stepped out on a sudden, but came not in again for a pretty while.

I was uneasy that I was left alone in the house, fearing lest if
anything should be missing I might be suspected to have taken it;
yet I durst not go out to stand in the street, lest it should be
thought I intended to slip away.

But besides that, I soon found work to employ myself in; for the
child quickly waking, fell to crying, and I was fain to rock the
cradle in my own defence, that I might not be annoyed with a noise,
to me not more unpleasant than unusual. At length the woman came in
again, and finding me nursing the child, gave me many thanks, and
seemed well pleased with my company.

When night came on, the constable himself came in again, and told me
some of the chief of the town were met together to consider what was
fit to do with me, and that I must go with him to them. I went, and
he brought me to a little nasty hut, which they called a town-house
(adjoining to their market-house), in which dwelt a poor old woman
whom they called Mother Grime, where also the watch used by turns to
come in and warm themselves in the night.

When I came in among them they looked, some of them, somewhat sourly
on me, and asked me some impertinent questions, to which I gave them
suitable answers.

Then they consulted one with another how they should dispose of me
that night, till they could have me before some justice of peace to
be examined. Some proposed that I should be had to some inn, or
other public-house, and a guard set on me there. He that started