Chapter 12
There were other papers
rolled up, and I asked him what they were. ‘Why, ay,’ says he, ‘that’s
the question I wanted to have you ask me’; so he unrolls them and takes out a
little Chagreen Case, and gives me out of it a very fine diamond ring. I could
not refuse it, if I had a mind to do so, for he put it upon my finger; so I
made him a curtsy and accepted it. Then he takes out another ring: ‘And this,’ says
he, ‘is for another occasion,’ so he puts that in his pocket. ‘Well, but
let me see it, though,’ says I, and smiled; ‘I guess what it is; I think
you are mad.’ ‘I should have been mad if I had done less,’ says he, and
still he did not show me, and I had a great mind to see it; so I says, ‘Well,
but let me see it.’ ‘Hold,’ says he, ‘first look here’; then he took up
the roll again and read it, and behold! it was a License for us to be married.
‘Why,’ says I, ‘are you distracted? Why, you were fully satisfied that I
would comply and yield at first word, or resolved to take no denial.’ ‘The last
is certainly the case,’ said he. ‘But you may be mistaken,’ said
There was a bed in the
room, and we were walking to and again, eager in the discourse; at last he
takes me by surprise in his arms, and threw me on the bed and himself with me,
and holding me fast in his arms, but without the least offer of any indecency,
courted me to consent with such repeated entreaties and arguments, protesting
his affection, and vowing he would not let me go till I had promised him, that
at last I said, ‘Why, you resolve not to be denied, indeed, I can’t be denied.’
‘Well, well,’ said I, and giving him a slight kiss, ‘then you shan’t be
denied,’ said I; ‘let me get up.’
He was so transported
with my consent, and the kind manner of it, that I began to think once he took
it for a marriage, and would not stay for the form; but I wronged him, for he
gave over kissing me, and then giving me two or three kisses again, thanked me
for my kind yielding to him; and was so overcome with the satisfaction and joy
of it, that I saw tears stand in his eyes.
I turned from him, for
it filled my eyes with tears too, and I asked him leave to retire a little to
my chamber. If ever I had a grain of true repentance for a vicious and
abominable life for twenty-four years past, it was then. On, what a felicity is
it to mankind, said I to myself, that they cannot see into the hearts of
one another! How happy had it been for me if I had been wife to a man of so
much honesty, and so much affection from the beginning!
Then it occurred to me,
‘What an abominable creature am I! and how is this innocent gentleman going to
be abused by me! How little does he think, that having divorced a whore, he is
throwing himself into the arms of another! that he is going to marry one that
has lain with two brothers, and has had three children by her own brother! one
that was born in Newgate, whose mother was a whore, and is now a
transported thief! one that has lain with thirteen men, and has had a child
since he saw me! Poor gentleman!’ said I, ‘what is he going to do?’
After this reproaching myself was over, it following thus: ‘Well, if I must be
his wife, if it please God to give me grace, I’ll be a true wife to him, and
love him suitably to the strange excess of his passion for me; I will make him
amends if possible, by what he shall see, for the cheats and abuses I put upon
him, which he does not see.’
He was impatient for my
coming out of my chamber, but finding me long, he went downstairs and talked
with my landlord about the parson.
My landlord, an
officious though well-meaning fellow, had sent away for the Neighbouring
clergyman; and when my gentleman began to speak of it to him, and talk of
sending for him, ‘Sir,’ says he to him, ‘my friend is in the house’; so without
any more words he brought them together. When he came to the minister, he asked
him if he would venture to marry a couple of strangers that were both willing.
The parson said that Mr.— had said something to him of it; that he hoped it was
no clandestine business; that he seemed to be a grave gentleman, and he
supposed madam was not a girl, so that the consent of friends should be wanted.
‘To put you out of doubt of that,’ says my gentleman, ‘read this paper’; and
out he pulls the license. ‘I am satisfied,’ says the minister; ‘where is the
lady?’ ‘You shall see her presently,’ says my gentleman.
