A Set of Rogues Part 3

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 wors.h.i.+p 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, Senor."

"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 s.h.i.+n, 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 appet.i.te."

"'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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sable save in the marshy parts about Sh.o.r.editch, 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, Senor," 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 G.o.dwin, whose husband, Sir Richard G.o.dwin, 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. G.o.dwin, 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 gla.s.ses 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 G.o.dwin was recalled from Italy, whither he had been sent as emba.s.sador 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 s.h.i.+p 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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. G.o.dwin and her daughter. Her lot was even worse; for her wounded husband, Sir Richard, was s.n.a.t.c.hed 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. G.o.dwin 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. G.o.dwin 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. G.o.dwin 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. G.o.dwin 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 G.o.dwin, 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."