Summary
At his house, Sir Alexander and Trapdoor wait for the arrival of Sebastian and Moll. In an effort to catch Moll for thieving, Sir Alexander leaves out diamonds and jewels, thinking that Moll will steal them.
Sebastian and Moll arrive, along with Mary Fitz-Allard, whom they have disguised as a page. By this point, Sebastian has informed Moll of his plan and she tries to help Sebastian and Mary. She sings and plays the violin.
When she notices the jewels, she comments on them but makes no attempt to steal them.
Meanwhile, at Openwork's house, the various wives discuss the gallants who have been spending time in London. They conclude that these gallants are rather inept at courtship and relationships.
Soon, a messenger arrives pretending to have a court order for the Gallipots for breach of contract. After Mistress Gallipot was able to pay Laxton 30 pounds, he demanded 15 more and now demands 100 in order to stay quiet.
Mistress Gallipot is overcome with guilt and feels she must confess the whole scheme to her husband.
When Gallipot asks for an explanation, Laxton tells him that he did once court Mistress Gallipot but was rejected by her. Gallipot believes the story and invites Laxton to be their dinner guest.
Analysis
In this act of the play, Sir Alexander's plot to trap and humiliate Moll is derailed once again, this time by Moll's own moral compass. Sir Alexander leaves jewels and diamonds strewn about the room in his house, thinking that Moll – whom he only knows as a cross-dressing thief – will certainly steal them if given the chance. Instead, Moll is focused on helping Sebastian and Mary get closer and eventually marry.
Once again, audiences become privy to another failed attempt by Sir Alexander to prove Moll's unsavory reputation. At this point in the play, the audience has seen evidence that Moll is neither morally loose (in her refusal to have sex with Laxton and her announcement that she is chaste) nor a common thief, as she is typically known.
Indeed, the only element of Moll's reputation that seems to reflect reality is the fact that she dresses like a man. This dress, the events of the play suggest, is so confounding to other characters that they invented a false narrative about her – one she continues to disprove in service of her friends.
The subplot involving the Gallipots initiates the approaching resolution of the play in the Act V. This subplot reaches its climax when Mistress Gallipot begins questioning whether she should confess the entire truth about Laxton to her husband. However, the tension is quickly diluted by Laxton's lie about having been rejected by Mistress Gallipot in the past, so much so that the Gallipots entertain Laxton as their dinner guest.
This resolution – in which the truth ultimately stays muted – is unique for early modern comedy, as lies and schemes are usually revealed in their entirety at the end of the play and order restored. Instead, the Gallipots' marriage remains intact despite Mistress Gallipot's attempted dalliance with Laxton. In this way, the play suggests that the notion of "order" in society is a capacious one, and that sometimes stability can be achieved without complete transparency.
