Moll Flanders

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I now began to think this necessary woman might help me a
little in my low condition to some business, for I would gladly
have turned my hand to any honest employment if I could have
got it. But here she was deficient; honest business did not
come within her reach. If I had been younger, perhaps she
might have helped me to a spark, but my thoughts were off
that kind of livelihood, as being quite out of the way after fifty,
which was my case, and so I told her.

She invited me at last to come, and be at her house till I could
find something to do, and it should cost me very little, and this
I gladly accepted of. And now living a little easier, I entered
into some measures to have my little son by my last husband
taken off; and this she made easy too, reserving a payment
only of #5 a year, if I could pay it. This was such a help to me,
that for a good while I left off the wicked trade that I had so
newlytaken up; and gladly I would have got my bread by the
help of my needle if I could have got work, but that was very
hard to do for one that had no manner of acquaintance in the
world.

However, at last I got some quilting work for ladies' beds,
petticoats, and the like; and this I liked very well, and worked
very hard, and with this I began to live; but the diligent devil,
who resolved I should continue in his service, continually
prompted me to go out and take a walk, that is to say, to see
if anything would offer in the old way.

One evening I blindly obeyed his summons, and fetched a long
circuit through the streets, but met with no purchase, and came
home very weary and empty; but not content with that, I went
out the next evening too, when going by an alehouse I saw the
door of a little room open, next the very street, and on the table
a silver tankard, things much in use in public-houses at that
time. It seems some company had been drinking there, and the
careless boys had forgot to take it away.

I went into the box frankly, and setting the silver tankard on
the corner of the bench, I sat down before it, and knocked with
my foot; a boy came presently, and I bade him fetch me a pint
of warm ale, for it was cold weather; the boy ran, and I heard
him go down the cellar to draw the ale. While the boy was
gone, another boy came into the room, and cried, 'D' ye call?'
I spoke with a melancholy air, and said, 'No, child; the boy is
gone for a pint of ale for me.'

While I sat here, I heard the woman in the bar say, 'Are they
all gone in the five?' which was the box I sat in, and the boy
said, 'Yes.' 'Who fetched the tankard away?' says the woman.
'I did,' says another boy; 'that's it,' pointing, it seems, to
another tankard, which he had fetched from another box by
mistake; or else it must be, that the rogue forgot that he had
not brought it in, which certainly he had not.

I heard all this, much to my satisfaction, for I found plainly
that the tankard was not missed, and yet they concluded it was
fetched away; so I drank my ale, called to pay, and as I went
away I said, 'Take care of your plate, child,' meaning a silver
pint mug, which he brought me drink in. The boy said, 'Yes,
madam, very welcome,' and away I came.

I came home to my governess, and now I thought it was a
time to try her, that if I might be put to the necessity of being
exposed, she might offer me some assistance. When I had
been at home some time, and had an opportunity of talking to
her, I told her I had a secret of the greatest consequence in the
world to commit to her, if she had respect enough for me to
keep it a secret. She told me she had kept one of my secrets
faithfully; why should I doubt her keeping another? I told her
the strangest thing in the world had befallen me, and that it
had made a thief of me, even without any design, and so told
her the whole story of the tankard. 'And have you brought it
away with you, my dear?' says she. 'To be sure I have,' says
I, and showed it her. 'But what shall I do now,' says I; 'must
not carry it again?'

'Carry it again!' says she. 'Ay, if you are minded to be sent
to Newgate for stealing it.' 'Why,' says I, 'they can't be so
base to stop me, when I carry it to them again?' 'You don't
know those sort of people, child,' says she; 'they'll not only
carry you to Newgate, but hang you too, without any regard
to the honesty of returning it; or bring in an account of all the
other tankards they have lost, for you to pay for.' 'What must
I do, then?' says I. 'Nay,' says she, 'as you have played the
cunning part and stole it, you must e'en keep it; there's no
going back now. Besides, child,' says she, 'don't you want it
more than they do? I wish you could light of such a bargain
once a week.'

This gave me a new notion of my governess, and that since
she was turned pawnbroker, she had a sort of people about
her that were none of the honest ones that I had met with
there before.

I had not been long there but I discovered it more plainly than
before, for every now and then I saw hilts of swords, spoons,
forks, tankards, and all such kind of ware brought in, not to be
pawned, but to be sold downright; and she bought everything
that came without asking any questions, but had very good
bargains, as I found by her discourse.

I found also that in following this trade she always melted
down the plate she bought, that it might not be challenged;
and she came to me and told me one morning that she was
going to melt, and if I would, she would put my tankard in,
that it might not be seen by anybody. I told her, with all my
heart; so she weighed it, and allowed me the full value in silver
again; but I found she did not do the same to the rest of her
customers.

Some time after this, as I was at work, and very melancholy,
she begins to ask me what the matter was, as she was used to
do. I told her my heart was heavy; I had little work, and
nothing to live on, and knew not what course to take. She
laughed, and told me I must go out again and try my fortune;
it might be that I might meet with another piece of plate.
'O mother!' says I, 'that is a trade I have no skill in, and if I
should be taken I am undone at once.' Says she, 'I could help
you to a schoolmistress that shall make you as dexterous as
herself.' I trembled at that proposal, for hitherto I had had
no confederates, nor any acquaintance among that tribe. But
she conquered all my modesty, and all my fears; and in a little
time, by the help of this confederate, I grew as impudent a
thief, and as dexterous as ever Moll Cutpurse was, though,
if fame does not belie her, not half so handsome.

