“Give over, Kit.  We are all undone again.  For our harness is stole, and there’s never another I can take in its place.”

While we were at this stumble, out comes our landlord to make sport of us.  “Have you found your money yet, friends?” says he, with a sneer.

“No,” says Jack, savagely, “and our money is not all that we have lost, for some villain has filched our nag’s harness, and I warrant you know who he is.”

“Why, to be sure,” returns the other, “the same friend may have taken it who has gone astray with your other belongings; but, be that as it may, I’ll answer for it when your money is found your harness will be forthcoming, and not before.”

“Come, Master,” says I, “have you no more heart than to make merry at the mischances of three poor wretches such as we?”

“Aye,” says he, “when you can show that you deserve better treatment.”

“Done,” says Jack.  “I’ll show you that as quickly as you please.”  With that he whips off his cap, and flinging it on the ground, cries:  “Off with your jacket, man, and let us prove by such means as Heaven has given all which is the honester of us two.”  And so he squares himself up to fight; but the innkeeper, though as big a man as he, being of a spongy constitution, showed no relish for this mode of argument, and turning his back on us with a shake of the head, said he was very well satisfied of his own honesty, and if we doubted it we could seek what satisfaction the law would give us, adding slyly, as he turned at the door, that he could recommend us a magistrate of his acquaintance, naming him who had set us in the stocks at Tottenham Cross.

The very hint of this put us again in a quake, and now, the snow beginning to fall pretty heavily, we went into the shed to cast about as to what on earth we should do next.  There we sat, glum and silent, watching idly the big flakes of snow fluttering down from the leaden sky, for not one of us could imagine a way out of this hobble.

“Holy Mother!” cries Jack at length, springing up in a passion, “we cannot sit here and starve of cold and hunger.  Cuddle up to my arm, Moll, and do you bring your fiddle, Kit, and let us try our luck a-begging in alehouses.”

And so we trudged out into the driving snow, that blinded us as we walked, bow our heads as we might, and tried one alehouse after the other, but all to no purpose, the parlours being empty because of the early hour, and the snow keeping folks within doors; only, about midday, some carters, who had pulled up at an inn, took pity on us, and gave us a mug of penny ale and half a loaf, and that was all the food we had the whole miserable day.  Then at dusk, wet-footed and fagged out in mind and body, we trudged back to the Bell, thinking to get back into the loft and bury ourselves in the sweet hay for warmth and comfort.  But coming hither, we found our nag turned out of the stable and the door locked, so that we were thrown quite into despair by the loss of this last poor hope, and poor Moll, turning her face away from us, burst out a-crying—­she who all day had set us a brave example by her cheerful merry spirit.