Bab Bab 51 · 第51章

It was not long after the affair with the mercer was made up, that I

went out in an equipage quite different from any I had ever appeared in

before. I dressed myself like a beggar woman, in the coarsest and most

despicable rags I could get, and I walked about peering and peeping

into every door and window I came near; and indeed I was in such a

plight now that I knew as ill how to behave in as ever I did in any. I

naturally abhorred dirt and rags; I had been bred up tight and cleanly,

and could be no other, whatever condition I was in; so that this was

the most uneasy disguise to me that ever I put on. I said presently to

myself that this would not do, for this was a dress that everybody was

shy and afraid of; and I thought everybody looked at me, as if they

were afraid I should come near them, lest I should take something from

them, or afraid to come near me, lest they should get something from

me. I wandered about all the evening the first time I went out, and

made nothing of it, but came home again wet, draggled, and tired.

However, I went out again the next night, and then I met with a little

adventure, which had like to have cost me dear. As I was standing near

a tavern door, there comes a gentleman on horseback, and lights at the

door, and wanting to go into the tavern, he calls one of the drawers to

hold his horse. He stayed pretty long in the tavern, and the drawer

heard his master call, and thought he would be angry with him. Seeing

me stand by him, he called to me, “Here, woman,” says he, “hold this

horse a while, till I go in; if the gentleman comes, he’ll give you

something.” “Yes,” says I, and takes the horse, and walks off with him

very soberly, and carried him to my governess.

This had been a booty to those that had understood it; but never was

poor thief more at a loss to know what to do with anything that was

stolen; for when I came home, my governess was quite confounded, and

what to do with the creature, we neither of us knew. To send him to a

stable was doing nothing, for it was certain that public notice would

be given in the _Gazette_, and the horse described, so that we durst

not go to fetch it again.

All the remedy we had for this unlucky adventure was to go and set up

the horse at an inn, and send a note by a porter to the tavern, that

the gentleman’s horse that was lost such a time was left at such an

inn, and that he might be had there; that the poor woman that held him,

having led him about the street, not being able to lead him back again,

had left him there. We might have waited till the owner had published

and offered a reward, but we did not care to venture the receiving the

reward.

So this was a robbery and no robbery, for little was lost by it, and

nothing was got by it, and I was quite sick of going out in a beggar’s

dress; it did not answer at all, and besides, I thought it was ominous

and threatening.

While I was in this disguise, I fell in with a parcel of folks of a

worse kind than any I ever sorted with, and I saw a little into their

ways too. These were coiners of money, and they made some very good

offers to me, as to profit; but the part they would have had me have

embarked in was the most dangerous part. I mean that of the very

working the die, as they call it, which, had I been taken, had been

certain death, and that at a stake—I say, to be burnt to death at a

stake; so that though I was to appearance but a beggar, and they

promised mountains of gold and silver to me to engage, yet it would not

do. It is true, if I had been really a beggar, or had been desperate as

when I began, I might perhaps have closed with it; for what care they

to die that can’t tell how to live? But at present this was not my

condition, at least I was for no such terrible risks as those; besides,

the very thoughts of being burnt at a stake struck terror into my very

soul, chilled my blood, and gave me the vapours to such a degree, as I

could not think of it without trembling.

This put an end to my disguise too, for as I did not like the proposal,

so I did not tell them so, but seemed to relish it, and promised to

meet again. But I durst see them no more; for if I had seen them, and

not complied, though I had declined it with the greatest assurance of

secrecy in the world, they would have gone near to have murdered me, to

make sure work, and make themselves easy, as they call it. What kind of

easiness that is, they may best judge that understand how easy men are

that can murder people to prevent danger.

This and horse-stealing were things quite out of my way, and I might

easily resolve I would have no more to say to them; my business seemed

to lie another way, and though it had hazard enough in it too, yet it

was more suitable to me, and what had more of art in it, and more room

to escape, and more chances for a-coming off if a surprise should

happen.

I had several proposals made also to me about that time, to come into a

gang of house-breakers; but that was a thing I had no mind to venture

at neither, any more than I had at the coining trade. I offered to go

along with two men and a woman, that made it their business to get into

houses by stratagem, and with them I was willing enough to venture. But

there were three of them already, and they did not care to part, nor I

to have too many in a gang, so I did not close with them, but declined

them, and they paid dear for their next attempt.