The comrade she helped me to dealt in three sorts of craft, viz.
shoplifting, stealing of shop-books and pocket-books, and
taking off gold watches from the ladies' sides; and this last she
did so dexterously that no woman ever arrived to the performance
of that art so as to do it like her. I liked the first and the last
of these things very well, and I attended her some time in the
practice, just as a deputy attends a midwife, without any pay.

At length she put me to practice. She had shown me her art,
and I had several times unhooked a watch from her own side
with great dexterity. At last she showed me a prize, and this
was a young lady big with child, who had a charming watch.
The thing was to be done as she came out of church. She goes
on one side of the lady, and pretends, just as she came to the
steps, to fall, and fell against the lady with so much violence
as put her into a great fright, and both cried out terribly. In
the very moment that she jostled the lady, I had hold of the
watch, and holding it the right way, the start she gave drew
the hook out, and she never felt it. I made off immediately,
and left my schoolmistress to come out of her pretended fright
gradually, and the lady too; and presently the watch was missed.
'Ay,' says my comrade, 'then it was those rogues that thrust
me down, I warrant ye; I wonder the gentlewoman did not miss
her watch before,then we might have taken them.'

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 a great 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 the pitch above all the
reflections of conscience or modesty, and to a degree which
I must acknowledge 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 great, or the prospect of my misery 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, as acquaintance
came in, 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 my 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 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 now not leave off, as they say, while I was
well? that I could not expect to go always free; and if I was
once surprised, and miscarried, I was undone.

This was doubtless the happy minute, when, if I had hearkened
to the blessed hint, from whatsoever had it came, I had still a
cast for an easy life. But my fate was otherwise determined;
the busy devil that so industriously drew me in had too fast
hold of me to let me go back; but as poverty brought me into
the mire, 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, go on;
you have had very good luck; go on till you have gotten four
or five hundred pounds, and they 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, but rather 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, and that I could not bear it,
so I was forced to leave off going to see them.

And oh! could I have but 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's 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 job. 'Now,
child,' says she, 'there is a rare opportunity, for 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).' She gave me the like cue to the next house,
naming another name that was also an acquaintance of the
gentlewoman of the house.

Away I went, and, coming to the house, I found them all in
confusion, you may be sure. I ran in, and finding one of the
maids, 'Lord! sweetheart,' says I, 'how came this dismal
accident? Where is your mistress? Any how does she do?
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,
an two little children, comes toward me. 'Lord! 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
immediately I takes one of them out of her hand, and she lifts
the other up into my arms. 'Ay, do, for God's sake,' says she,
'carry them to her. Oh! thank her for her kindness.' 'Have
you anything else to secure, madam?' says I; 'she will take
care of it.' 'Oh dear! ay,' says she, 'God bless her, and thank
her. Take this bundle of plate and carry it to her too. Oh, she
is a good woman. Oh Lord! we are utterly ruined, utterly
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, 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 aviod 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,
clear of anybody's inquiry, and brought the bundle of plate,
which was very considerable, straight home, and gave it to
my old governess. She told me she would not look into it,
but bade me go out again to 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 would do; so I came
back again to my governess's, 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 by the fire besides; and who would think,
to be sure, that she had saved her plate and best things; how
she would be surprised and afflicted when she should find that
she had been deceived, and should find 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 began quickly to
forget the circumstances that attended the taking them.

Now 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 farther,
and more; and the avarice joined so with the success, that I
had no more thought 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 so wickedly gained; but 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 repentance, 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 my desires; 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 thought of 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 of
being undone.

I remained still with my governess, who was for a while really
concerned for the misfortune of my comrade that had been
hanged, and who, it seems, 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 opened mouth
to tell 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 on
the other hand, 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 have 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 I got notice of two young women who were newly
set up, and had not been bred to the trade. There I think I
carried off a piece of bone-lace, worth six or seven pounds,
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, but they were but trifles too,
though sufficient to live on. After this nothing considerable
offering for a good while, I began to think that I must give
over the 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, it seems, in the
trade they carried on, and partners in something else. 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
upon anything 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 daytime, 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, as a thing out of
my way, 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. As I said before
that they robbed together and lay together, so now they hanged
together, and there ended my new partnership.

I began now to be very wary, having so narrowly escaped a
scouring, and having such an example before me; but I had a
new tempter, who prompted me every day--I mean my governess;
and now a prize presented, which as it came by her management,
so she expected a good share of the booty. There was a good
quantity of Flanders lace lodged in a private house, where she
had gotten intelligence of it, and Flanders lace being prohibited,
it was a good booty to any custom-house officer that could
come at it. I had a full account from my governess, as well
of the quantity as of the very place where it was concealed,
and I went to a custom-house officer, and told him I had such
a discovery to make to him of such a quantity of lace, if he
would assure me that I should have my due share of the reward.
This was so just an offer, that nothing could be fairer; so he
agreed, and taking a constable and me with him, we beset the
house. As I told him I could go directly to the place, he left
it to me; and the hole being very dark, I squeezed myself into
it, with a candle in my hand, and so reached the pieces out to
him, taking care as I gave him some so to secure as much about
myself as I could conveniently dispose of. There was near
#300 worth of lace in the hole, and I secured about #50 worth
of it to myself. The people of the house were not owners of
the lace, but a merchant who had entrusted them with it; so
that they were not so surprised as I thought they would be.

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