he orders the constable to take what money we have from our pockets and
clap us in the stocks till sundown for payment of the difference. So in
the stocks we three poor men were stuck for six mortal hours, which was
a wicked, cruel thing indeed, with the wind blowing a sort of rainy snow
about our ears; and there I do think we must have perished of cold and
vexation but that our little Moll brought us a sheet for a cover, and
tired not in giving us kind words of comfort.

At five o'clock the constable unlocked us from our vile confinement, and
I do believe we should have fallen upon him and done him a mischief for
his pains there and then, but that we were all frozen as stiff as stones
with sitting in the cold so long, and indeed it was some time ere we
could move our limbs at all. However, with much ado, we hobbled on at
the tail of our cart, all three very bitter, but especially Ned Herring,
who cursed most horridly and as I had never heard him curse off the
stage, saying he would rather have stayed in London to carry links for
the gentry than join us again in this damnable adventure, etc. And that
which incensed him the more was the merriment of our Moll, who, seated
on the side of the cart, could do nothing better than make sport of our
discontent. But there was no malice in her laughter, which, if it sprang
not from sheer love of mischief, arose maybe from overflowing joy at our
release.

Coming at dusk to Edmonton, and finding a fine new inn there, called the
"Bell," Jack Dawson leads the cart into the yard, we following without a
word of demur, and, after putting up our trap, into the warm parlour we
go, and call for supper as boldly as you please. Then, when we had eaten
and drunk till we could no more, all to bed like princes, which, after a
night in the cage and a day in the stocks, did seem like a very
paradise. But how we were to pay for this entertainment not one of us