CHAPTER III.
Of that design which Don Sanchez opened to us at the Bell.
We pulled our pipes from our mouths, Dawson and I, and stretched our ears very eager to know what this business was the Don had to propound, and he, after drawing two or three mouthfuls of smoke, which he expelled through his nostrils in a most surprising unnatural manner, says in excellent good English, but speaking mighty slow and giving every letter its worth:
"What do you go to do to-morrow?"
"The Lord only knows," answers Jack, and Don Sanchez, lifting his eyebrows as if he considers this no answer at all, he continues: "We cannot go hence without our stage things; and if we could, I see not how we are to act our play, now that our villain is gone, with a plague to him! I doubt but we must sell all that we have for the few shillings they will fetch to get us out of this hobble."
"With our landlord's permission," remarks Don Sanchez, dryly.
"Permission!" cries Dawson, in a passion. "I ask no man's permission to do what I please with my own."
"Suppose he claims these things in payment of the money you owe him. What then?" asks the Don.
"We never thought of that, Kit," says Dawson, turning to me in a pucker. "But 'tis likely enough he has, for I observed he was mighty careless whether we found our thief or not. That's it, sure enough. We have nought to hope. All's lost!"
With that he drops his elbows on his knees, and stares into the fire with a most desponding countenance, being in that stage of liquor when a man must either laugh or weep.
"Come, Jack," says I. "You are not used to yield like this. Let us make the best of a bad lot, and face the worst like men. Though we trudge hence with nothing but the rags on our backs, we shall be no worse off to-morrow than we were this morning."
"Why, that's true enough!" cries he, plucking up his courage. "Let the thieving rascal take our poor nag and our things for his payment, and much good may they do him. We will wipe this out of our memory the moment we leave his cursed inn behind us."
It seemed to me that this would not greatly advance us, and maybe Don Sanchez thought the same, for he presently asks:
"And what then?"
"Why, Señor," replies Dawson, "we will face each new buffet as it comes, and make a good fight of it till we're beat. A man may die but once."
"You think only of yourselves," says the Don, very quietly.
"And pray, saving your Señor's presence, who else should we think of?"
"The child above," answers the Don, a little more sternly than he had yet spoken. "Is a young creature like that to bear the buffets you are so bold to meet? Can you offer her no shelter from the wind and rain but such as chance offers? make no provision for the time when she is left alone, to protect her against the evils that lie in the path of friendless maids?"
"God forgive me," says Jack, humbly. And then we could say nothing, for thinking what might befall Moll if we should be parted, but sat there under the keen eye of Don Sanchez, looking helplessly into the fire. And there was no sound until Jack's pipe, slipping from his hand, fell and broke in pieces upon the hearth. Then rousing himself up and turning to Don Sanchez, he says:
"The Lord help her, Señor, if we find no good friend to lend us a few shillings for our present wants."
"Good friends are few," says the Don, "and they who lend need some better security for repayment than chance. For my own part, I would as soon fling straws to a drowning man as attempt to save you and that child from ruin by setting you on your feet to-day only to fall again to-morrow."
"If that be so, Señor," says I, "you had some larger view in mind than that of offering temporary relief to our misery when you gave us a supper and Moll a bed for the night."
Don Sanchez assented with a grave inclination of his head, and going to the door opened it sharply, listened awhile, and then closing it softly, returned and stood before us with folded arms. Then, in a low voice, not to be heard beyond the room, he questioned us very particularly as to our relations with other men, the length of time we had been wandering about the country, and especially about the tractability of Moll. And, being satisfied with our replies,—above all, with Jack's saying that Moll would jump out of window at his bidding, without a thought to the consequences,—he says:
"There's a comedy we might play to some advantage if you were minded to take the parts I give you and act them as I direct."
"With all my heart," cries Dawson. "I'll play any part you choose; and as to the directing, you're welcome to that, for I've had my fill of it. If you can make terms with our landlord, those things in the yard shall be yours, and for our payment I'm willing to trust to your honour's generosity."
"As regards payment," says the Don, "I can speak precisely. We shall gain fifty thousand pounds by our performance."
"Fifty thousand pounds," says Jack, as if in doubt whether he had heard aright. Don Sanchez bent his head, without stirring a line in his face.
Dawson took up his beaker slowly, and looked in it, to make sure that he was none the worse for drink, then, after emptying it, to steady his wits, he says again:
"Fifty thousand pounds."
"Fifty thousand pounds, if not more; and that there be no jealousies one of the other, it shall be divided fairly amongst us, as much for your friend as for you, for the child as for me."
"Pray God, this part be no more than I can compass," says Jack, devoutly.
"You may learn it in a few hours—at least, your first act."
"And mine?" says I, entering for the first time into the dialogue.
