Kabanata Kabanata 43 · 第43章

This is a direction not of the kindest sort to the fraternity, but ’tis

certainly a key to the clue of a pickpocket’s motions, and whoever can

follow it will as certainly catch the thief as he will be sure to miss

if he does not.

I had another adventure, which puts this matter out of doubt, and which

may be an instruction for posterity in the case of a pickpocket. My

good old governess, to give a short touch at her history, though she

had left off the trade, was, as I may say, born a pickpocket, and, as I

understood afterwards, had run through all the several degrees of that

art, and yet had never been taken but once, when she was so grossly

detected, that she was convicted and ordered to be transported; but

being a woman of a rare tongue, and withal having money in her pocket,

she found means, the ship putting into Ireland for provisions, to get

on shore there, where she lived and practised her old trade for some

years; when falling into another sort of bad company, she turned

midwife and procuress, and played a hundred pranks there, which she

gave me a little history of in confidence between us as we grew more

intimate; and it was to this wicked creature that I owed all the art

and dexterity I arrived to, in which there were few that ever went

beyond me, or that practised so long without any misfortune.

It was after those adventures in Ireland, and when she was pretty well

known in that country, that she left Dublin and came over to England,

where, the time of her transportation being not expired, she left her

former trade, for fear of falling into bad hands again, for then she

was sure to have gone to wreck. Here she set up the same trade she had

followed in Ireland, in which she soon, by her admirable management and

good tongue, arrived to the height which I have already described, and

indeed began to be rich, though her trade fell off again afterwards, as

I have hinted before.

I mentioned thus much of the history of this woman here, the better to

account for the concern she had in the wicked life I was now leading,

into all the particulars of which she led me, as it were, by the hand,

and gave me such directions, and I so well followed them, that I grew

the greatest artist of my time and worked myself out of every danger

with such dexterity, that when several more of my comrades ran

themselves into Newgate presently, and by that time they had been half

a year at the trade, I had now practised upwards of five years, and the

people at Newgate did not so much as know me; they had heard much of me

indeed, and often expected me there, but I always got off, though many

times in the extremest danger.

One of the greatest dangers I was now in, was that I was too well known

among the trade, and some of them, whose hatred was owing rather to

envy than any injury I had done them, began to be angry that I should

always escape when they were always catched and hurried to Newgate.

These were they that gave me the name of Moll Flanders; for it was no

more of affinity with my real name or with any of the name I had ever

gone by, than black is of kin to white, except that once, as before, I

called myself Mrs. Flanders; when I sheltered myself in the Mint; but

that these rogues never knew, nor could I ever learn how they came to

give me the name, or what the occasion of it was.

I was soon informed that some of these who were gotten fast into

Newgate had vowed to impeach me; and as I knew that two or three of

them were but too able to do it, I was under a great concern about it,

and kept within doors for a good while. But my governess—whom I always

made partner in my success, and who now played a sure game with me, for

that she had a share of the gain and no share in the hazard—I say, my

governess was something impatient of my leading such a useless,

unprofitable life, as she called it; and she laid a new contrivance for

my going abroad, and this was to dress me up in men’s clothes, and so

put me into a new kind of practice.

I was tall and personable, but a little too smooth-faced for a man;

however, I seldom went abroad but in the night, it did well enough; but

it was a long time before I could behave in my new clothes—I mean, as

to my craft. It was impossible to be so nimble, so ready, so dexterous

at these things in a dress so contrary to nature; and I did everything

clumsily, so I had neither the success nor the easiness of escape that

I had before, and I resolved to leave it off; but that resolution was

confirmed soon after by the following accident.

