tered justice with pedantic severity,
Briscoe's influence still further declined. There was no longer scope
in the State for men of spirit; even the gaols were handed over to the
stern mercy of crop-eared Puritans; Moll herself had fallen upon evil
times; and Ralph Briscoe determined to make a last effort for wealth
and retirement. At the very moment when his expulsion seemed certain,
an heiress was thrown into Newgate upon a charge of murdering a too
importunate suitor. The chain of evidence was complete: the dagger
plunged in his heart was recognised for her own; she was seen to decoy
him to the secret corner of a wood, where his raucous love-making was
silenced for ever. Taken off her guard, she had even hinted confession
of her crime, and nothing but intrigue could have saved her gentle
neck from the gallows. Briscoe, hungry for her money-bags, promised
assistance. He bribed, he threatened, he cajoled, he twisted the law
as only he could twist it, he suppressed honest testimony, he procured
false; in fine, he weakened the case against her with so resistless an
effrontery, that not the Hanging Judge himself could convict the poor
innocent.

At the outset he had agreed to accept a handsome bribe, but as the trial
approached, his avarice increased, and he would be content with nothing
less than the lady's hand and fortune. Not that he loved her; his heart
was long since given to Moll Cutpurse; but he knew that his career
of depredation was at an end, and it became him to provide for his
declining years. The victim repulsed his suit, regretting a thousand
times that she had stabbed her ancient lover. At last, bidden summarily
to choose between Death and the Clerk, she chose the Clerk, and thus
Ralph Briscoe left Newgate the richest squire in a western county.
Henceforth he farmed his land like a gentleman, drank with those of his
neighbours who would crack a bottle with him, and unlocked the strange
stores of his memory to bumpkins who knew not the name of Newgate. Still
devoted to sport, he hunted the fox, and made such a bull-ring as his
youthful imagination could never have pictured. So he lived a life of
country ease, and died a churchwarden. And he deserved his prosperity,
for he carried the soul of Falstaff in the shrunken body of Justice
Shallow.

GILDEROY AND THE SIXTEEN-STRING JACK

I--GILDEROY

HE stood six feet ten in his stockinged feet, and was the tallest
ruffian that ever cut a purse or