d, already empress
of the thieves, she presently aspired to the friendship and patronage
of the highwaymen. Though she did not dispose of their booty, she was
appointed their banker, and vast was the treasure entrusted to the
coffers of honest Moll. Now, it was her pride to keep only the best
company, for she hated stupidity worse than a clumsy hand, and they were
men of wit and spirit who frequented her house. Thither came the famous
Captain Hind, the Regicides' inveterate enemy, whose lofty achievements
Moll, with an amiable extravagance, was wont to claim for her own.
Thither came the unamiably notorious Mull Sack, who once emptied
Cromwell's pocket on the Mall, and whose courage was as formidable as
his rough-edged tongue. Another favourite was the ingenious Crowder,
whose humour it was to take the road habited like a bishop, and who
surprised the victims of his greed with ghostly counsel. Thus it was a
merry party that assembled in the lady's parlour, loyal to the memory of
the martyred king, and quick to fling back an offending pleasantry.

But the house in Fleet Street was a refuge as well as a resort, the
sanctuary of a hundred rascals, whose misdeeds were not too flagrantly
discovered. For, while Moll always allowed discretion to govern her
conduct, while she would risk no present security for a vague promise
of advantages to come, her secret influence in Newgate made her more
powerful than the hangman and the whole bench of judges. There was
no turnkey who was not her devoted servitor, but it was the clerk of
Newgate to whom she and her family were most deeply beholden. This was
one Ralph Briscoe, as pretty a fellow as ever deserted the law for a
bull-baiting. Though wizened and clerkly in appearance, he was of a
lofty courage; and Moll was heard to declare that had she not been sworn
to celibacy, she would have cast an eye upon the faithful Ralph, who was
obedient to her behests whether at Gaol Delivery or Bear Garden. For her
he would pack a jury or get a reprieve; for him she would bait a bull
with the fiercest dogs in London. Why then should she fear the law, when
the clerk of Newgate and Gregory the Hangman fought upon her side?

For others the arbiter of life and death, she was only thrice in an
unexampled career confronted with the law. Her first occasion of arrest
was so paltry that it brought discredit only on the constable. This
jack-in-office, a very Dogberry, encountered Moll returning down Ludgate