parents, to quiet your concern, I was a little more easy than before and
I made shift to eat a little bit of boiled chicken they had got for me,
and drank a glass of my sack, and made each of them do so too.

But after I had so done, I was again a little flustered; for in came the
coachman with the look of a hangman, I thought, and madamed me up
strangely; telling me, he would beg me to get ready to pursue my journey
by five in the morning, or else he should be late in. I was quite
grieved at this; for I began not to dislike my company, considering how
things stood; and was in hopes to get a party among them, and so to put
myself into any worthy protection in the neighbourhood, rather than go
forward.

When he withdrew, I began to tamper with the farmer and his wife. But,
alas! they had had a letter delivered them at the same time I had; so
securely had Lucifer put it into his head to do his work; and they only
shook their heads, and seemed to pity me; and so I was forced to give
over that hope.

However, the good farmer shewed me his letter; which I copied as follows:
for it discovers the deep arts of this wicked master; and how resolved he
seems to be on my ruin, by the pains he took to deprive me of all hopes
of freeing myself from his power.


'FARMER NORTON,

'I send to your house, for one night only, a young gentlewoman, much
against her will, who has deeply embarked in a love affair, which will be
her ruin, as well as the person's to whom she wants to betroth herself.