ecommend us a magistrate of his acquaintance,
naming him who had set us in the stocks at Tottenham Cross.

The very hint of this put us again in a quake, and now, the snow
beginning to fall pretty heavily, we went into the shed to cast about as
to what on earth we should do next. There we sat, glum and silent,
watching idly the big flakes of snow fluttering down from the leaden
sky, for not one of us could imagine a way out of this hobble.

"Holy Mother!" cries Jack at length, springing up in a passion, "we
cannot sit here and starve of cold and hunger. Cuddle up to my arm,
Moll, and do you bring your fiddle, Kit, and let us try our luck
a-begging in alehouses."

And so we trudged out into the driving snow, that blinded us as we
walked, bow our heads as we might, and tried one alehouse after the
other, but all to no purpose, the parlours being empty because of the
early hour, and the snow keeping folks within doors; only, about midday,
some carters, who had pulled up at an inn, took pity on us, and gave us
a mug of penny ale and half a loaf, and that was all the food we had the
whole miserable day. Then at dusk, wet-footed and fagged out in mind and
body, we trudged back to the Bell, thinking to get back into the loft
and bury ourselves in the sweet hay for warmth and comfort. But coming
hither, we found our nag turned out of the stable and the door locked,
so that we were thrown quite into despair by the loss of this last poor
hope, and poor Moll, turning her face away from us, burst out
a-crying--she who all day had set us a brave example by her cheerful
merry spirit.

CHAPTER II.

_Of our first acquaintance with the Senor Don Sanchez del Castillo de
Castelana, and his brave entertaining of us._

I was taking a turn or two outside the shed,--for the sight of Jack
Dawson hugging poor Moll to his breast and trying to soothe her bodily
misery with gentle words was more than I could bear,--when a drawer
coming across from the inn told me that a gentleman in the Cherry room
would have us come to him. I gave him a civil answer and carried this
message to my friends. Moll, who had staunched her tears and was smiling
piteously, though her sobs, like those of a child, still shook her thin
frame, and her father both looked at me in blank doubt as fearing some
trap for our further discomfiture.

"Nay," says Jack, stoutly. "Fate can serve us no worse within doors than
without, so let us in and face this gentlema