الفصل الفصل 46 · 第46章

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 picked 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 pleased 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

£100 I know the gentleman.”

“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.”

“Fie!” says her friend, “I find you don’t know Sir ——; why he is as

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 Knightbr——; 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 bribe 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 and 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.”