A SET OF ROGUES
NAMELY
CHRISTOPHER SUTTON, JOHN DAWSON, THE SEÑOR DON SANCHEZ DEL CASTILLO DE
CASTELAÑA AND MOLL DAWSON
Their Wicked Conspiracy, and a True Account of their Travels and
Adventures
THE MARRIAGE OF MOLL DAWSON BY SINFUL MEANS TO A WORTHY GENTLEMAN OF
MERIT; HER FALL, REMORSE AND GREAT SORROW; HER SECOND EXPEDITION WITH
HER FORMER ROGUISH COMPANIONS INTO STRANGE PLACES
HER ATONEMENT TO MR. RICHARD GODWIN (WHEREBY SHE RENDERS UP ALL SHE EVER
HAD OF HIM AND MORE) AND SELLING OF HERSELF TO ALGERINE PIRATES AND
GOING INTO BARBARY A SLAVE; TOGETHER WITH THE TRIBULATIONS OF THOSE WHO
LED HER TO WRONG DOING, AND MANY OTHER SURPRISING THINGS NOW DISCLOSED
FOR THE FIRST TIME AS THE FAITHFUL CONFESSION OF CHRISTOPHER SUTTON
BY
FRANK BARRETT
1895
[Illustration: "'GIVE ME THY HAND, CHILD,' SAYS HE."]
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.