When he had said thus he
comes upstairs, and I was by that time come out of my room; so he tells me the
minister was below, and that he had talked with him, and that upon showing him
the license, he was free to marry us with all his heart, ‘but he asks to see
you’; so he asked if I would let him come up.
‘’Tis time enough,’ said
I, ‘in the morning, is it not?’ ‘Why,’ said he, ‘my dear, he seemed
to scruple whether it was not some young girl stolen from her parents, and I
assured him we were both of age to command our own consent; and that made him
ask to see you.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘do as you please’; so up they brings
the parson, and a merry, good sort of gentleman he was. He had been told, it
seems, that we had met there by accident, that I came in the
I started as if I had
been frightened. ‘Lord, sir,’ says I, ‘what do you mean? What, to marry
in an inn, and at night too?’ ‘Madam,’ says the minister, ‘if you will
have it be in the church, you shall; but I assure you your marriage will be as
firm here as in the church; we are not tied by the canons to marry nowhere but
in the church; and if you will have it in the church, it will be a public as a
county fair; and as for the time of day, it does not at all weigh in this case;
our princes are married in their chambers, and at eight or ten o’clock at
night.’
I was a great while
before I could be persuaded, and pretended not to be willing at all to be
married but in the church. But it was all grimace; so I seemed at last to be
prevailed on, and my landlord and his wife and daughter were called up. My
landlord was father and clerk and all together, and we were married, and very
merry we were; though I confess the self-reproaches which I had upon me before
lay close to me, and extorted every now and then a deep sigh from me, which my
bridegroom took notice of, and endeavour’d to encourage me, thinking, poor man,
that I had some little hesitations at the step I had taken so hastily.
We enjoyed ourselves
that evening completely, and yet all was kept so private in the inn that not a
servant in the house knew of it, for my landlady and her daughter waited on me,
and would not let any of the maids come upstairs, except while we were at
supper. My landlady’s daughter I called my bridesmaid; and sending for a
shopkeeper the next morning, I gave the young woman a good suit of knots, as
good as the town would afford, and finding it was a lace-making town, I gave
her mother a piece of bone-lace for a head.
One reason that my
landlord was so close was, that he was unwilling the minister of the parish
should hear of it; but for all that somebody heard of it, so at that we had the
bells set a-ringing the next morning early, and the music, such as the town
would afford, under our window; but my landlord brazen’d it out, that we were
married before we came thither, only that, being his former guests, we would
have our wedding-supper at his house.
We could not find in our
hearts to stir the next day; for, in short, having been disturbed by the bells
in the morning, and having perhaps not slept overmuch before, we were so sleepy
afterwards that we lay in bed till almost twelve o’clock.
I begged my landlady
that we might not have any more music in the town, nor ringing of bells, and
she managed it so well that we were very quiet; but an odd passage interrupted
all my mirth for a good while. The great room of the house looked into the
street, and my new spouse being below Stairs, I had walked to the end of the
room; and it being a pleasant, warm day, I had opened the window, and was
standing at it for some air, when I saw three gentlemen come by on horseback
and go into an inn just against us.
It was not to be
concealed, nor was it so doubtful as to leave me any room to question it, but
the second of the three was my
The first sensible
reflect I made was, that my husband was not by to see my disorder, and that I
was very glad of it. The gentlemen had not been long in the house but they came
to the window of their room, as is usual; but my window was shut, you may be
sure. However, I could not keep from peeping at them, and there I saw him again,
heard him call out to one of the servants of the house for something he wanted,
and received all the terrifying confirmations of its being the same person that
were possible to be had.
My next concern was to
know, if possible, what was his business there; but that was impossible.
Sometimes my imagination formed an idea of one frightful thing, sometimes of
another; sometime I thought he had discovered me, and was come to upbraid me
with ingratitude and Breach of Honour; and every moment I fancied he was coming
up the stairs to insult me; and innumerable fancies came into my head of what
was never in his head, nor ever could be, unless the devil had revealed it to
him.
