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 — Reading Companion

z thought the same, for he presently asks:

"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 to-day only to fall again to-morrow."

"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 to-morrow 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 to-morrow; 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.

_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.