Moll Flanders (26 page)

She humoured the thing so well that nobody suspected her, and I was got home a full hour before her. This was my first adventure in company. The watch was indeed a very fine one and had many trinkets about it, and my governess allowed us £20 for it, of which I had half. And thus I was entered a complete thief, hardened to a pitch above all the reflections of conscience or modesty, and to a degree which I never thought possible in me.

Thus the devil, who began by the help of an irresistible poverty to push me into this wickedness, brought me on to a height beyond the common rate, even when my necessities were not so terrifying; for I had now got into a little vein of work, and as I was not at a loss to handle my needle, it was very probable I might have got my bread honestly enough.

I must say that if such a prospect of work had presented itself at first, when I began to feel the approach of my miserable circumstances—I say, had such a prospect of getting bread by working presented itself then, I had never fallen into this wicked trade or into such a wicked gang as I was now embarked with; but practice had hardened me, and I grew audacious to the last degree; and the more so because I had carried it on so long and had never been taken; for, in a word, my new partner in wickedness and I went on together so long without being ever detected that we not only grew bold but we grew rich, and we had at one time one-and-twenty gold watches in our hands.

I remember that one day, being a little more serious than ordinary and finding I had so good a stock beforehand as I had, for I had near £200 in money for my share, it came strongly into my mind, no doubt from some kind spirit, if such there be, that as at first poverty excited me and my distresses drove me to these dreadful shifts, so seeing those distresses were now relieved and I could also get something towards a maintenance by working and had so good a bank to support me, why should I not now leave off while I was well? That I could not expect to go always free; and if I was once surprised, I was undone.

This was doubtless the happy minute when, if I had hearkened to the blessed hint, from whatsoever hand it came, I had still a cast for an easy life. But my fate was otherwise determined; the busy devil that drew me in had too fast hold of me to let me go back; but as poverty brought me in, so avarice kept me in, till there was no going back. As to the arguments which my reason dictated for persuading me to lay down, avarice stepped in and said, “Go on; you have had very good luck; go on till you have gotten four or five hundred pound, and then you shall leave off, and then you may live easy without working at all.”

Thus I, that was once in the devil’s clutches, was held fast there as with a charm, and had no power to go without the circle till I was engulfed in labyrinths of trouble too great to get out at all.

However, these thoughts left some impression upon me and made me act with some more caution than before, and more than my directors used for themselves. My comrade, as I called her (she should have been called my teacher), with another of her scholars, was the first in the misfortune; for, happening to be upon the hunt for purchase, they made an attempt upon a linen-draper in Cheapside, but were snapped by a hawk’s-eyed journeyman and seized with two pieces of cambric, which were taken also upon them.

This was enough to lodge them both in Newgate, where they had the misfortune to have some of their former sins brought to remembrance. Two other indictments being brought against them and the facts being proved upon them, they were both condemned to die. They both pleaded their bellies, and were both voted quick with child; though my tutoress was no more with child than I was.

I went frequently to see them and condole with them, expecting that it would be my turn next; but the place gave me so much horror, reflecting that it was the place of my unhappy birth and of my mother’s misfortunes, that I could not bear it, so I left off going to see them.

And oh! could I but have taken warning by their disasters, I had been happy still, for I was yet free and had nothing brought against me; but it could not be, my measure was not yet filled up.

My comrade, having the brand of an old offender, was executed; the young offender was spared, having obtained a reprieve, but lay starving a long while in prison till at last she got her name into what they call a circuit pardon and so came off.

This terrible example of my comrade frighted me heartily, and for a good while I made no excursions; but one night, in the neighbourhood of my governess’ house, they cried, “Fire.” My governess looked out, for we were all up, and cried immediately that such a gentlewoman’s house was all of a light fire atop, and so indeed it was. Here she gives me a jog. “Now, child,” says she, “there is a rare opportunity, the fire being so near that you may go to it before the street is blocked up with the crowd.” She presently gave me my cue. “Go, child,” says she, “to the house and run in and tell the lady or anybody you see that you come to help them and that you came from such a gentlewoman”; that is, one of her acquaintance farther up the street.

Away I went, and coming to the house, I found them all in confusion, you may be sure. I run in, and finding one of the maids, “Alas! Sweetheart,” said I, “how came this dismal accident? Where is your mistress? Is she safe? And where are the children? I come from Madam —— to help you.” Away runs the maid. “Madam, madam,” says she, screaming as loud as she could yell, “here is a gentlewoman come from Madam —— to help us.” The poor woman, half out of her wits, with a bundle under her arm and two little children, comes towards me. “Madam,” says I, “let me carry the poor children to Madam ——; she desires you to send them; she’ll take care of the poor lambs”; and so I takes one of them out of her hand and she lifts the other up into my arms. “Aye, do, for God’s sake,” says she, “carry them. Oh, thank her for her kindness.” “Have you anything else to secure, madam?” says I. “She will take care of it.” “Oh, dear!” says she. “God bless her; take this bundle of plate and carry it to her too. Oh, she is a good woman! Oh, we are utterly ruined, undone!” And away she runs from me out of her wits, and the maids after her, and away comes I with the two children and the bundle.

I was no sooner got into the street but I saw another woman come to me. “Oh!” says she, “mistress,” in a piteous tone, “you will let fall the child. Come, come, this is a sad time; let me help you,” and immediately lays hold of my bundle to carry it for me. “No,” says I, “if you will help me, take the child by the hand and lead it for me but to the upper end of the street; I’ll go with you and satisfy you for your pains.”

She could not avoid going, after what I said; but the creature, in short, was one of the same business with me and wanted nothing but the bundle; however, she went with me to the door, for she could not help it. When we were come there I whispered her, “Go, child,” said I, “I understand your trade; you may meet with purchase enough.”

