الفصل الفصل 40 · 第40章

She received me very civilly, and with her usual obliging manner told

me she would not have the less respect for me for my being reduced;

that she had taken care my boy was very well looked after, though I

could not pay for him, and that the woman that had him was easy, so

that I needed not to trouble myself about him till I might be better

able to do it effectually.

I told her that I had not much money left, but that I had some things

that were money’s worth, if she could tell me how I might turn them

into money. She asked me what it was I had. I pulled out the string of

gold beads, and told her it was one of my husband’s presents to me;

then I showed her the two parcels of silk, which I told her I had from

Ireland, and brought up to town with me; and the little diamond ring.

As to the small parcel of plate and spoons, I had found means to

dispose of them myself before; and as for the childbed-linen I had, she

offered me to take it herself, believing it to have been my own. She

told me that she was turned pawnbroker, and that she would sell those

things for me as pawn to her; and so she sent presently for proper

agents that bought them, being in her hands, without any scruple, and

gave good prices too.

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 newly taken 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.