Chapter
14
I left the officer
overjoyed with his prize, and fully satisfied with what he had got, and
appointed to meet him at a house of his own directing, where I came after I had
disposed of the cargo I had about me, of which he had not the least suspicion.
When I came to him he began to capitulate with me, believing I did not
understand the right I had to a share in the prize, and would fain have put me
off with
I asked
I very punctually
divided this spoil with my governess, and I passed with her from this time for
a very dexterous manager in the nicest cases. I found that this last was the
best and easiest sort of work that was in my way, and I made it my business to
inquire out prohibited goods, and after buying some, usually betrayed them, but
none of these discoveries amounted to anything considerable, not like that I
related just now; but I was willing to act safe, and was still cautious of
running the great risks which I found others did, and in which they miscarried
every day.
The next thing of moment
was an attempt at a gentlewoman’s good watch. It happened in a crowd, at a
meeting-house, where I was in very great danger of being taken. I had full hold
of her watch, but giving a great jostle, as if somebody had thrust me against
her, and in the juncture giving the watch a fair pull, I found it would not
come, so I let it go that moment, and cried out as if I had been killed, that
somebody had trod upon my foot, and that there were certainly pickpockets
there, for somebody or other had given a pull at my watch; for you are to
observe that on these adventures we always went very well dressed, and I had
very good clothes on, and a gold watch by my side, as like a lady as other
fold.
I had no sooner said so,
but the other gentlewoman cried out ‘A pickpocket’ too, for somebody, she
said, had tried to pull her watch away.
When I touched her watch
I was close to her, but when I cried out I stopped as it were short, and the
crowd bearing her forward a little, she made a noise too, but it was at some
distance from me, so that she did not in the least suspect me; but when she
cried out ‘A pickpocket,’ somebody cried, ‘Ay, and here has been
another! this gentlewoman has been attempted too.’
At that very instance, a
little farther in the crowd, and very luckily too, they cried out ‘A pickpocket,’
again, and really seized a young fellow in the very act. This, though unhappy
for the wretch, was very opportunely for my case, though I had carried it off
handsomely enough before; but now it was out of doubt, and all the loose part
of the crowd ran that way, and the poor boy was delivered up to the rage of the
street, which is a cruelty I need not describe, and which, however, they are
always glad of, rather than to be sent to Newgate, where they lie often
a long time, till they are almost perished, and sometimes they are hanged, and
the best they can look for, if they are convicted, is to be transported.
This was a narrow escape
to me, and I was so frighted that I ventured no more at gold watches a great
while. There was indeed a great many concurring circumstances in this adventure
which assisted to my escape; but the chief was, that the woman whose watch I
had pulled at was a fool; that is to say, she was ignorant of the nature of the
attempt, which one would have thought she should not have been, seeing she was
wise enough to fasten her watch so that it could not be slipped up. But she was
in such a fright that she had no thought about her proper for the discovery;
for she, when she felt the pull, screamed out, and pushed herself forward, and
put all the people about her into disorder, but said not a word of her watch,
or of a pickpocket, for a least two minutes’ time, which was time enough
for me, and to spare. For as I had cried out behind her, as I have said,
and bore myself back in the crowd as she bore forward, there were several
people, at least seven or eight, the throng being still moving on, that were
got between me and her in that time, and then I crying out ‘A pickpocket,’
rather sooner than she, or at least as soon, she might as well be the person
suspected as I, and the people were confused in their inquiry; whereas, had she
with a presence of mind needful on such an occasion, as soon as she felt the
pull, not screamed out as she did, but turned immediately round and seized the
next body that was behind her, she had infallibly taken me.
This is a direction not
of the kindest sort to the fraternity, but ‘tis certainly a key to the clue of
a pickpocket’s motions, and whoever can follow it will as certainly
catch the thief as he will be sure to miss if he does not.
I had another adventure,
which puts this matter out of doubt, and which may be an instruction for
posterity in the case of a pickpocket. My good old governess, to give a
short touch at her history, though she had left off the trade, was, as I may
say, born a pickpocket, and, as I understood afterwards, had run through
all the several degrees of that art, and yet had never been taken but once,
when she was so grossly detected, that she was convicted and ordered to be
transported; but being a woman of a rare tongue, and withal having money in her
pocket, she found means, the ship putting into Ireland for provisions, to get
on shore there, where she liv’d and practis’d her old trade for some years;
when falling into another sort of bad company, she turned midwife and
Procuress, and played a hundred pranks there, which she gave me a little
history of in confidence between us as we grew more intimate; and it was to
this wicked creature that I owed all the art and dexterity I arrived to, in
which there were few that ever went beyond me, or that practis’d so long
without any misfortune.
It was after those
adventures in
I mentioned thus much of
the history of this woman here, the better to account for the concern she had
in the wicked life I was now leading, into all the particulars of which she led
me, as it were, by the hand, and gave me such directions, and I so well
followed them, that I grew the greatest artist of my time and worked myself out
of every danger with such dexterity, that when several more of my comrades ran
themselves into Newgate presently, and by that time they had been half a
year at the trade, I had now Practis’d upwards of five years, and the people at
Newgate, did not so much as know me; they had heard much of me indeed,
and often expected me there, but I always got off, though many times in the
extrearnest danger.
