she’ll smile again. That, as I take it, will be the natural order of events, unless,” adds he, “that natural order is disturbed by some external influence.”

Maugre this sage advice, my concern being unabated, I would step pretty frequently into the room where these young people were, as if to see how the work was going forward, and with such a quick step that had any interchange of amorous sentiments existed, I must at one time or another have discovered it. But I never detected any sign of this—no bashful silence, no sudden confusion, or covert interchange of glances. Sometimes they would be chatting lightly, at others both would be standing silent, she, maybe, holding a bunch of leaves with untiring steadfastness, for him to copy. But I observed that she was exceedingly jealous of his society, and no matter how glibly she was talking when I entered, or how indifferent the subject, she would quickly become silent, showing me very plainly by her manner that she would vastly prefer my room to my company.

Still, I was not displeased when I perceived this fresco drawing near to its completion.

“You are getting on apace,” says I, very cheerfully one day. “I reckon you will soon have done.”

“Yes,” answers he, “in a week I shall have nought to do but to pack up my tools and go.” There was an accent of sorrow in his voice, despite himself, which did not escape me nor Moll neither, for I saw her cast her eyes upon his face, as if to read if there were sadness there. But she said never a word.

However, in the afternoon she comes to me, and says she:

“I am resolved I will have all the rooms in the house plastered, if Signor Dario will consent to paint them.”

“All the rooms!” says I, in alarm. “Surely you have not counted the cost of what you propose.”

“I suppose I have enough to keep my house in suitable condition.”

“Without doubt, though I expect such work as Signor Dario’s must command a high price.”

“All I ask of you, then,” says she, “is to bid my steward have five thousand pounds ready for my uses, and within a week, lest I should need it suddenly. Should he raise objections—”

“As assuredly he will,” says I, who knew the crafty, subtle character of old Simon full well by, this time. “A thousand objections, and not one you can pick a hole in.”

“Then show him this and tell him I accept Mr. Goodman’s offer unless he can find more profitable means of raising money.”

With that she puts in my hand a letter she had that morning received from one Henry Goodman, a tenant, who having heard that she had disposed of a farm to his neighbour, now humbly prayed she would do him the same good turn by selling him the land he rented, and for which he was prepared to pay down in ready money the sum of five thousand pounds.

Armed with this letter, I sought Simon and delivered Moll’s message. As I expected, the wily old man had good excuses ready for not complying with this request, showing me the pains he had taken to get the king’s seal, his failures to move the king’s officers, and the refusal of his goldsmith to furnish further supplies before the deed of succession was passed.

“These objections are all very just,” says I, “so I see no way of pleasing our lady but by selling Mr. Goodman’s farm, which she will have done at once if there be no alternative.” So I give him the letter, which he can scarce read for trembling with anguish.

“What,” cries he, coming to the end, “I am to sell this land which I bought for nine hundred pounds and is now worth six thousand? I would rather my mistress had bid me have the last teeth torn from my head.”

“We must have money,” says I.

“Thee shalt have it in good time. Evans hath been paid, and thy debt shall be discharged; fear not.”

“I spoke as representing our lady; for ourselves we are content to wait her better convenience.” And I told him how his mistress would lay out her money in embellishing the Court with paintings, which put him to a new taking to think so much good money should be wasted in such vanities.

“But,” says he, “this work must take time, and one pays for nothing ere ’tis done. By quarter day our rents will be coming in again—”

“No,” says I, cutting him short, “the money must be found at once, or be assured that your lady will take the management of her affairs out of your hands.”

This raised a fresh outcry and more lamentations, but in the end he promised to procure the money by collecting his rents in advance, if his mistress would refuse Mr. Goodman’s offer and wait three weeks; and on Moll’s behalf I agreed to these terms.

A few days after this, we were called into the dining-hall to see the finished ceiling, which truly deserved all the praise we could bestow upon it, and more. For now that the sky appeared through the opening, with a little pearly cloud creeping across it, the verdure and flowers falling over the marble coping, and the sunlight falling on one side and throwing t’other into shade, the illusion was complete, so that one could scarcely have been more astonished had a leaf fallen from the hanging flowers or a face looked over the balcony. In short; ’twas prodigious.

Nevertheless, the painter, looking up at his work with half-closed, critical eyes, seemed dissatisfied, and asking us if we found nothing lacking, we (not to appear behindhand in judgment) agreed that on one side there was a vacant place which might yet be adorned to advantage.

“Yes,” says he, “I see what is wanted and will supply it. That,” adds he; gently turning to Moll, “will give me still another day.”

“Why, what charm can you add that is not there?” asks she.

“Something,” says he, in a low voice, “which I must see whenever I do cast my eyes heavenwards.”

And now Moll, big with her purpose, which she had hitherto withheld from Dario, begs him to come into her state room, and there she told how she would have this ceiling plastered over and painted, like her dining-hall, if he would undertake to do it.

Dario casts his eye round the room and over the ceiling, and then, shaking his head, says: “If I were in your place, I would alter nothing here.”

“But I will have it altered,” says she, nettled, because he did not leap at once at her offer, which was made rather to prolong their communion than to obtain a picture. “I detest these old-fashioned beams of wood.”

“They are in keeping with the character of the room. I think,” adds he, looking round him again with renewed admiration, “I think I have never seen a more perfect example of English art.”

“What of that,” cries she, “if it pleases me to have it otherwise?”

“Nothing,” returns he, calmly. “You have as just a right to stand by your opinion as I by mine.”

