الفصل الفصل 48 · 第48章

But this affair had its end too; for after about a year, I found that

he did not come so often as usual, and at last he left if off

altogether without any dislike to bidding adieu; and so there was an

end of that short scene of life, which added no great store to me, only

to make more work for repentance.

However, during this interval I confined myself pretty much at home; at

least, being thus provided for, I made no adventures, no, not for a

quarter of a year after he left me; but then finding the fund fail, and

being loth to spend upon the main stock, I began to think of my old

trade, and to look abroad into the street again; and my first step was

lucky enough.

I had dressed myself up in a very mean habit, for as I had several

shapes to appear in, I was now in an ordinary stuff-gown, a blue apron,

and a straw hat and I placed myself at the door of the Three Cups Inn

in St. John Street. There were several carriers used the inn, and the

stage-coaches for Barnet, for Totteridge, and other towns that way

stood always in the street in the evening, when they prepared to set

out, so that I was ready for anything that offered, for either one or

other. The meaning was this; people come frequently with bundles and

small parcels to those inns, and call for such carriers or coaches as

they want, to carry them into the country; and there generally attend

women, porters’ wives or daughters, ready to take in such things for

their respective people that employ them.

It happened very oddly that I was standing at the inn gate, and a woman

that had stood there before, and which was the porter’s wife belonging

to the Barnet stage-coach, having observed me, asked if I waited for

any of the coaches. I told her Yes, I waited for my mistress, that was

coming to go to Barnet. She asked me who was my mistress, and I told

her any madam’s name that came next me; but as it seemed, I happened

upon a name, a family of which name lived at Hadley, just beyond

Barnet.

I said no more to her, or she to me, a good while; but by and by,

somebody calling her at a door a little way off, she desired me that if

anybody called for the Barnet coach, I would step and call her at the

house, which it seems was an alehouse. I said Yes, very readily, and

away she went.

She was no sooner gone but comes a wench and a child, puffing and

sweating, and asks for the Barnet coach. I answered presently, “Here.”

“Do you belong to the Barnet coach?” says she. “Yes, sweetheart,” said

I; “what do ye want?” “I want room for two passengers,” says she.

“Where are they, sweetheart?” said I. “Here’s this girl, pray let her

go into the coach,” says she, “and I’ll go and fetch my mistress.”

“Make haste, then, sweetheart,” says I, “for we may be full else.” The

maid had a great bundle under her arm; so she put the child into the

coach, and I said, “You had best put your bundle into the coach too.”

“No,” says she, “I am afraid somebody should slip it away from the

child.” “Give to me, then,” said I, “and I’ll take care of it.” “Do,

then,” says she, “and be sure you take of it.” “I’ll answer for it,”

said I, “if it were for £20 value.” “There, take it, then,” says she,

and away she goes.

As soon as I had got the bundle, and the maid was out of sight, I goes

on towards the alehouse, where the porter’s wife was, so that if I had

met her, I had then only been going to give her the bundle, and to call

her to her business, as if I was going away, and could stay no longer;

but as I did not meet her, I walked away, and turning into Charterhouse

Lane, then crossed into Bartholomew Close, so into Little Britain, and

through the Bluecoat Hospital, into Newgate Street.

To prevent my being known, I pulled off my blue apron, and wrapped the

bundle in it, which before was made up in a piece of painted calico,

and very remarkable; I also wrapped up my straw hat in it, and so put

the bundle upon my head; and it was very well that I did thus, for

coming through the Bluecoat Hospital, who should I meet but the wench

that had given me the bundle to hold. It seems she was going with her

mistress, whom she had been gone to fetch, to the Barnet coaches.

I saw she was in haste, and I had no business to stop her; so away she

went, and I brought my bundle safe home to my governess. There was no

money, nor plate, or jewels in the bundle, but a very good suit of

Indian damask, a gown and a petticoat, a laced-head and ruffles of very

good Flanders lace, and some linen and other things, such as I knew

very well the value of.

This was not indeed my own invention, but was given me by one that had

practised it with success, and my governess liked it extremely; and

indeed I tried it again several times, though never twice near the same

place; for the next time I tried it in White Chapel, just by the corner

of Petticoat Lane, where the coaches stand that go out to Stratford and

Bow, and that side of the country, and another time at the Flying

Horse, without Bishopgate, where the Cheston coaches then lay; and I

had always the good luck to come off with some booty.

Another time I placed myself at a warehouse by the waterside, where the

coasting vessels from the north come, such as from Newcastle-upon-Tyne,

Sunderland, and other places. Here, the warehouses being shut, comes a

young fellow with a letter; and he wanted a box and a hamper that was

come from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I asked him if he had the marks of it;

so he shows me the letter, by virtue of which he was to ask for it, and

which gave an account of the contents, the box being full of linen, and

the hamper full of glass ware. I read the letter, and took care to see

the name, and the marks, the name of the person that sent the goods,

the name of the person that they were sent to; then I bade the

messenger come in the morning, for that the warehouse-keeper would not

be there any more that night.