I remained in this
fright nearly two hours, and scarce ever kept my eye from the window or door of
the inn where they were. At last, hearing a great clatter in the passage of
their inn, I ran to the window, and, to my great satisfaction, saw them all
three go out again and travel on westward. Had they gone towards
We resolved to be going
the next day, but about six o’clock at night we were alarmed with a great uproar
in the street, and people riding as if they had been out of their wits; and
what was it but a hue-and-cry after three highwaymen that had robbed two
coaches and some other travellers near Dunstable Hill, and notice had,
it seems, been given that they had been seen at Brickill at such a
house, meaning the house where those gentlemen had been.
The house was
immediately beset and searched, but there were witnesses enough that the
gentlemen had been gone over three hours. The crowd having gathered about, we
had the news presently; and I was heartily concerned now another way. I
presently told the people of the house, that I durst to say those were not the
persons, for that I knew one of the gentlemen to be a very honest person, and
of a good estate in
The constable who came
with the hue-and-cry was immediately informed of this, and came over to me to
be satisfied from my own mouth, and I assured him that I saw the three
gentlemen as I was at the window; that I saw them afterwards at the windows of
the room they dined in; that I saw them afterwards take horse, and I could
assure him I knew one of them to be such a man, that he was a gentleman of a
very good estate, and an undoubted character in Lancashire, from whence
I was just now upon my journey.
The assurance with which
I delivered this gave the mob gentry a check, and gave the constable such
satisfaction, that he immediately sounded a retreat, told his people these were
not the men, but that he had an account they were very honest gentlemen; and so
they went all back again. What the truth of the matter was I knew not, but
certain it was that the coaches were robbed at Dunstable Hill, and
Well, this alarm stopped
us another day, though my spouse was for travelling, and told me that it was
always safest travelling after a robbery, for that the thieves were sure to be
gone far enough off when they had alarmed the country; but I was afraid and
uneasy, and indeed principally lest my old acquaintance should be upon the road
still, and should chance to see me.
I never lived four
pleasanter days together in my life. I was a mere bride all this while, and my
new spouse strove to make me entirely easy in everything. Oh could this state
of life have continued, how had all my past troubles been forgot, and my future
sorrows avoided! But I had a past life of a most wretched kind to account for,
some if it in this world as well as in another.
We came away the fifth
day; and my landlord, because he saw me uneasy, mounted himself, his son, and
three honest country fellows with good firearms, and, without telling us of it,
followed the coach, and would see us safe into Dunstable; we could do no
less than treat them very handsomely at Dunstable, which cost my spouse
about ten or twelve shillings, and something he gave the men for their time
too, but my landlord would take nothing for himself.
This was the most happy
contrivance for me that could have fallen out; for had I come to London
unmarried, I must either have come to him for the first night’s entertainment,
or have discovered to him that I had not one acquaintance in the whole city of London
that could receive a poor bridge for the first night’s lodging with her spouse.
But now, being an old married woman, I made no scruple of going directly home
with him, and there I took possession at once of a house well furnished, and a
husband in very good circumstances, so that I had a prospect of a very happy
life, if I knew how to manage it; and I had leisure to consider of the real
value of the life I was likely to live. How different it was to be from the
loose ungoverned part I had acted before, and how much happier a life of virtue
and sobriety is, than that which we call a life of pleasure.
Oh had this particular
scene of life lasted, or had I learned from that time I enjoyed it, to have
tasted the true sweetness of it, and had I not fallen into that poverty which
is the sure bane of virtue, how happy had I been, not only here, but perhaps
for ever! for while I lived thus, I was really a penitent for all my life past.
I looked back on it with abhorrence, and might truly be said to hate myself for
it. I often reflected how my lover at the Bath, struck at the hand of
God, repented and abandoned me, and refused to see me any more, though he loved
me to an extreme; but I, prompted by that worst of devils, poverty, returned to
the vile practice, and made the advantage of what they call a handsome face to
be the relief to my necessities, and beauty be a pimp to vice.
Now I seemed landed in a
safe Harbour, after the stormy voyage of life past was at an end, and I began
to be thankful for my deliverance. I sat many an hour by myself, and wept over
the remembrance of past follies, and the dreadful extravagances of a wicked
life, and sometimes I flattered myself that I had sincerely repented.