“And am I to understand that you will rather hold by your opinion than give me pleasure?”

“I pray you, do not press me to discourtesy,” says he.

“Nay, but I would have a plain answer to my question,” says she, haughtily.

“Then,” says he, angering in his turn, “I must tell you that I would as soon chip an antique statue to suit the taste of a French modiste as disfigure the work of him who designed this room.”

Now, whether Moll took this to be a reflection on her own figure, which had grown marvellous slim in the waist since she had her new stays from London, or not, I will not say; but certainly this response did exasperate her beyond all endurance (as we could see by her blanched cheek and flashing eye); so, dismissing him with a deep curtsey, she turns on her heel without another word.

This foolish business, which was not very creditable to our Moll’s good sense (though I think she acted no worse than other maids in her condition—for I have observed that young people do usually lose their heads at the same time that they lose their hearts), this foolish scene, I say, I would gladly omit from my history, but that it completely changed our destiny; for had these two parted with fair words, we should probably have seen no more of Dario, and Don Sanchez’s prognostic had been realised. Such trifles as these do influence our career as greatly as more serious accidents, our lives being a fabric of events that hang together by the slenderest threads.

Unmoved from his design by Moll’s displeasure, Dario replaced his scaffold before he left that day, and the next morning he came to put the last touch upon his work. Moll, being still in dudgeon, would not go near him, but sat brooding in a corner of her state room, ready, as I perceived, to fly out in passion at any one who gave her the occasion. Perceiving this, Don Sanchez prudently went forth for a walk after dinner; but I, seeing that some one must settle accounts with the painter for his work, stayed at home. And when I observed that he was collecting his materials to go, I went in to Moll.

“My dear,” says I, “I believe Dario is preparing to leave us.”

“My congratulations to him,” says she, “for ’tis evident he is weary of being here.”

“Nay, won’t you come in and see his work now ’tis finished?”

“No; I have no desire to see it. If I have lost my taste for Italian art, ’tis through no fault of his.”

“You will see him, surely, before he goes.”

“No; I will not give him another opportunity to presume upon my kindness.”

“Why, to be sure,” says I, like a fool, “you have been a little over-familiar.”

“Indeed,” says she, firing up like a cracker. “Then I think ’twould have been kinder of you to give me a hint of it beforehand. However, ’tis a very good excuse for treating him otherwise now.”

“Well, he must be paid for his work, at any rate.”

“Assuredly. If you have not money enough, I will fetch it from my closet.”

“I have it ready, and here is a purse for the purpose. The question is, how much to put in it. I should think such a perspective as that could not be handsomely paid under fifty guineas.”

“Then you will give him a hundred, and say that I am exceedingly obliged to him.”

I put this sum in the purse and went out into the hall where Dario was waiting, with his basket of brushes beside him. In a poor, bungling, stammering fashion, I delivered Moll’s message, and made the best excuse I could for delivering it in her stead.

He waited a moment or two after I had spoken, and then, says he, in a low voice:

“Is that all?”

“Nay,” says I, offering the purse, “we do beg you to take this as—”

He stopped me, pushing my hand aside.

“I have taken a purse from Don Sanchez,” says he. “There was more in it than I needed—there are still some pieces left. But as I would not affront him by offering to return them, so I beg you will equally respect my feelings. I undertook the task in gratitude, and it hath been a work of love all through, well paid for by the happiness that I have found here.”

He stood musing a little while, as if he were debating with himself whether he should seek to overcome Moll’s resentment or not. Then, raising his head quickly, he says: “’Tis best so, maybe. Farewell, sir” (giving me his hand). “Tell her,” adds he, as we stand hand in hand at the door, “that I can never forget her kindness, and will ever pray for her happiness.”

I found the door ajar and Moll pacing the room very white, when I returned. She checked me the moment I essayed to deliver Dario’s message.

“You can save your breath,” says she, passionately, “I’ve heard every word.”

“More shame for you,” says I, in a passion, casting my purse on the table. “’Tis infamous to treat an honest gentleman thus, and silly besides. Come, dear,” altering my tone, “do let me run and fetch him back.”

“You forget whom you are speaking to, Mr. Hopkins,” cries she.

I saw ’twas impossible to move her whilst she was in this mood, for she had something of her father’s obstinate, stubborn disposition, and did yet hope to bring Dario back to her feet, like a spaniel, by harsh treatment. But he came no more, though a palette he had overlooked could have given him the excuse, and for very vexation with Moll I was glad he did not.

He had not removed the scaffold, but when I went upon it to see what else he had put into his painting, the fading light only allowed me to make out a figure that seemed to be leaning over the balcony.

Moll would not go in there, though I warrant she was dying of curiosity; and soon after supper, which she could scarce force herself to touch, she went up to her own chamber, wishing us a very distant, formal good-night, and keeping her passionate, angry countenance.

But the next morning, ere I was dressed, she knocked at my door, and, opening it, I found her with swollen eyes and tears running down her cheeks.

“Come down,” says she, betwixt her sobs, and catching my hand in hers. “Come down and see.”

So we went downstairs together—I wondering what now had happened—and so into the dining-hall. And there I found the scaffold pushed aside, and the ceiling open to view. Then looking up, I perceived that the figure bending over the balcony bore Moll’s own face, with a most sweet, compassionate expression in it as she looked down, such as I had observed when she bent over Dario, having brought him back to life. And this, thinks I, remembering his words, this is what he must ever see when he looks heavenwards.