llar and slung him out of the ring. Thus did his
courage ever contradict his appearance, and at the dangerous game
of whipping the blinded bear he had no rival, either for bravery or
adroitness. He would rush in with uplifted whip until the breath of the
infuriated beast was hot upon his cheek, let his angry lash curl for
an instant across the bear's flank, and then, for all his halting foot,
leap back into safety with a smiling pride in his own nimbleness.

His acquaintance with Moll Cutpurse, casually begun at a bull-baiting,
speedily ripened, for her into friendship, for him into love. In this,
the solitary romance of his life, Ralph Briscoe overtopped even his own
achievements of courage. The Roaring Girl was no more young, and years
had not refined her character unto gentleness. It was still her habit to
appear publicly in jerkin and galligaskins, to smoke tobacco in contempt
of her sex, and to fight her enemies with a very fury of insolence. In
stature she exceeded the limping clerk by a head, and she could pick him
up with one hand, like a kitten. Yet he loved her, not for any grace
of person, nor beauty of feature, nor even because her temperament was
undaunted as his own. He loved her for that wisest of reasons, which is
no reason at all, because he loved her. In his eyes she was the Queen,
not of Misrule, but of Hearts. Had a throne been his, she should have
shared it, and he wooed her with a shy intensity, which ennobled him,
even in her austere regard. Alas! she was unable to return his passion,
and she lamented her own obduracy with characteristic humour. She made
no attempt to conceal her admiration. 'A notable and famous person,' she
called him, confessing that, 'he was right for her tooth, and made to
her mind in every part of him.' He had been bred up in the same exercise
of bull-baiting, which was her own delight; she had always praised his
towardliness, and prophesied his preferment. But when he paid her
court she was obliged to decline the honour, while she esteemed the
compliment.

In truth, she was completely insensible to passion, or, as she exclaimed
in a phrase of brilliant independence, 'I should have hired him to my
embraces.'

The sole possibility that remained was a Platonic friendship, and
Briscoe accepted the situation in excellent humour. 'Ever since he came
to know himself,' again it is Moll that speaks, 'he always deported
himself to me with an abundance of regard, calling me his Aunt