One of the greatest
dangers I was now in, was that I was too well known among the trade, and some
of them, whose hatred was owing rather to envy than any injury I had done them,
began to be angry that I should always escape when they were always catch’d and
hurried to Newgate. These were they that gave me the name of Moll
Flanders: for it was no more of affinity with my real name or with any of
the name I had ever gone by, than black is of kin to white, except that once,
as before, I called myself Mrs. Flanders, when I sheltered myself in the
Mint; but that these rogues never knew, nor could I ever learn how they
came to give me the name, or what the occasion of it was.
I was soon informed that
some of these who were gotten fast into Newgate, had vowed to impeach
me; and as I knew that two or three of them were but too able to do it, I was
under a great concern about it, and kept within doors for a good while. But my
governess—whom I always made partner in my success, and who now played a sure
game with me, for that she had a share of the gain and no share in the hazard—I
say, my governess was something impatient of my leading such a useless,
unprofitable life, as she called it; and she laid a new contrivance for my
going abroad, and this was to dress me up in men’s clothes, and so put me into
a new kind of practice.
I was tall and
personable, but a little too smooth-faced for a man; however, I seldom went
abroad but in the night, it did well enough; but it was a long time before I
could behave in my new clothes—I mean, as to my craft. It was impossible to be
so nimble, so ready, so dexterous at these things in a dress so contrary to
nature; and I did everything clumsily, so I had neither the success nor the easiness
of escape that I had before, and I resolved to leave it off; but that
resolution was confirmed soon after by the following accident.
As my governess
disguised me like a man, so she joined me with a man, a young fellow that was
nimble enough at his business, and for about three weeks we did very well
together. Our principal trade was watching shopkeepers’ counters, and slipping
off any kind of goods we could see carelessly laid anywhere, and we made
several good bargains, as we called them, at this work. And as we kept always
together, so we grew very intimate, yet he never knew that I was not a man,
nay, though I several times went home with him to his lodgings, according as
our business directed, and four or five times lay with him all night. But our
design lay another way, and it was absolutely necessary to me to conceal my sex
from him, as appeared afterwards. The circumstances of our living, coming in
late, and having such and such business to do as required that nobody should be
trusted with the coming into our lodgings, were such as made it impossible to
me to refuse lying with him, unless I would have owned my sex; and as it was, I
effectually concealed myself. But his ill, and my good fortune, soon put an end
to this life, which I must own I was sick of too, on several other accounts. We
had made several prizes in this new way of business, but the last would be
extraordinary. There was a shop in a certain street which had a warehouse
behind it that looked into another street, the house making the corner of the
turning.
Through the window of
the warehouse we say, lying on the counter or Show-board which was just before
it, five pieces of silks, besides other stuffs, and though it was almost dark,
yet the people, being busy in the fore-shop with customers, had not had time to
shut up those windows, or else had forgot it.
This the young fellow
was so overjoyed with, that he could not restrain himself. It lay all within
his reach he said, and he swore violently to me that he would have it, if he
broke down the house for it. I dissuaded him a little, but saw there was no
remedy; so he ran rashly upon it, slipped out a square of the sash window
dexterously enough, and without noise, and got out four pieces of the silks,
and came with them towards me, but was immediately pursued with a terrible
clutter and noise. We were standing together indeed, but I had not taken any of
the goods out of his hand, when I said to him hastily, ‘You are undone, fly,
for God’s sake!’ He ran like lightning, and I too, but the pursuit was hotter
after him because he had the goods, than after me. He dropped two of the
pieces, which stopped them a little, but the crowd increased and pursued us
both. They took him soon after with the other two pieces upon him, and then the
rest followed me. I ran for it and got into my governess’s house whither some
quick-eyed people followed me to warmly as to fix me there. They did not
immediately knock, at the door, by which I got time to throw off my disguise
and dress me in my own clothes; besides, when they came there, my governess,
who had her tale ready, kept her door shut, and called out to them and told
them there was no man come in there. The people affirmed there did a man come
in there, and swore they would break open the door.
My governess, not at all
surprised, spoke calmly to them, told them they should very freely come and
search her house, if they should bring a constable, and let in none but such as
the constable would admit, for it was unreasonable to let in a whole crowd.
This they could not refuse, though they were a crowd. So a constable was
fetched immediately, and she very freely opened the door; the constable kept
the door, and the men he appointed searched the house, my governess going with
them from room to room. When she came to my room she called to me, and said
aloud, ‘Cousin, pray open the door; here’s some gentlemen that must come and
look into your room.’
I had a little girl with
me, which was my governess’s grandchild, as she called her; and I bade her open
the door, and there sat I at work with a great litter of things about me, as if
I had been at work all day, being myself quite undressed, with only
night-clothes on my head, and a loose morning-gown wrapped about me. My
governess made a kind of excuse for their disturbing me, telling me partly the
occasion of it, and that she had no remedy but to open the doors to them, and
let them satisfy themselves, for all she could say to them would not satisfy
them. I sat still, and bid them search the room if they pleased, for if there
was anybody in the house, I was sure they were not in my room; and as for the
rest of the house, I had nothing to say to that, I did not understand what they
looked for.
Every thing looked so
innocent and to honest about me, that they treated me civiller than I expected,
but it was not till they had searched the room to a nicety, even under the bed,
in the bed, and everywhere else where it was possible anything could be hid.
When they had done this, and could find nothing, they asked my pardon for troubling
me, and went down.
When they had thus
searched the house from bottom to top, and then top to bottom, and could find
nothing, they appeased the mob pretty well; but they carried my governess
before the justice. Two men swore that they saw the man whom they pursued go
into her house. My governess rattled and made a great noise that her house
should be insulted, and that she should be used thus for nothing; that if a man
did come in, he might go out again presently for aught she knew, for she was ready
to make oath that no man had been within her doors all that day as she knew of
(and that was very true indeed); that is might be indeed that as she was above
Stairs, any fellow in a fright might find the door open and run in for shelter
when he was pursued, but that she knew nothing of it; and if it had been so, he
certainly went out again, perhaps at the other door, for she had another door
into an alley, and so had made his escape and cheated them all.
This was indeed probable
enough, and the justice satisfied himself with giving her an oath that she had
not received or admitted any man into her house to conceal him, or protect or
hide him from justice. This oath she might justly take, and did so, and so she
was dismissed.
It is easy to judge what
a fright I was in upon this occasion, and it was impossible for my governess
ever to bring me to dress in that disguise again; for, as I told her, I should
certainly betray myself.
My poor partner in this
mischief was now in a bad case, for he was carried away before my Lord Mayor,
and by his worship committed to Newgate, and the people that took him
were so willing, as well as able, to prosecute him, that they offered
themselves to enter into Recognisances to appear at the sessions and pursue the
charge against him.
However, he got his
indictment deferred, upon promise to discover his accomplices, and particularly
the man that was concerned with him in his robbery; and he failed not to do his
endeavour, for he gave in my name, whom he called Gabriel Spencer, which
was the name I went by to him; and here appeared the wisdom of my concealing my
name and sex from him, which, if he had ever known I had been undone.
He did all he could to
discover this Gabriel Spencer; he described me, he discovered the place
where he said I lodged, and, in a word, all the particulars that he could of my
dwelling; but having concealed the main circumstances of my sex from him, I had
a vast advantage, and he never could hear of me. He brought two or three
families into trouble by his endeavouring to find me out, but they knew nothing
of me, any more than that I had a fellow with me that they had seen, but knew
nothing of. And as for my governess, though she was the means of his coming to
me, yet it was done at second-hand, and he knew nothing of her.
This turned to his
disadvantage; for having promised discoveries, but not being able to make it
good, it was looked upon as trifling with the justice of the city, and he was
the more fiercely pursued by the shopkeepers who took him.
I was, however, terribly
uneasy all this while, and that I might be quite out of the way, I went away
from my governess’s for a while; but not knowing wither to wander, I took a
maid-servant with me, and took the stage-coach to Dunstable to my old
landlord and landlady, where I had lived so handsomely with my Lancashire
husband. Here I told her a formal story, that I expected my husband every day
from Ireland, and that I had sent a letter to him that I would meet him
at Dunstable at her house, and that he would certainly land, if the wind
was fair, in a few days, so that I was come to spend a few days with them till
he should come, for he was either come post, or in the West Chester
coach, I knew not which; but whichsoever it was, he would be sure to come to
that house to meet me.
My landlady was mighty
glad to see me, and my landlord made such a stir with me, that if I had been a
princess I could not have been better used, and here I might have been welcome
a month or two if I had thought fit.
But my business was of another
nature. I was very uneasy (though so well disguised that it was scarce possible
to detect me) lest this fellow should somehow or other find me out; and though
he could not charge me with this robbery, having persuaded him not to venture,
and having also done nothing in it myself but run away, yet he might have
charged me with other things, and have bought his own life at the expense of
mine.
This filled me with
horrible apprehensions. I had no recourse, no friend, no confidante but my old
governess, and I knew no remedy but to put my life in her hands, and so I did,
for I let her know where to send to me, and had several letters from her while
I stayed here. Some of them almost scared me out my wits but at last she sent
me the joyful news that he was hanged, which was the best news to me that I had
heard a great while.
I had stayed here five
weeks, and lived very comfortably indeed (the secret anxiety of my mind
excepted); but when I received this letter I looked pleasantly again, an told
my landlady that I had received a letter from my spouse in Ireland, that
I had the good news of his being very well, but had the bad news that his
business would not permit him to come away so soon as he expected, and so I was
like to go back again without him.
My landlady complimented
me upon the good news however, that I had heard he was well. ‘For I have
observed, madam,’ says she, ‘you hadn’t been so pleasant as you used to
be; you have been over head and ears in care for him, I dare say,’ says the
good woman; ‘’tis easy to be seen there’s an alteration in you for the
better,’ says she. ‘Well, I am sorry the esquire can’t come yet,’ says
my landlord; ‘I should have been heartily glad to have seen him. But I
hope, when you have certain news of his coming, you’ll take a step hither
again, madam,’ says he; ‘you shall be very welcome whenever you please
to come.;
With all these fine
compliments we parted, and I came merry enough to
I have often wondered
even at my own hardiness another way, that when all my companions were
surprised and fell so suddenly into the hand of justice, and that I so narrowly
escaped, yet I could not all this while enter into one serious resolution to
leave off this trade, and especially considering that I was now very far from
being poor; that the temptation of necessity, which is generally the
introduction of all such wickedness, was now removed; for I had near
I had indeed one comrade
whose fate went very near me for a good while, though I wore it off too in
time. That case was indeed very unhappy. I had made a prize of a piece of very
good damask in a mercer’s shop, and went clear off myself, but had
conveyed the piece to this companion of mine when we went out of the shop, and
she went one way and I went another. We had not been long out of the shop but
the mercer missed his piece of stuff, and sent his messengers, one, one
way and one another, and they presently seized her that had the piece, with the
damask upon her. As for me, I had very luckily stepped into a house where there
was a lace chamber, up one pair of stairs, and had the satisfaction, or the
terror indeed, of looking out of the window upon the noise they made, and
seeing the poor creature dragged away in triumph to the justice, who
immediately committed her to Newgate.
I was careful to attempt
nothing in the lace chamber, but tumbled their goods pretty much to spend time;
then bought a few yards of edging and paid for it, and came away very
sad-hearted indeed for the poor woman, who was in tribulation for what I only
had stolen.
Here again my old
caution stood me in good stead; namely, that though I often robbed with these
people, yet I never let them know who I was, or where I lodged, nor could they
ever find out my lodging, though they often endeavour’d to watch me to it. They
all knew me by the name of Moll Flanders, though even some of them
rather believed I was she than knew me to be so. My name was public among them
indeed, but how to find me out they knew not, nor so much as how to guess at my
quarters, whether they were at the east end of the town or the west; and this
wariness was my safety upon all these occasions.
I kept close a great
while upon the occasion of this woman’s disaster. I knew that if I should do
anything that should miscarry, and should be carried to prison, she would be
there and ready to witness against me, and perhaps save her life at my expense.
I considered that I began to be very well known by name at the Old Baily,
though they did not know my face, and that if I should fall into their hands, I
should be treated as an old offender; and for this reason I was resolved to see
what this poor creature’s fate should be before I stirred abroad, though
several times in her distress I conveyed money to her for her relief.
At length she came to
her trial. She pleaded she did not steal the thing, but that one Mrs. Flanders,
as she heard her called (for she did not know her), gave the bundle to her
after they came out of the shop, and bade her carry it home to her lodging.
They asked her where this Mrs. Flanders was, but she could not produce
her, neither could she give the least account of me; and the mercer’s
men swearing positively that she was in the shop when the goods were stolen,
that they immediately missed them, and pursued her, and found them upon her,
thereupon the jury brought her in guilty; but the Court, considering that she
was really not the person that stole the goods, an inferior assistant, and that
it was very possible she could not find out this Mrs. Flanders, meaning me,
though it would save her life, which indeed was true—I say, considering all
this, they allowed her to be transported, which was the utmost Favour she could
obtain, only that the Court told her that if she could in the meantime produce
the said Mrs. Flanders, they would intercede for her pardon; that is to
say, if she could find me out, and hand me, she should not be transported. This
I took care to make impossible to her, and so she was shipped off in pursuance
of her sentence a little while after.
I must repeat it again,
that the fate of this poor woman troubled me exceedingly, and I began to be
very pensive, knowing that I was really the instrument of her disaster; but the
preservation of my own life, which was so evidently in danger, took off all my
tenderness; and seeing that she was not put to death, I was very easy at her
transportation, because she was then out of the way of doing me any mischief,
whatever should happen.
The disaster of this
woman was some months before that of the last-recited story, and was indeed
partly occasion of my governess proposing to dress me up in men’s clothes, that
I might go about unobserved, as indeed I did; but I was soon tired of that
disguise, as I have said, for indeed it exposed me to too many
difficulties.
I was now easy as to all
fear of witnesses against me, for all those that had either been concerned with
me, or that knew me by the name of Moll Flanders, were either hanged or
transported; and if I should have had the misfortune to be taken, I might call
myself anything else, as well as Moll Flanders, and no old sins could be
placed into my account; so I began to run a-tick again with the more freedom,
and several successful adventures I made, though not such as I had made before.
We had at that time
another fire happened not a great way off from the place where my governess
lived, and I made an attempt there, as before, but as I was not soon enough
before the crowd of people came in, and could not get to the house I aimed at,
instead of a prize, I got a mischief, which had almost put a period to my life
and all my wicked doings together; for the fire being very furious, and the
people in a great fright in removing their goods, and throwing them out of
window, a wench from out of a window threw a feather-bed just upon me. It is
true, the bed being soft, it broke no bones; but as the weight was great, and
made greater by the fall, it beat me down, and laid me dead for a while. Nor
did the people concern themselves much to deliver me from it, or to recover me
at all; but I lay like one dead and neglected a good while, till somebody going
to remove the bed out of the way, helped me up. It was indeed a wonder the
people in the house had not thrown other goods out after it, and which might have
fallen upon it, and then I had been inevitably killed; but I was reserved for
further afflictions.
This accident, however,
spoiled my market for that time, and I came home to my governess very much hurt
and bruised, and Frighted to the last degree, and it was a good while before
she could set me upon my feet again.
It was now a merry time
of the year, and Bartholomew Fair was begun. I had never made any walks
that way, nor was the common part of the fair of much advantage to me; but I
took a turn this year into the cloisters, and among the rest I fell into one of
the raffling shops. It was a thing of no great consequence to me, nor did I
expect to make much of it; but there came a gentleman extremely well dressed
and very rich, and as ’tis frequent to talk to everybody in those shops, he
singled me out, and was very particular with me. First he told me he would put
in for me to raffle, and did so; and some small matter coming to his lot, he
presented it to me (I think it was a feather muff); then he continued to keep
talking to me with a more than common appearance of respect, but still very
civil, and much like a gentleman.
He held me in talk so
long, till at last he drew me out of the raffling place to the shop-door, and
then to a walk in the cloister, still talking of a thousand things cursorily
without anything to the purpose. At last he told me that, without compliment,
he was charmed with my company, and asked me if I durst trust myself in a coach
with him; he told me he was a man of Honour, and would not offer anything to me
unbecoming him as such. I seemed to decline it a while, but suffered myself to
be importuned a little, and then yielded.
I was at a loss in my
thoughts to conclude at first what this gentleman designed; but I found
afterwards he had had some drink in his head, and that he was not very
unwilling to have some more. He carried me in the coach to the
Hitherto he kept his
word with me, and offered me nothing amiss. We came away in the coach again,
and he brought me into the streets, and by this time it was near ten o’clock at
night, and he stopped the coach at a house where, it seems, he was acquainted,
and where they made no scruple to show us upstairs into a room with a bed in
it. At first I seemed to be unwilling to go up, but after a few words I yielded
to that too, being willing to see the end of it, and in hope to make something
of it at last. As for the bed, etc., I was not much concerned about that
part.
Here he began to be a
little freer with me than he had promised; and I by little and little yielded
to everything, so that, in a word, he did what he pleased with me; I need say
no more. All this while he drank freely too, and about one in the morning we
went into the coach again. The air and the shaking of the coach made the drink
he had get more up in his head than it was before, and he grew uneasy in the
coach, and was for acting over again what he had been doing before; but as I
thought my game now secure, I resisted him, and brought him to be a little
still, which had not lasted five minutes but he fell fast asleep.
I took this opportunity
to search him to a nicety. I took a gold watch, with a silk purse of gold, his
fine full-bottom periwig and silver-fringed gloves, his sword and fine
snuff-box, and gently opening the coach door, stood ready to jump out while the
coach was going on; but the coach stopped in the narrow street beyond Temple
Bar to let another coach pass, I got softly out, fastened the door again,
and gave my gentleman and the coach the slip both together, and never heard
more of them.
This was an adventure
indeed unlook’d for, and perfectly undesigned by me; though I was not so past
the merry part of life, as to forget how to behave, when a fop so blinded by
his appetite should not know an old woman from a young. I did not indeed look
so old as I was by ten or twelve years; yet I was not a young wench of
seventeen, and it was easy enough to be distinguished. There is nothing so
absurd, so surfeiting, so ridiculous, as a man heated by wine in his head, and
wicked gust in his inclination together; he is in the possession of two devils
at once, and can no more govern himself by his reason than a mill can grind
without water; his vice tramples upon all that was in him that had any good in
it, if any such thing there was; nay, his very sense is blinded by its own
rage, and he acts absurdities even in his views; such a drinking more, when he
is drunk already; picking up a common woman, without regard to what she is or
who she is, whether sound or rotten, clean or unclean, whether ugly or
handsome, whether old or young, and so blinded as not really to distinguish.
Such a man is worse than a lunatic; prompted by his vicious, corrupted head, he
no more knows what he is doing than this wretch of mine knew when I picked his
pocket of his watch and his purse of gold.
These are the men of
whom Solomon says, ‘They go like an ox to the slaughter, till a dart strikes
through their liver’; an admirable description, by the way, of the
foul disease, which is a poisonous deadly contagion mingling with the blood,
whose Center or foundation is in the liver; from whence, by the swift
circulation of the whole mass, that dreadful nauseous plague strikes
immediately through his liver, and his spirits are infected, his vitals stabbed
through as with a dart.
It is true this poor
unguarded wretch was in no danger from me, though I was greatly apprehensive at
first of what danger I might be in from him; but he was really to be pitied in
one respect, that he seemed to be a good sort of man in himself; a gentleman
that had no harm in his design; a man of sense, and of a fine Behaviour; a
comely handsome person, a sober solid countenance, a charming beautiful face,
and everything that could be agreeable; only had unhappily had some drink the
night before, had not been in bed, as he told me when we were together; was
hot, and his blood fired with wine, and in that condition his reason, as it
were asleep, had given him up.
As for me, my business
was his money, and what I could make of him; and after that, if I could have
found out any way to have done it, I would have sent him safe home to his house
and to his family, for ’twas ten to one but he had an honest, virtuous wife and
innocent children, that were anxious for his safety, and would have been glad
to have gotten him home, and have taken care of him till he was restored to himself.
And then with what shame and regret would he look back upon himself! how would
he reproach himself with associating himself with a whore! picked up in the
worst of all holes, the cloister, among the dirt and filth of all the town! how
would he be trembling for fear he had got the pox, for fear a dart had struck
through his liver, and hate himself every time he looked back upon the madness
and brutality of his debauch! how would he, if he had any principles of Honour,
as I verily believe he had—I say, how would he abhor the thought of giving any
ill distemper, if he had it, as for aught he knew he might, to his modest and
virtuous wife, and thereby sowing the contagion in the life-blood of his
Posterity?
Would such gentlemen but
consider the contemptible thoughts which the very women they are concerned
with, in such cases as these, have of them, it would be a surfeit to them. As I
said above, they value not the pleasure, they are raised by no inclination to
the man, the passive jade thinks of no pleasure but the money; and when he is,
as it were, drunk in the ecstasies of his wicked pleasure, her hands are in his
pockets searching for what she can find there, and of which he can no more be
sensible in the moment of his folly that he can fore-think of it when he goes
about it.
I knew a woman that was
so dexterous with a fellow, who indeed deserved no better usage, that while he
was busy with her another way, conveyed his purse with twenty Guineas in it out
of his fob-pocket, where he had put it for fear of her, and put another purse
with gilded counters in it into the room of it. After he had done, he says to
her, now han’t you pick’d my pocket? she jested with him, and told him she
supposed he had not much to lose; he put his hand to his fob, and with his fingers
felt that his purse was there, which fully satisfied him, and so she brought
off his money. And this was a trade with her; she kept a sham gold watch, that
is, a watch of silver gilt, and a purse of counters in her pocket to be ready
on all such occasions, and I doubt not practiced it with success.
I came home with this
last booty to my governess, and really when I told her the story, it so
affected her that she was hardly able to forbear tears, to know how such a
gentleman ran a daily risk of being undone every time a glass of wine got into
his head.
But as to the purchase I
got, and how entirely I stripped him, she told me it please her wonderfully.
‘Nay child,’ says she, ‘the usage may, for aught I know, do more to
reform him than all the sermons that ever he will hear in his life.’ And if the
remainder of the story be true, so it did.
I found the next day she
was wonderful inquisitive about this gentleman; the description I had given her
of him, his dress, his person, his face, everything concurred to make her think
of a gentleman whose character she knew, and family too. She mused a while, and
I going still on with the particulars, she starts up; says she, ‘I’ll
lay
‘I am sorry you do,’ says
I, ‘for I would not have him exposed on any account in the world; he has had
injury enough already by me, and I would not be instrumental to do him any
more.’ ‘No, no,’ says she, ‘I will do him no injury, I assure you, but
you may let me satisfy my curiosity a little, for if it is he, I warrant you I
find it out.’ I was a little startled at that, and told her, with an apparent
concern in my face, that by the same rule he might find me out, and then I was
undone. She returned warmly, ‘Why, do you think I will betray you,
child? No, no,’ says she, ‘not for all he is worth in the world. I have
kept your counsel in worse things than these; sure you may trust me in this.’
So I said no more at that time.
She laid her scheme
another way, and without acquainting me of it, but she was resolved to find it
out if possible. So she goes to a certain friend of hers who was acquainted in
the family that she guessed at, and told her friend she had some extraordinary
business with such a gentleman (who, by the way, was no less than a baronet,
and of a very good family), and that she knew not how to come at him without
somebody to introduce her. Her friend promised her very readily to do it, and
accordingly goes to the house to see if the gentleman was in town.
The next day she come to
my governess and tells her that Sir—was at home, but that he had met with a
disaster and was very ill, and there was no speaking with him. ‘What disaster?’
says my governess hastily, as if she was surprised at it. ‘Why,’ says
her friend, ‘he had been at Hampstead to visit a gentleman of his
acquaintance, and as he came back again he was set upon and robbed; and having
got a little drink too, as they suppose, the rogues abused him, and he is very
ill.’ ‘Robbed!’ says my governess, ‘and what did they take from him?’
‘Why,’ says her friend, ‘they took his gold watch and his gold snuff-
box, his fine periwig, and what money he had in his pocket, which was
considerable, to be sure, for Sir—never goes without a purse of Guineas about
him.’
‘Pshaw!’ says my old governess, jeering, ‘I warrant you he has got drunk now and
got a whore, and she has picked his pocket, and so he comes home to his wife
and tells her he has been robbed. That’s an old sham; a thousand such tricks
are put upon the poor women every day.’
Fye, says her friend,
‘I find you don’t know Sir —; why he is a civil a gentleman, there is not a
finer man, nor a soberer, graver modester person in the whole city; he abhors
such things; there’s nobody that knows him will think such a thing of him.’
‘Well, well,’ says my governess, ‘that’s none of my business; if it was,
I warrant I should find there was something of that kind in it; your modest men
in common opinion are sometimes no better than other people, only they keep a
better character, or, if you please, are the better hypocrites.’
‘No, no,’ says her
friend, ‘I can assure you Sir—is no hypocrite, he is really an honest,
sober gentleman, and he has certainly been robbed.’ ‘Nay,’ says my governess,
‘it may be he has; it is no business of mine, I tell you; I only want to speak
with him; my business is of another nature.’ ‘But,’ says her friend,
‘let your business be of what nature it will, you cannot see him yet, for he is
not fit to be seen, for he is very ill, and bruised very much,’ ‘Ay,’ says
my governess, ‘nay, then he has fallen into bad hands, to be sure,’ And
then she asked gravely, ‘Pray, where is he bruised?’ ‘Why, in the head,’ says
her friend, ‘and one of his hands, and his face, for they used him
barbarously.’ ‘Poor gentleman,’ says my governess, ‘I must wait, then,
till he recovers’; and adds, ‘I hope it will not be long, for I want very much
to speak with him.’
Away she comes to me and
tells me this story. ‘I have found out your fine gentleman, and a fine
gentleman he was,’ says she; ‘but, mercy on him, he is in a sad pickle
now. I wonder what the d—l you have done to him; why, you have almost killed
him.’ I looked at her with disorder enough. ‘I killed him!’ says I; ‘you must
mistake the person; I am sure I did nothing to him; he was very well when I
left him,’ said I, ‘only drunk and fast asleep.’ ‘I know nothing of
that,’ says she, ‘but he is in a sad pickle now’; and so she told me all
that her friend had said to her. ‘Well, then,’ says I, ‘he fell into bad
hands after I left him,for I am sure I left him safe enough.’
About ten days after, or
a little more, my governess goes again to her friend, to introduce her to this
gentleman; she had inquired other ways in the meantime, and found that he was
about again, if not abroad again, so she got leave to speak with him.
She was a woman of a
admirable address, and wanted nobody to introduce her; she told her tale much
better than I shall be able to tell it for her, for she was a mistress of her
tongue, as I have said already. She told him that she came, though a stranger,
with a single design of doing him a service and he should find she had no other
end in it; that as she came purely on so friendly an account, she begged
promise from him, that if he did not accept what she should officiously propose
he would not take it ill that she meddled with what was not her business. She
assured him that as what she had to say was a secret that belonged to him only,
so whether he accepted her offer or not, it should remain a secret to all the
world, unless he exposed it himself; nor should his refusing her service in it
make her so little show her respect as to do him the least injury, so that he
should be entirely at liberty to act as he thought fit.
He looked very shy at
first, and said he knew nothing that related to him that required much secrecy;
that he had never done any man any wrong, and cared not what anybody might say
of him; that it was no part of his character to be unjust to anybody, nor could
he imagine in what any man could render him any service; but that if it was so
disinterested a service as she said, he could not take it ill from any one that
they should endeavour to serve him; and so, as it were, left her a liberty
either to tell him or not to tell, as she thought fit.
She found him so
perfectly indifferent, that she was almost afraid to enter into the point with
him; but, however, after some other circumlocutions she told him that by a
strange and unaccountable accident she came to have a particular knowledge of
the late unhappy adventure he had fallen into, and that in such a manner, that
there was nobody in the world but herself and him that were acquainted with it,
no, not the very person that was with him.
He looked a little
angrily at first. ‘What adventure?’ said he. ‘Why,’ said she, ‘of
your being robbed coming from Knightsbr—; Hampstead, sir, I
should say,’ says she. ‘Be not surprised, sir,’ says she, ‘that I
am able to tell you every step you took that day from the cloister in Smithfield
to the Spring Garden at Knightsbridge, and thence to the—in the Strand,
and how you were left asleep in the coach afterwards. I say, let not this
surprise you, for, sir, I do not come to make a booty of you, I ask nothing of
you, and I assure you the woman that was with you knows nothing who you are,
and never shall; and yet perhaps I may serve you further still, for I did not
come barely to let you know that I was informed of these things, as if I wanted
a bride to conceal them; assure yourself, sir,’ said she, ‘that whatever
you think fit to do or say to me, it shall be all a secret as it is, as much as
if I were in my grave.’
He was astonished at her
discourse, and said gravely to her, ‘Madam, you are a stranger to me, but it is
very unfortunate that you should be let into the secret of the worst action of
my life, and a thing that I am so justly ashamed of, that the only satisfaction
of it to me was, that I thought it was known only to God any my own
conscience.’ ‘Pray, sir,’ says she, ‘do not reckon the discovery of it
to me to be any part of your misfortune. It was a thing, I believe, you were
surprised into, and perhaps the woman used some art to prompt you to it;
however, you will never find any just cause,’ said she, ‘to repent that
I came to hear of it; nor can your own mouth be more silent in it that I have
been, and ever shall be.’
‘Well,’ says he,
‘but let me do some justice to the woman too; whoever she is, I do assure you
she prompted me to nothing, she rather declined me. It was my own folly and
madness that brought me into it all, ay, and brought her into it too; I must
give her her due so far. As to what she took from me, I could expect no less
from her in the condition I was in, and to this hour I know not whether she
robbed me or the coachman; if she did it, I forgive her, and I think all
gentlemen that do so should be used in the same manner; but I am more concerned
for some other things that I am for all that she took from me.’
My governess now began
to come into the whole matter, and he opened himself freely to her. First she
said to him, in answer to what he had said about me, ‘I am glad, sir, you are
so just to the person that you were with; I assure you she is a gentlewoman,
and no woman of the town; and however you prevailed with her so far as you did,
I am sure ’tis not her practice. You ran a great venture indeed, sir; but if
that be any part of your care, I am persuaded you may be perfectly easy, for I
dare assure you no man has touched her, before you, since her husband, and he
has been dead now almost eight years.’
It appeared that this
was his grievance, and that he was in a very great fright about it; however,
when my governess said this to him, he appeared very well pleased, and said,
‘Well, madam, to be plain with you, if I was satisfied of that, I should not so
much value what I lost; for, as to that, the temptation was great, and perhaps
she was poor and wanted it.’ ‘If she had not been poor, sir —,’ says my
governess, ‘I assure you she would never have yielded to you; and as her
poverty first prevailed with her to let you do as you did, so the same poverty
prevailed with her to pay herself at last, when she saw you was in such a
condition, that if she had not done it, perhaps the next coachman might have
done it.’
‘Well,’ says he,
‘much good may it do her. I say again, all the gentlemen that do so ought to be
used in the same manner, and then they would be cautious of themselves. I have
no more concern about it, but on the score which you hinted at before, madam.’
Here he entered into some freedoms with her on the subject of what passed
between us, which are not so proper for a woman to write, and the great terror
that was upon his mind with relation to his wife, for fear he should have
received any injury from me, and should communicate if farther; and asked her
at last if she could not procure him an opportunity to speak with me. My
governess gave him further assurances of my being a woman clear from any such
thing, and that he was as entirely save in that respect as he was with his own
lady; but as for seeing me, she said it might be of dangerous consequence; but,
however, that she would talk with me, and let him know my answer, using at the
same time some arguments to persuade him not to desire it, and that it could be
of no service to him, seeing she hoped he had no desire to renew a correspondence
with me, and that on my account it was a kind of putting my life in his hands.
He told her he had a
great desire to see me, that he would give her any assurances that were in his
power, not to take any advantages of me, and that in the first place he would
give me a general release from all demands of any kind. She insisted how it
might tend to a further divulging the secret, and might in the end be injurious
to him, entreating him not to press for it; so at length he desisted.
They had some discourse
upon the subject of the things he had lost, and he seemed to be very desirous
of his gold watch, and told her if she could procure that for him, he would
willingly give as much for it as it was worth. She told him she would endeavour
to procure it for him, and leave the valuing it to himself.
Accordingly the next day
she carried the watch, and he gave her 30 Guineas for it, which was more than I
should have been able to make of it, though it seems it cost much more. He
spoke something of his periwig, which it seems cost him threescore Guineas, and
his snuff-box, and in a few days more she carried them too; which obliged him
very much, and he gave her thirty more. The next day I sent him his fine sword
and cane gratis, and demanded nothing of him, but I had no mind to see
him, unless it had been so that he might be satisfied I knew who he was, which
he was not willing to.
Then he entered into a
long talk with her of the manner how she came to know all this matter. She
formed a long tale of that part; how she had it from one that I had told the
whole story to, and that was to help me dispose of the goods; and this
confidante brought the things to her, she being by profession a pawnbroker;
and she hearing of his worship’s disaster, guessed at the thing in general;
that having gotten the things into her hands, she had resolved to come and try
as she had done. She then gave him repeated assurances that it should never go
out of her mouth, and though she knew the woman very well, yet she had not let
her know, meaning me, anything of it; that is to say, who the
person was, which, by the way, was false; but, however, it was not to his
damage, for I never opened my mouth of it to any Body.
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