As my governess disguised me like a man, so she joined me with a man, a

young fellow that was nimble enough at his business, and for about

three weeks we did very well together. Our principal trade was watching

shopkeepers’ counters, and slipping off any kind of goods we could see

carelessly laid anywhere, and we made several good bargains, as we

called them, at this work. And as we kept always together, so we grew

very intimate, yet he never knew that I was not a man, nay, though I

several times went home with him to his lodgings, according as our

business directed, and four or five times lay with him all night. But

our design lay another way, and it was absolutely necessary to me to

conceal my sex from him, as appeared afterwards. The circumstances of

our living, coming in late, and having such and such business to do as

required that nobody should be trusted with the coming into our

lodgings, were such as made it impossible to me to refuse lying with

him, unless I would have owned my sex; and as it was, I effectually

concealed myself. But his ill, and my good fortune, soon put an end to

this life, which I must own I was sick of too, on several other

accounts. We had made several prizes in this new way of business, but

the last would be extraordinary. There was a shop in a certain street

which had a warehouse behind it that looked into another street, the

house making the corner of the turning.

Through the window of the warehouse we saw, lying on the counter or

showboard, which was just before it, five pieces of silks, besides

other stuffs, and though it was almost dark, yet the people, being busy

in the fore-shop with customers, had not had time to shut up those

windows, or else had forgot it.

This the young fellow was so overjoyed with, that he could not restrain

himself. It lay all within his reach he said, and he swore violently to

me that he would have it, if he broke down the house for it. I

dissuaded him a little, but saw there was no remedy; so he ran rashly

upon it, slipped out a square of the sash window dexterously enough,

and without noise, and got out four pieces of the silks, and came with

them towards me, but was immediately pursued with a terrible clutter

and noise. We were standing together indeed, but I had not taken any of

the goods out of his hand, when I said to him hastily, “You are undone,

fly, for God’s sake!” He ran like lightning, and I too, but the pursuit

was hotter after him because he had the goods, than after me. He

dropped two of the pieces, which stopped them a little, but the crowd

increased and pursued us both. They took him soon after with the other

two pieces upon him, and then the rest followed me. I ran for it and

got into my governess’s house whither some quick-eyed people followed

me so warmly as to fix me there. They did not immediately knock, at the

door, by which I got time to throw off my disguise and dress me in my

own clothes; besides, when they came there, my governess, who had her

tale ready, kept her door shut, and called out to them and told them

there was no man come in there. The people affirmed there did a man

come in there, and swore they would break open the door.

My governess, not at all surprised, spoke calmly to them, told them

they should very freely come and search her house, if they should bring

a constable, and let in none but such as the constable would admit, for

it was unreasonable to let in a whole crowd. This they could not

refuse, though they were a crowd. So a constable was fetched

immediately, and she very freely opened the door; the constable kept

the door, and the men he appointed searched the house, my governess

going with them from room to room. When she came to my room she called

to me, and said aloud, “Cousin, pray open the door; here’s some

gentlemen that must come and look into your room.”

I had a little girl with me, which was my governess’s grandchild, as

she called her; and I bade her open the door, and there sat I at work

with a great litter of things about me, as if I had been at work all

day, being myself quite undressed, with only night-clothes on my head,

and a loose morning-gown wrapped about me. My governess made a kind of

excuse for their disturbing me, telling me partly the occasion of it,

and that she had no remedy but to open the doors to them, and let them

satisfy themselves, for all she could say to them would not satisfy

them. I sat still, and bid them search the room if they pleased, for if

there was anybody in the house, I was sure they were not in my room;

and as for the rest of the house, I had nothing to say to that, I did

not understand what they looked for.

Everything looked so innocent and so honest about me, that they treated

me civiller than I expected, but it was not till they had searched the

room to a nicety, even under the bed, in the bed, and everywhere else

where it was possible anything could be hid. When they had done this,

and could find nothing, they asked my pardon for troubling me, and went

down.

When they had thus searched the house from bottom to top, and then top

to bottom, and could find nothing, they appeased the mob pretty well;

but they carried my governess before the justice. Two men swore that

they saw the man whom they pursued go into her house. My governess

rattled and made a great noise that her house should be insulted, and

that she should be used thus for nothing; that if a man did come in, he

might go out again presently for aught she knew, for she was ready to

make oath that no man had been within her doors all that day as she

knew of (and that was very true indeed); that it might be indeed that

as she was abovestairs, any fellow in a fright might find the door open

and run in for shelter when he was pursued, but that she knew nothing

of it; and if it had been so, he certainly went out again, perhaps at

the other door, for she had another door into an alley, and so had made

his escape and cheated them all.