_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 to-day. 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, to-morrow 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 to-morrow for your precious basin of porridge?"