But there are
temptations which it is not in the power of human nature to resist, and few
know what would be their case if driven to the same exigencies. As covetousness
is the root of all evil, so poverty is, I believe, the worst of all snares. But
I waive that discourse till I come to an experiment.
I live with this husband
with the utmost tranquillity; he was a quiet, sensible, sober man; virtuous,
modest, sincere, and in his business diligent and just. His business was in a
narrow compass, and his income sufficient to a plentiful way of living in the
ordinary way. I do not say to keep an equipage, and make a figure, as the world
calls it, nor did I expect it, or desire it; for as I abhorred the levity and
extravagance of my former life, so I chose now to live retired, frugal, and
within ourselves. I kept no company, made no visits; minded my family, and
obliged my husband; and this kind of life became a pleasure to me.
We lived in an
uninterrupted course of ease and content for five years, when a sudden blow
from an almost invisible hand blasted all my happiness, and turned me out into
the world in a condition the reverse of all that had been before it.
My husband having
trusted one of his fellow-clerks with a sum of money, too much for our fortunes
to bear the loss of, the clerk failed, and the loss fell very heavy on my
husband, yet it was not so great neither but that, if he had had spirit and
courage to have looked his misfortunes in the face, his credit was so good
that, as I told him, he would easily recover it; for to sink under trouble is
to double the weight, and he that will die in it, shall die in it.
It was in vain to speak
comfortably to him; the wound had sunk too deep; it was a stab that touched the
vitals; he grew melancholy and disconsolate, and from thence lethargic, and
died. I foresaw the blow, and was extremely oppressed in my mind, for I saw
evidently that if he died I was undone.
I had had two children
by him and no more, for, to tell the truth, it began to be time for me to leave
bearing children, for I was now eight-and-forty, and I suppose if he had lived
I should have had no more.
I was now left in a
dismal and disconsolate case indeed, and in several things worse than ever.
First, it was past the flourishing time with me when I might expect to be
courted for a mistress; that agreeable part had declined some time, and the
ruins only appeared of what had been; and that which was worse than all this,
that I was the most dejected, disconsolate creature alive. I that had
encouraged my husband, and endeavour’d to support his spirits under his
trouble, could not support my own; I wanted that spirit in trouble which I told
him was so necessary to him for bearing the burthen.
But my case was indeed
deplorable, for I was left perfectly friendless and helpless, and the loss my
husband had sustained had reduced his circumstances so low, that though indeed
I was not in debt, yet I could easily foresee that what was left would not
support me long; that while it wasted daily for subsistence, I had not way to
increase it one shilling, so that it would be soon all spent, and then I saw
nothing before me but the utmost distress; and this represented itself so
lively to my thoughts, that it seemed as if it was come, before it was really
very near; also my very apprehensions doubled the misery, for I fancied every
sixpence that I paid for a loaf of bread was the last that I had in the world,
and that to-morrow I was to fast, and be starved to death.
In this distress I had
no assistant, no friend to comfort or advise me; I sat and cried and tormented
myself night and day, wringing my hands, and sometimes raving like a distracted
woman; and indeed I have often wondered it had not affected my reason, for I
had the Vapours to such a degree, that my understanding was sometimes quite
lost in fancies and imaginations.
I lived two years in
this dismal condition, wasting that little I had, weeping continually over my
dismal circumstances, and, as it were, only bleeding to death, without the
least hope or prospect of help from God or man; and now I had cried too long,
and so often, that tears were, as I might say, exhausted, and I began to be
desperate, for I grew poor apace.
For a little relief I
had put off my house and took lodgings; and as I was reducing my living, so I
sold off most of my goods, which put a little money in my pocket, and I lived
near a year upon that, spending very sparingly, an eking things out to the
utmost; but still when I looked before me, my very heart would sink within me
at the inevitable approach of misery and want. Oh let none read this part
without seriously reflecting on the circumstances of a desolate state, and how
they would grapple with mere want of friends and want of bread; it will
certainly make them think not of sparing what they have only, but of looking up
to heaven for support, and of the wise man’s prayer, ‘Give me not poverty,
lest I steal.’
