Then, what words of comfort I could find, I offered her; but she would not be consoled, and shut herself up in her room all that morning.  Nevertheless, she ate more heartily than I at dinner, and fresh visitors coming in the afternoon, she entertained them as though no grief lay at her heart.  Indeed, she recovered of this cruel blow much easier than I looked for; and but that she would at times sit pensive, with melancholy, wistful eyes, and rise from her seat with a troubled sigh, one would have said, at the end of the 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.”