And now, before all the company are yet out of the place, and while Jack Dawson is wiping the sweat from his face, comes the landlord, and asks pretty bluntly to be paid his share of our earnings.

“Well,” says Jack, in a huff, “I see no reason for any such haste; but if you will give me time to put on my breeches, you shall be paid all the same.”  And therewith he takes down his trunks from the nail where they hung.  And first giving them a doubtful shake, as seeming lighter than he expected, and hearing no chink of money, he thrusts his hand into one pocket, and then into the other, and cries in dismay:  “Heaven’s mercy upon us; we are robbed!  Every penny of our money is gone!”

“Can you think of nothing better than such an idle story as that?” says the landlord.  “There hath been none behind this sheet but yourselves all the night.”

We could make no reply to this, but stood gaping at each other in a maze for some seconds; then Jack Dawson, recovering his wits, turns him round, and looking about, cries:  “Why, where’s Ned Herring?”

“If you mean him as was killed in your play,” says the landlord, “I’ll answer for it he’s not far off; for, to my knowledge, he was in the house drinking with a man while you were a-dancing of your antics like a fool.  And I only hope you may be as honest a man as he, for he paid for his liquor like a gentleman.”

That settled the question, for we knew the constable had left never a penny in his pocket when he clapt us in the stocks.

“Well,” says Jack, “he has our money, as you may prove by searching us, and if you have faith in him ’tis all as one, and you may rest easy for your reckoning being paid against his return.”

The landlord went off, vowing he would take the law of us if he were not paid by the morning; and we, as soon as we had shuffled on our clothes, away to hunt for Ned, thinking that maybe he had made off with the money to avoid paying half to the landlord, and hoping always that, though he might play the rogue with him, he would deal honestly by us.  But we could find no trace of him, though we visited every alehouse in the town, and so back we go, crestfallen, to the Bell, to beg the innkeeper to give us a night’s lodging and a crust of bread on the speculation that Ned would come back and settle our accounts; but he would not listen to our prayers, and so, hungry and thirsty, and miserable beyond expression, we were fain to make up with a loft over the stables, where, thanks to a good store of sweet hay, we soon forgot our troubles in sleep, but not before we had concerted to get away in the morning betimes to escape another day in the stocks.

Accordingly, before the break of day, we were afoot, and after noiselessly packing our effects in the cart in the misty grey light, Jack Dawson goes in the stable to harness our nag, while I as silently take down the heavy bar that fastened the yard gate.  But while I was yet fumbling at the bolts, and all of a shake for fear of being caught in the act, Jack Dawson comes to me, with Moll holding of his hand, as she would when our troubles were great, and says in a tone of despair: