she passed them. But she
never interfered; for the husband who had courted her when she was a
young girl was the only person for whom she still kept a soft spot in
the heart that of late years seemed to have grown so hard.

Truth to tell, tavern-keeping was no easy business in those unsettled
times, and Moll had ever been a famous body for worrying over trifles.

'"The worry cow
Would have lived till now,
If she had not lost her breath,
But she thought her hay
Would not last the day,
So she mooed herself to death."

'And all the time she had three sacks full! Remember that, Moll, my
lass!' Jan's father would say to his wife, when she began to pour out
to him her dismal forebodings about the future.

But since this easy-going, jolly daddy had left the Inn and had gone
away with the other men and lads of the village to fight with My Lord
for the King, little Jan's lot was a hard one, and seemed likely to
grow harder day by day.

Rough Moll's own life was not too easy either, at this time, though
few folks troubled themselves to speculate upon the reason for her
added gruffness. So she concealed her anxieties under an extra
harshness of tongue and did her best to make life a burden to everyone
she came across. For, naturally, now that the Inn was no longer a
pleasant place in mine host's absence, it was no longer a profitable
place either. Custom was falling off and quarter day was fast
approaching. Moll was at her wits' end to know where she should find
money to pay her rent, when, one day, to her unspeakable relief, My
Lady in her coach stopped at the door of the Inn. Now Moll had been
dairymaid up at the Hall years ago, before her marriage, and My Lady
knew of old that Moll's butter was as sweet as her looks were sour.
Perhaps she guessed, also, at some of the other woman's anxieties; for
was not her own husband, My Lord, away at the wars too? Anyway, when
the fine yellow coach stopped at the door of the Inn, it was My Lady's
own head with the golden ringlets that leaned out of the window, and
My Lady's own soft voice that asked if her old dairymaid could
possibly oblige her with no less than thirty pounds of butter for her
Yuletide feast to the villagers the following week.

The Moll who came out, smiling and flattered, to the Inn door and
stood there curtseying very low to her Ladyship, was a different being
from the Rough Moll of every day. She promised, with her very
smoothest tong