en he could get it), and make nothing of half a gallon of ale
therewith,--a very masterful man, but kindly withal, and pleasant to
look at when not contraried, with never a line of care in his face,
though turned of fifty. He played our humorous parts, but he had a sweet
voice for singing of ditties, and could fetch a tear as readily as a
laugh, and he was also exceeding nimble at a dance, which was the
strangest thing in the world, considering his great girth. Wife he had
none, but Moll Dawson was his daughter, who was a most sprightly, merry
little wench, but no miracle for beauty, being neither child nor woman
at this time; surprisingly thin, as if her frame had grown out of
proportion with her flesh, so that her body looked all arms and legs,
and her head all mouth and eyes, with a great towzled mass of chestnut
hair, which (off the stage) was as often as not half tumbled over her
shoulder. But a quicker little baggage at mimicry (she would play any
part, from an urchin of ten to a crone of fourscore), or a livelier at
dancing of Brantles or the single Coranto never was, I do think, and as
merry as a grig. Of Ned Herring I need only here say that he was the
most tearing villain imaginable on the stage, and off it the most
civil-spoken, honest-seeming young gentleman. Nor need I trouble to give
a very lengthy description of myself; what my character was will appear
hereafter, and as for my looks, the less I say about them, the better.
Being something of a scholar and a poet, I had nearly died of
starvation, when Jack Dawson gave me a footing on the stage, where I
would play the part of a hero in one act, a lacquey in the second, and a
merry Andrew in the third, scraping a tune on my fiddle to fill up the
intermedios.

We had designed to return to London as soon as the Plague abated, unless
we were favoured with extraordinary good fortune, and so, when we heard
that the sickness was certainly past, and the citizens recovering of
their panic, we (being by this time heartily sick of our venture, which
at the best gave us but beggarly recompense) set about to retrace our
steps with cheerful expectations of better times. But coming to Oxford,
we there learned that a prodigious fire had burnt all London down, from
the Tower to Ludgate, so that if we were there, we should find no house
to play in. This lay us flat in our hopes, and set us again to our
vagabond enterprise; and so for six months more we scoured the country
in