une 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, Senor," 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,