The Don hunched his shoulders, lifting his eyebrows, and sending two streams of smoke from his nose.
"I scarce know what part to give you, yet," says he. "To be honest, you are not wanted at all in the play."
"Nay, but you must write him a part," says Dawson, stoutly; "if it be but to bring in a letter—that I am determined on. Kit stood by us in ill fortune, and he shall share better, or I'll have none of it, nor Moll neither. I'll answer for her."
"There must be no discontent among us," says the Don, meaning thereby, as I think, that he had included me in his stratagem for fear I might mar it from envy. "The girl's part is that which gives me most concern—and had I not faith in my own judgment—"
"Set your mind at ease on that score," cried Jack. "I warrant our Moll shall learn her part in a couple of days or so."
"If she learn it in a twelvemonth, 'twill be time enough."
"A twelvemonth," said Jack, going to his beaker again, for understanding. "Well, all's as one, so that we can get something in advance of our payment, to keep us through such a prodigious study."
"I will charge myself with your expenses," says Don Sanchez; and then, turning to me, he asks if I have any objection to urge.
"I take it, Señor, that you speak in metaphor," says I; "and that this 'comedy' is nought but a stratagem for getting hold of a fortune that doesn't belong to us."
Don Sanchez calmly assented, as if this had been the most innocent design in the world.
"Hang me," cries Dawson, "if I thought it was anything but a whimsey of your honour's."
"I should like to know if we may carry out this stratagem honestly," says I.
"Aye," cries Jack. "I'll not agree for cutting of throats or breaking of bones, for any money."
"I can tell you no more than this," says the Don. "The fortune we may take is now in the hands of a man who has no more right to it than we have."
"If that's so," says Jack, "I'm with you, Señor. For I'd as lief bustle a thief out of his gains as say my prayers, any day, and liefer."
"Still," says I, "the money must of right belong to some one."
"We will say that the money belongs to a child of the same age as Moll."
"Then it comes to this, Señor," says I, bluntly. "We are to rob that child of fifty thousand pounds."
"When you speak of robbing," says the Don, drawing himself up with much dignity, "you forget that I am to play a part in this stratagem I, Don Sanchez del Castillo de Castelaña."
"Fie, Kit, han't you any manners?" cries Dick. "What's all this talk of a child? Hasn't the Señor told us we are but to bustle a cheat?"
"But I would know what is to become of this child, if we take her fortune, though it be withheld from her by another," says I, being exceeding obstinate and persistent in my liquor.
"I shall prove to your conviction," says the Don, "that the child will be no worse off, if we take this money, than if we leave it in the hands of that rascally steward. But I see," adds he, contemptuously, "that for all your brotherly love, 'tis no such matter to you whether poor little Molly comes to her ruin, as every maid must who goes to the stage, or is set beyond the reach of temptation and the goading of want."
"Aye, and be hanged to you, Kit!" cries Dawson.
"Tell me, Mr. Poet," continues Don Sanchez, "do you consider this steward who defrauds that child of a fortune 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, Señor," 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, little by little, we cooled down, and towards morning, each giving way something, we came to the conclusion that we would have Don Sanchez show us the steward, that we might know the truth of his story (which I misdoubted, seeing that it was but a roguish kind of game at best that he would have us take part in), and that if we found all things as he represented them, then we would accept his offer. And also we resolved to be down betimes and let him know our determination before he set out for London, to the end that we might not be left fasting all the day. But herein we miscalculated the potency of liquor and a comfortable bed of hay, for 'twas nine o'clock before either of us winked an eye, and when we got down, we learnt that Don Sanchez had been gone a full hour, and so no prospect of breaking our fast till night-fall.
Presently comes Moll, all fresh and pink from the house, and falls to exclaiming upon the joy of sleeping betwixt clean sheets in a feather bed, and could speak of nothing else, saying she would give all the world to sleep so well every day of her life.
"Eh," whispers her father in my ear, "you see how luxuries do tempt the poor child, and what kind of a bed she is like to lie in if our hopes miscarry."
On which, still holding to my scruples, I says to Moll:
"'Tis easy to say you would give the world, Moll, but I know full well you would give nothing for all the comfort possible that was not your own."
"Nay," says she, crossing her hands on her breast, and casting up her eyes with the look of a saint, "what are all the fruits of the earth to her who cannot take them with an easy conscience? Honesty is dearer to me than the bread of life."
Then, as Jack and I are looking at each other ruefully in the face at this dash to our knavish project, she bursts into a merry peal of laughter, like a set of Christmas bells chiming, whereupon we, turning about to find the cause of her merriment, she pulls another demure face, and, slowly lifting her skirt, shows us a white napkin tied about her waist, stuffed with a dozen delicacies she had filched from Don Sanchez's table in coming down from her room.