_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 to-morrow,
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 to-morrow 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 to-day 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."