he week, that she had ceased to feel
for her father. But this was not so (albeit wounds heal quickly in the
young and healthful), for I believe that they who weep the least do ache
the most.

Then, for her further excuse (if it be needed), Don Sanchez brought back
good tidings of her father,--how he was neatly lodged near the Cherry
garden, where he could hear the birds all day and the fiddles all night,
with abundance of good entertainment, etc. To confirm which, she got a
letter from him, three days later, very loving and cheerful, telling
how, his landlord being a carpenter, he did amuse himself mightily at
his old trade in the workshop, and was all agog for learning to turn
wood in a lathe, promising that he would make her a set of egg-cups
against her birthday, please God. Added to this, the number of her
friends multiplying apace, every day brought some new occupation to her
thoughts; also, having now those three thousand pounds old Simon had
promised us, Moll set herself to spending of them as quickly as
possible, by furnishing herself with all sorts of rich gowns and
appointments, which is as pretty a diversion of melancholy from a young
woman's thoughts as any. And so I think I need dwell no longer on this
head.

About the beginning of October, Simon comes, cap in hand, and very
humble, to the Court to crave Moll's consent to his setting some men
with guns in her park at night, to lie in ambush for poachers, telling
how they had shot one man in the act last spring, and had hanged another
the year before for stealing of a sheep; adding that a stranger had been
seen loitering in the neighbourhood, who, he doubted not, was of their
thieving crew.

"What makes you think that?" asks Moll. "He has been seen lingering
about here these three days," answers Simon. "Yet to my knowledge he
hath not slept at either of the village inns. Moreover, he hath the look
of a desperate, starving rascal, ripe for such work."

"I will have no man killed for his misfortunes."

"Gentle mistress, suffer me to point out that if thee lets one man steal
with impunity, others, now innocent, are thereby encouraged to sin, and
thus thy mercy tends to greater cruelty."

"No man shall be killed on my land,--there is my answer," says Moll,
with passion. "If you take this poor, starved creature, it shall be
without doing him bodily hurt. You shall answer for it else."

"Not a bone shall be broken, mistress. 'Tis enough if we carry him
be