San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-08-11
CHAPTER l.

the players all cast adrift for want of
employment, certain of us, to wit, Jack
Dawson and his daughter Moll, Red
Herring and myself, dubbed our moneys
together to buy a store of dresses. paint
ed cloths, and the like, with cart and
horse to carry them, and thus provided
set forth to travel the country and turn
an honest penny, in those parts where
the terror of pestilence had not yet
turned mems stomachs against the pleas
ures of life. And here, at our setting
ont, let me show what kind of company
we were First. then. for our master
Jack Dawson, who ON no occasion was
to be given second place. He was a
hale, jolly fellow, who would eat a
pound of beef for his breakfast (when
he could get it) and make nothing of
half gallon of ale therewith-a very
masterful man, but kindly withal, and
pleasant to look at when not contraried,
with never a line of care in his face,
though turned of so. He played our hui
morous parts, but he had sweet voice
for singing of ditties and could fetch a
tear as readily as laugh, and he was
also exceeding nimble at dance, which
was the strangest thing in the world,
considering his great girth. Wife he had
none, but Moll Dawson was his daugh-
ter, who was a most sprightly, merry
little wench, but no miracle for beauty,
being neither child nor woman at this
time; surprisingly thin, as if her frame
had grown out of proportion with her
flesh, SO that her body looked all arms
and legs, and her head all mouth and
eyes, with great tousled mass of
chestnut hair, which (off the stage) was
as often as not half tumbled over her
shoulder. But quicker little baggage
at mimicry (she would play any part,
from an urchin of 10 to crone of four
score), or livelier at dancing of Bran
ties or the single Coranto never was, I
do think, and as merry as lark
OF Red Herring need only here say
that he was the most tearing villain
imaginable on the stage and off the,
most civil spoken, honest seeing So
gentleman. Nor need I trouble Nu,Ive
very lengthy description of myself.
What my Character was win appear
hereafter a1s3 g Cor my Looks, the less
I say36pKthem the better. Being
sohicnseg Of scholar and poet, I
fly died of starvation, when
twson gave me footing ON the
stage; where would play the part of
hero in one act, a lackey in the second
and Merry Andrew in the third,
scraping tlAe op my fiddle to fill up
the intermedios.
We had designed to return to London
as soon as the plague abated, unless we
were favored with extraordinary good
fortune, and SO when we heard that the
sickness was certainly past and the citi-
zens recovering of their panic We being
by this time heartily sick of our ven
ture, which at the best gave us but beg
carly recompense, set about to retrace
our steps with cheerful expectations of
better times. But, coming to Oxford,
we there learned that a prodigious fire
had burned all London down, from the
Tower to Ludgate, so that were we
there we should find no house to play
in. This laid us fiat in our hopes and
set us again to our vagabond enter
prise, and so for six months more we
secured the country in most miserable
plight, the roads being exceedingly foul
and folks more humored Of nights to
browse in their chimneys than to sit in
a draft barn and witness our perform
ances, and then about the middle Of
February we in kind of desperation got
back again to London, only to find that
we must go forth again, the town still
lying in ruins and no one disposed to
any kind of amusement except in high
places. where such actors as we were
held in contempt.
So we, with our hearts in our boots,
as one may say, set out again to seek
our fortunes on the Cambridge road, and
here, with no better luck than elsewhere,
for at Tottenham Cross we had the mis-
chance to set fire to the barn wherein we
were playing, by a candle falling in
some loose straw, whereby we did injury
to the extent of a shilling or two, for
which the farmer would have us pay a
pOuuu, anu JACK DdNoOu stOubly iOluo-
ing to satisfy his demand he sends for
the constable, who locks us all up in the
cage that night, to take us before the
magistrate in the morning. And we
found to our cost that this magistrate
had as little justice as mercy in his COM
position, for though he lent patient
ear to the farmers case, he would not
listen to Jack Dawson s argument, which
was good enough, being to the effect that
we had not as much as a pound among
us, and that he would rather be hanged
than pay it if he had, and when Red
Herring (seeing the kind of Puritanical
fellow he was) urged that, since the
damage was not done by any design of
ours, it must be regarded as visitation
of Providence, he says: every good If
it be the will of Providence that one
should be scourged, take it as the di-
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