Away went I, and getting materials in a public house, I wrote a letter

from Mr. John Richardson of Newcastle to his dear cousin Jemmy Cole, in

London, with an account that he sent by such a vessel (for I remembered

all the particulars to a title), so many pieces of huckaback linen, so

many ells of Dutch holland and the like, in a box, and a hamper of

flint glasses from Mr. Henzill’s glasshouse; and that the box was

marked I. C. No. 1, and the hamper was directed by a label on the

cording.

About an hour after, I came to the warehouse, found the

warehouse-keeper, and had the goods delivered me without any scruple;

the value of the linen being about £22.

I could fill up this whole discourse with the variety of such

adventures, which daily invention directed to, and which I managed with

the utmost dexterity, and always with success.

At length—as when does the pitcher come safe home that goes so very

often to the well?—I fell into some small broils, which though they

could not affect me fatally, yet made me known, which was the worst

thing next to being found guilty that could befall me.

I had taken up the disguise of a widow’s dress; it was without any real

design in view, but only waiting for anything that might offer, as I

often did. It happened that while I was going along the street in

Covent Garden, there was a great cry of “Stop thief! Stop thief!” some

artists had, it seems, put a trick upon a shopkeeper, and being

pursued, some of them fled one way, and some another; and one of them

was, they said, dressed up in widow’s weeds, upon which the mob

gathered about me, and some said I was the person, others said no.

Immediately came the mercer’s journeyman, and he swore aloud I was the

person, and so seized on me. However, when I was brought back by the

mob to the mercer’s shop, the master of the house said freely that I

was not the woman that was in his shop, and would have let me go

immediately; but another fellow said gravely, “Pray stay till Mr. ——”

(meaning the journeyman) “comes back, for he knows her.” So they kept

me by force near half an hour. They had called a constable, and he

stood in the shop as my jailer; and in talking with the constable I

inquired where he lived, and what trade he was; the man not

apprehending in the least what happened afterwards, readily told me his

name, and trade, and where he lived; and told me as a jest, that I

might be sure to hear of his name when I came to the Old Bailey.

Some of the servants likewise used me saucily, and had much ado to keep

their hands off me; the master indeed was civiller to me than they, but

he would not yet let me go, though he owned he could not say I was in

his shop before.

I began to be a little surly with him, and told him I hoped he would

not take it ill if I made myself amends upon him in a more legal way

another time; and desired I might send for friends to see me have right

done me. No, he said, he could give no such liberty; I might ask it

when I came before the justice of peace; and seeing I threatened him,

he would take care of me in the meantime, and would lodge me safe in

Newgate. I told him it was his time now, but it would be mine by and

by, and governed my passion as well as I was able. However, I spoke to

the constable to call me a porter, which he did, and then I called for

pen, ink, and paper, but they would let me have none. I asked the

porter his name, and where he lived, and the poor man told it me very

willingly. I bade him observe and remember how I was treated there;

that he saw I was detained there by force. I told him I should want his

evidence in another place, and it should not be the worse for him to

speak. The porter said he would serve me with all his heart. “But,

madam,” says he, “let me hear them refuse to let you go, then I may be

able to speak the plainer.”

With that I spoke aloud to the master of the shop, and said, “Sir, you

know in your own conscience that I am not the person you look for, and

that I was not in your shop before, therefore I demand that you detain

me here no longer, or tell me the reason of your stopping me.” The

fellow grew surlier upon this than before, and said he would do neither

till he thought fit. “Very well,” said I to the constable and to the

porter; “you will be pleased to remember this, gentlemen, another

time.” The porter said, “Yes, madam”; and the constable began not to

like it, and would have persuaded the mercer to dismiss him, and let me

go, since, as he said, he owned I was not the person. “Good, sir,” says

the mercer to him tauntingly, “are you a justice of peace or a

constable? I charged you with her; pray do you do your duty.” The

constable told him, a little moved, but very handsomely, “I know my

duty, and what I am, sir; I doubt you hardly know what you are doing.”

They had some other hard words, and in the meantime the journeyman,

impudent and unmanly to the last degree, used me barbarously, and one

of them, the same that first seized upon me, pretended he would search

me, and began to lay hands on me. I spit in his face, called out to the

constable, and bade him to take notice of my usage. “And pray, Mr.

Constable,” said I, “ask that villain’s name,” pointing to the man. The

constable reproved him decently, told him that he did not know what he

did, for he knew that his master acknowledged I was not the person that

was in his shop; “and,” says the constable, “I am afraid your master is

bringing himself, and me too, into trouble, if this gentlewoman comes

to prove who she is, and where she was, and it appears that she is not

the woman you pretend to.” “Damn her,” says the fellow again, with a

impudent, hardened face, “she is the lady, you may depend upon it; I’ll

swear she is the same body that was in the shop, and that I gave the

pieces of satin that is lost into her own hand. You shall hear more of

it when Mr. William and Mr. Anthony (those were other journeymen) come

back; they will know her again as well as I.”