hand to his pocket the only piece of damning evidence
had vanished, stolen by the nimble fingers of one of Moll's officers.

Thus with admirable trickery and a perfect sense of dramatic effect
she contrived her escape, and never again ran the risk of a sudden
discovery. For experience brought caution in its train, and though this
wiliest of fences lived almost within the shadow of Newgate, though she
was as familiar in the prison yard as at the Globe Tavern, her nightly
resort, she obeyed the rules of life and law with so precise an
exactitude that suspicion could never fasten upon her. Her kingdom was
midway between robbery and justice. And as she controlled the mystery
of thieving so, in reality, she meted out punishment to the evildoer.
Honest citizens were robbed with small risk to life or property. For
Moll always frowned upon violence, and was ever ready to restore the
booty for a fair ransom. And the thieves, driven by discipline to a
certain humanity, plied their trade with an obedience and orderliness
hitherto unknown. Moll's then was no mean achievement. Her career was
not circumscribed by her trade, and the Roaring Girl, the daredevil
companion of the wits and bloods, enjoyed a fame no less glorious than
the Queen of Thieves.

'Enter Moll in a frieze jerkin and a black safeguard.' Thus in the old
comedy she comes upon the stage; and truly it was by her clothes that
she was first notorious. By accident a woman, by habit a man, she must
needs invent a costume proper to her pursuits. But she was no shrieking
reformer, no fanatic spying regeneration in a pair of breeches. Only in
her attire she showed her wit; and she went to a bull-baiting in such a
dress as well became her favourite sport. She was not of those who 'walk
in spurs but never ride.' The jerkin, the doublet, the galligaskins
were put on to serve the practical purposes of life, not to attract the
policeman or the spinster. And when a petticoat spread its ample folds
beneath the doublet, not only was her array handsome, but it symbolised
the career of one who was neither man nor woman, and yet both. After a
while, however, the petticoat seemed too tame for her stalwart temper,
and she exchanged it for the great Dutch slop, habited in which unseemly
garment she is pictured in the ancient prints.

Up and down the town she romped and scolded, earning the name which
Middleton gave her in her green girlhood. 'She has the spirit of four
great parishes,'