She understood me and walked off. I thundered at the door with the children, and as the people were raised before by the noise of the fire, I was soon let in, and I said, “Is madam awake? Pray tell her Mrs. —— desires the favour of her to take the two children in; poor lady, she will be undone, their house is all of a flame.” They took the children in very civilly, pitied the family in distress, and away came I with my bundle. One of the maids asked me if I was not to leave the bundle too. I said, “No, sweetheart, ’tis to go to another place; it does not belong to them.”

I was a great way out of the hurry now, and so I went on and brought the bundle of plate, which was very considerable, straight home to my old governess. She told me she would not look into it, but bade me go again and look for more.

She gave me the like cue to the gentlewoman of the next house to that which was on fire, and I did my endeavour to go, but by this time the alarm of fire was so great, and so many engines playing, and the street so thronged with people that I could not get near the house whatever I could do; so I came back again to my governess’, and taking the bundle up into my chamber, I began to examine it. It is with horror that I tell what a treasure I found there; ’tis enough to say that besides most of the family plate, which was considerable, I found a gold chain, an old-fashioned thing, the locket of which was broken, so that I suppose it had not been used some years, but the gold was not the worse for that; also a little box of burying-rings, the lady’s wedding-ring, and some broken bits of old lockets of gold, a gold watch, and a purse with about £24 value in old pieces of gold coin, and several other things of value.

This was the greatest and the worst prize that ever I was concerned in; for indeed, though, as I have said above, I was hardened now beyond the power of all reflection in other cases, yet it really touched me to the very soul when I looked into this treasure to think of the poor, disconsolate gentlewoman who had lost so much besides, and who would think, to be sure, that she had saved her plate and best things; how she would be surprised when she should find that she had been deceived, and that the person that took her children and her goods had not come, as was pretended, from the gentlewoman in the next street, but that the children had been put upon her without her own knowledge.

I say, I confess the inhumanity of this action moved me very much and made me relent exceedingly, and tears stood in my eyes upon that subject; but with all my sense of its being cruel and inhuman, I could never find in my heart to make any restitution. The reflection wore off, and I quickly forgot the circumstances that attended it.

Nor was this all; for though by this job I was become considerably richer than before, yet the resolution I had formerly taken of leaving off this horrid trade when I had gotten a little more did not return, but I must still get more; and the avarice had such success that I had no more thoughts of coming to a timely alteration of life, though without it I could expect no safety, no tranquillity in the possession of what I had gained; a little more, and a little more, was the case still.

At length, yielding to the importunities of my crime, I cast off all remorse, and all the reflections on that head turned to no more than this: that I might perhaps come to have one booty more that might complete all; but though I certainly had that one booty, yet every hit looked towards another and was so encouraging to me to go on with the trade that I had no gust to the laying it down.

In this condition, hardened by success and resolving to go on, I fell into the snare in which I was appointed to meet with my last reward for this kind of life. But even this was not yet, for I met with several successful adventures more in this way.

My governess was for a while really concerned for this misfortune of my comrade that had been hanged, for she knew enough of my governess to have sent her the same way, and which made her very uneasy; indeed she was in a very great fright.

It is true that when she was gone and had not told what she knew, my governess was easy as to that point and perhaps glad she was hanged, for it was in her power to have obtained a pardon at the expense of her friends; but the loss of her and the sense of her kindness in not making her market of what she knew moved my governess to mourn very sincerely for her. I comforted her as well as I could, and she in return hardened me to merit more completely the same fate.

However, as I had said, it made me the more wary, and particularly I was very shy of shoplifting, especially among the mercers and drapers, who are a set of fellows that have their eyes very much about them. I made a venture or two among the lace-folks and the milliners, and particularly at one shop where two young women were newly set up and had not been bred to trade. There I carried off a piece of bone-lace worth six or seven pound, and a paper of thread. But this was but once; it was a trick that would not serve again.

It was always reckoned a safe job when we heard of a new shop, and especially when the people were such as were not bred to shops. Such may depend upon it that they will be visited once or twice at their beginning, and they must be very sharp indeed if they can prevent it.

I made another adventure or two after this, but they were but trifles. Nothing considerable offering for a good while, I began to think that I must give over trade in earnest; but my governess, who was not willing to lose me and expected great things of me, brought me one day into company with a young woman and a fellow that went for her husband, though, as it appeared afterwards, she was not his wife, but they were partners in the trade they carried on and in something else too. In short, they robbed together, lay together, were taken together, and at last were hanged together.

I came into a kind of league with these two by the help of my governess, and they carried me out into three or four adventures, where I rather saw them commit some coarse and unhandy robberies, in which nothing but a great stock of impudence on their side and gross negligence on the people’s side who were robbed could have made them successful. So I resolved from that time forward to be very cautious how I adventured with them; and, indeed, when two or three unlucky projects were proposed by them, I declined the offer and persuaded them against it. One time they particularly proposed robbing a watchmaker of three gold watches, which they had eyed in the day-time and found the place where he laid them. One of them had so many keys of all kinds that he made no question to open the place where the watchmaker had laid them; and so we made a kind of an appointment; but when I came to look narrowly into the thing, I found they proposed breaking open the house, and this I would not embark in, so they went without me. They did get into the house by main force and broke up the locked place where the watches were, but found but one of the gold watches and a silver one, which they took, and got out of the house again very clear. But the family, being alarmed, cried out, “Thieves,” and the man was pursued and taken; the young woman had got off too, but unhappily was stopped at a distance and the watches found upon her. And thus I had a second escape, for they were convicted and both hanged, being old offenders, though but young people; and as I said before that they robbed together, so now they hanged together, and there ended my new partnership.