Let them remember that a
time of distress is a time of dreadful temptation, and all the strength to
resist is taken away; poverty presses, the soul is made desperate by distress,
and what can be done? It was one evening, when being brought, as I may say, to
the last gasp, I think I may truly say I was distracted and raving, when
prompted by I know not what spirit, and, as it were, doing I did not know what
or why, I dressed me (for I had still pretty good clothes) and went out. I am
very sure I had no manner of design in my head when I went out; I neither knew
nor considered where to go, or on what business; but as the devil carried me
out and laid his bait for me, so he brought me, to be sure, to the place, for I
knew not whither I was going or what I did.
Wandering thus about, I
knew not whither, I passed by an apothecary’s shop in Leadenhall-street,
when I saw lie on a stool just before the counter a little bundle wrapped in a
white cloth; beyond it stood a maid-servant with her back to it, looking
towards the top of the shop, where the apothecary’s apprentice, as I suppose,
was standing upon the counter, with his back also to the door, and a candle in
his hand, looking and reaching up to the upper shelf for something he wanted,
so that both were engaged mighty earnestly, and nobody else in the shop.
This was the bait; and
the devil, who I said laid the snare, as readily prompted me as if he had
spoke, for I remember, and shall never forget it, ’twas like a voice spoken to
me over my shoulder, ‘Take the bundle; be quick; do it this moment.’ It was no
sooner said but I stepped into the shop, and with my back to the wench, as if I
had stood up for a cart that was going by, I put my hand behind me and took the
bundle, and went off with it, the maid or the fellow not perceiving me, or any
one else.
It is impossible to
express the horror of my soul al the while I did it. When I went away I had no
heart to run, or scarce to mend my pace. I crossed the street indeed, and went
down the first turning I came to, and I think it was a street that went through
into Fenchurch-street. From thence I crossed and turned through so many
ways an turnings, that I could never tell which way it was, not where I went;
for I felt not the ground I stepped on, and the farther I was out of danger,
the faster I went, till, tired and out of breath, I was forced to sit down on a
little bench at a door, and then I began to recover, and found I was got into Thames
Street, near Billinsgate. I rested me a little and went on; my blood
was all in a fire; my heart beat as if I was in a sudden fright. In short, I
was under such a surprise that I still knew not wither I was going, or what to
do.
After I had tired myself
thus with walking a long way about, and so eagerly, I began to consider and
make home to my lodging, where I came about nine o’clock at night.
When the bundle was made
up for, or on what occasion laid where I found it, I knew not, but when I came
to open it I found there was a suit of Child-bed Linnen in it, very good and
almost new, the lace very fine; there was a silver porringer of a pint, a small
silver mug and six spoons, with some other linen, a good smock, and three silk
handkerchiefs, and in the mug, wrapped up in a paper, 18s. 6d. in money.
All the while I was
opening these things I was under such dreadful impressions of fear, and I such
terror of mind, though I was perfectly safe, that I cannot express the manner
of it. I sat me down, and cried most vehemently. ‘Lord,’ said I, ‘what
am I now? a thief! Why, I shall be take next time, and be carried to Newgate
and be tried for my life!’ And with that I cried again a long time, and I am
sure, as poor as I was, if I had durst for fear, I would certainly have carried
the things back again; but that went off after a while. Well, I went to bed for
that night, but slept little; the horror of the fact was upon my mind, and I
knew not what I said or did all night, and all the next day. Then I was
impatient to hear some news of the loss; and would fain know how it was,
whether they were a poor body’s goods, or a rich. ‘Perhaps,’ said I, ‘it
may be some poor widow like me, that had packed up these goods to go and sell
them for a little bread for herself and a poor child, and are now starving and
breaking their hearts for want of that little they would have fetched.’ And
this thought tormented me worse than all the rest, for three or four days’
time.
