light of the business and ate with great content and some mirth.

A drizzly rain falling and turning the snow into slush, we kept under
the shelter of the shed, and this giving us scope for the reflection Don
Sanchez had counselled, my compunctions were greatly shaken by the
consideration of our present position and the prospect of worse. When I
thought of our breakfast that Moll had stolen, and how willingly we
would all have eaten a dinner got by the same means, I had to
acknowledge that certainly we were all thieves at heart; and this
conclusion, together with sitting all day doing nothing in the raw cold,
did make the design of Don Sanchez seem much less heinous to me than it
appeared the night before, when I was warm and not exceedingly sober,
and indeed towards dusk I came to regard it as no bad thing at all.

About six comes back our Don on a fine horse, and receives our
salutations with a cool nod--we standing there of a row, looking our
sweetest, like hungry dogs in expectation of a bone. Then in he goes to
the house without a word, and now my worst fear was that he had thought
better of his offer and would abandon it. So there we hang about the
best part of an hour, now thinking the Don would presently send for us,
and then growing to despair of everything but to be left in the cold
forgotten; but in the end comes Master Landlord to tell us his worship
in the Cherry room would see us. So, after the same formalities of
cleansing ourselves as the night afore, upstairs we go at the heels of a
drawer, carrying a roast pig, which to our senses was more delightful
than any bunch of flowers.

With a gesture of his hands, after saluting us with great dignity, Don
Sanchez bade us take our places at the table and with never a word of
question as to our decision; but that was scarce necessary, for it
needed no subtle observation to perceive that we would accept any
conditions to get our share of that roast pig. This supper differed not
greatly from the former, save that our Moll was taken with a kind of
tickling at the throat which presently attracted our notice.

"What ails you, Molly, my dear?" asks Jack. "Has a bit of crackling gone
down the wrong way?"

She put it off as if she would have us take no notice of it, but it grew
worse and worse towards the end of the meal, and became a most horrid,
tearing cough, which she did so natural as to deceive us all and put us
in great concern, and especially Don Sanchez, wh