But at length I met with a woman that had often told me what adventures

she had made, and with success, at the waterside, and I closed with

her, and we drove on our business pretty well. One day we came among

some Dutch people at St. Catherine’s, where we went on pretence to buy

goods that were privately got on shore. I was two or three times in a

house where we saw a good quantity of prohibited goods, and my

companion once brought away three pieces of Dutch black silk that

turned to good account, and I had my share of it; but in all the

journeys I made by myself, I could not get an opportunity to do

anything, so I laid it aside, for I had been so often, that they began

to suspect something, and were so shy, that I saw nothing was to be

done.

This baulked me a little, and I resolved to push at something or other,

for I was not used to come back so often without purchase; so the next

day I dressed myself up fine, and took a walk to the other end of the

town. I passed through the Exchange in the Strand, but had no notion of

finding anything to do there, when on a sudden I saw a great cluttering

in the place, and all the people, shopkeepers as well as others,

standing up and staring; and what should it be but some great duchess

come into the Exchange, and they said the queen was coming. I set

myself close up to a shop-side with my back to the counter, as if to

let the crowd pass by, when keeping my eye upon a parcel of lace which

the shopkeeper was showing to some ladies that stood by me, the

shopkeeper and her maid were so taken up with looking to see who was

coming, and what shop they would go to, that I found means to slip a

paper of lace into my pocket and come clear off with it; so the

lady-milliner paid dear enough for her gaping after the queen.

I went off from the shop, as if driven along by the throng, and

mingling myself with the crowd, went out at the other door of the

Exchange, and so got away before they missed their lace; and because I

would not be followed, I called a coach and shut myself up in it. I had

scarce shut the coach doors up, but I saw the milliner’s maid and five

or six more come running out into the street, and crying out as if they

were frightened. They did not cry “Stop thief!” because nobody ran

away, but I could hear the word “robbed,” and “lace,” two or three

times, and saw the wench wringing her hands, and run staring to and

again, like one scared. The coachman that had taken me up was getting

up into the box, but was not quite up, so that the horse had not begun

to move; so that I was terrible uneasy, and I took the packet of lace

and laid it ready to have dropped it out at the flap of the coach,

which opens before, just behind the coachman; but to my great

satisfaction, in less than a minute the coach began to move, that is to

say, as soon as the coachman had got up and spoken to his horses; so he

drove away without any interruption, and I brought off my purchase,

which was worth near £20.

The next day I dressed up again, but in quite different clothes, and

walked the same way again, but nothing offered till I came into St.

James’s Park, where I saw abundance of fine ladies in the Park, walking

in the Mall, and among the rest there was a little miss, a young lady

of about twelve or thirteen years old, and she had a sister, as I

suppose it was, with her, that might be about nine years old. I

observed the biggest had a fine gold watch on, and a good necklace of

pearl, and they had a footman in livery with them; but as it is not

usual for the footman to go behind the ladies in the Mall, so I

observed the footman stopped at their going into the Mall, and the

biggest of the sisters spoke to him, which I perceived was to bid him

be just there when they came back.

When I heard her dismiss the footman, I stepped up to him and asked

him, what little lady that was? and held a little chat with him about

what a pretty child it was with her, and how genteel and well-carriaged

the lady, the eldest, would be: how womanish, and how grave; and the

fool of a fellow told me presently who she was; that she was Sir Thomas

——’s eldest daughter, of Essex, and that she was a great fortune; that

her mother was not come to town yet; but she was with Sir William ——’s

lady, of Suffolk, at her lodging in Suffolk Street, and a great deal

more; that they had a maid and a woman to wait on them, besides Sir

Thomas’s coach, the coachman, and himself; and that young lady was

governess to the whole family, as well here as at home too; and, in

short, told me abundance of things enough for my business.

I was very well dressed, and had my gold watch as well as she; so I

left the footman, and I puts myself in a rank with this young lady,

having stayed till she had taken one double turn in the Mall, and was

going forward again; by and by I saluted her by her name, with the

title of Lady Betty. I asked her when she heard from her father; when

my lady her mother would be in town, and how she did.