But my own distresses
silenced all these reflections, and the prospect of my own starving, which grew
every day more frightful to me, hardened my heart by degrees. It was then
particularly heavy upon my mind, that I had been reformed, and had, as I hoped,
repented of all my past wickedness; that I had lived a sober, grave, retired
life for several years, but now I should be driven by the dreadful necessity of
my circumstances to the gates of destruction, soul and body; and two or three
times I fell upon my knees, praying to God, as well as I could, for
deliverance; but I cannot but say, my prayers had no hope in them. I knew not
what to do; it was all fear without, and dark within; and I reflected on my
past life as not sincerely repented of, that Heaven was now beginning to punish
me on this side the grave, and would make me as miserable as I had been wicked.
Had I gone on here I had
perhaps been a true penitent; but I had an evil Counsellor within, and he was
continually prompting me to relieve myself by the worst means; so one evening
he tempted me again, by the same wicked impulse that had said ‘Take that
bundle,’ to go out again and seek for what might happen.
I went out now by
daylight, and wandered about I knew not whither, and in search of I knew not
what, when the devil put a snare in my way of a dreadful nature indeed, and
such a one as I have never had before or since. Going through Aldersgate-street,
there was a pretty little child who had been at a dancing- school, and was
going home, all alone; and my prompter, like a true devil, set me upon this
innocent creature. I talked to it, and it prattled to me again, and I took it
by the hand and led it along till I came to a paved alley that goes into Bartholomew
Close, and I led it in there. The child said that was not its way home. I
said, ‘Yes, my dear, it is; I’ll show you the way home.’ The child had a little
necklace on of gold beads, and I had my eye upon that, and in the dark of the
alley I stooped, pretending to mend the child’s clog that was loose, and took
off her necklace, and the child never felt it, and so led the child on again.
Here, I say, the devil put me upon killing the child in the dark alley, that it
might not cry, but the very thought frighted me so that I was ready to drop
down; but I turned the child about and bade it go back again, for that was not
its way home. The child said, so she would, and I went through into Bartholomew
Close, and then turned round to another passage that goes into St. John
Street; then, crossing into Smithfield, went down Chick Lane
and into Field Lane to Holbourn-bridge, when, mixing with the
crowd of people usually passing there, it was not possible to have been found
out; and thus I enterpriz’d my second sally into the world.
The thoughts of this
booty put out all the thoughts of the first, and the reflections I had made
wore quickly off; poverty, as I have said, hardened my heart, and my own
necessities made me regardless of anything. The last affair left no great
concern upon me, for as I did the poor child no harm, I only said to myself, I
had given the parents a just reproof for their negligence in leaving the poor
little lamb to come home by itself, and it would teach them to take more care
of it another time.
This string of beads was
worth about twelve or fourteen pounds. I suppose it might have been formerly
the mother’s, for it was too big for the child’s wear, but that perhaps the
vanity of the mother, to have her child look fine at the dancing-school, had
made her let the child wear it; and no doubt the child had a maid sent to take
care of it, but she, careless jade, was taken up perhaps with some fellow that
had met her by the way, and so the poor baby wandered till it fell into my
hands.
However, I did the child
no harm; I did not so much as fright it, for I had a great many tender thoughts
about me yet, and did nothing but what, as I may say, mere necessity drove me
to.
I had a great many
adventures after this, but I was young in the business, and did not know how to
manage, otherwise than as the devil put things into my head; and indeed he was
seldom backward to me. One adventure I had which was very lucky to me. I was
going through Lombard Street in the duck of the evening, just by the end
of Three King court, when on a sudden comes a fellow running by me as
swift as lightning, and throws a bundle that was in his hand, just behind me,
as I stood up against the corner of the house at the turning into the alley.
Just as he threw it in he said, ‘God bless you, mistress, let it lie there a
little,’ and away he runs swift as the wind. After him comes two more, and
immediately a young fellow without his hat, crying ‘Stop thief!’ and after him
two or three more. They pursued the two last fellows so close, that they were
forced to drop what they had got, and one of them was taken into the bargain,
and other got off free.
I stood stock-still all
this while, till they came back, dragging the poor fellow they had taken, and
lugging the things they had found, extremely well satisfied that they had
recovered the booty and taken the thief; and thus they passed by me, for I
looked only like one who stood up while the crowd was gone.
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