Page:A Set of Rogues.djvu/285

 We take Moll to Greenwich; but no great happiness for her there.

the midst of our heroics I was greatly scared by perceiving a cloaked figure coming hurriedly towards us in the dim light.

"'Tis another, come to succour his friends," whispers I. "Let us step into this hedge."

"Too late," returns he. "Put on a bold face, 'tis only one."

With a swaggering gait and looking straight before us, we had passed the figure, when a voice calls "Father!" and there turning, we find that 'tis poor Moll in her husband's cloak.

"Where is thy husband, child?" asks Dawson, as he recovers from his astonishment, taking Moll by the hand.

"I have no husband, father," answers she, piteously.

"Why, sure he hath not turned you out of doors?"

"No, he'd not do that," says she, "were I ten times more wicked than I am."

"What folly then is this?" asks her father.

"'Tis no folly. I have left him of my own free will, and shall never go back to him. For he's no more my husband than that house is mine" (pointing to the Court). "Both were got by the same means, and both are lost."

Then briefly she told how they had been turned from the 271