which was the best news to me that I had heard a great while. I had stayed here five weeks, and lived very comfortably indeed (the secret anxiety of my mind excepted), but when I received this letter I looked pleasantly again, and told my landlady that I had received a letter from my spouse in Ireland, that I had the good news of his being very well, but had the bad news that his business would not permit him to come away so soon as he expected, and so I was like to go back again without him. My landlady complimented me upon the good news, however, that I had heard he was well. "For I have observed, madam," says she, " you have not been so pleasant as you used to be; you have been over head and ears in care for him, I dare say," says the good woman; ' it is easy to be seen there is an alteration in you for the better," says she. 66 "Well, I am sorry he cannot come yet," says my landlord, "I should have been heartily glad to have seen him; but I hope when you have certain news of his coming you will take a step hither again, madam," says he. "You shall be very welcome whenever you please to come." With all these fine compliments we parted, and I came merry enough to London, and found || my governess as well pleased as I was; and now she told me she would never recommend any partner to me again, for she always found, she said, that I had the best luck when I ventured by myself; and so indeed I had, for I was seldom in any danger when I was by myself, or if I was I got out of it with more dexterity than when I was entangled with the dull measures of other people, who had perhaps less forecast, and were more rash and impatient than I; for though I had as much courage to venture as any of them, yet I used more caution before I undertook a thing, and had more presence of mind when I was to bring myself off. I have often wondered even at my own hardiness another way, that when my companions were surprised, and fell so suddenly into the hands of justice, and that I so narrowly escaped, yet I could not all that while enter into one serious resolution to leave off this trade; and especially considering that I was now very far from being poor, that the temptation of necessity, which is generally the introduction of all such wickedness, was now removed; for I had near five hundred pounds by me in ready money, on which I might have lived very well if I had thought fit to have retired; but I say I had not so much as the least inclination to leave off; no, not so much as I had before when I had but two hundred pounds beforehand, and when I had no such frightful examples before my eyes as these were. From hence it is evident to me, that when once we are hardened in a crime no fear can affect us, no example give us any warning. I had, indeed, one comrade whose fate went very near me for a good while, though I wore it off too in time; that case was indeed very unhappy. I had made a prize of a piece of very good damask in a mercer's shop, and went clear off myself, but had conveyed the piece to this companion of mine when we went out of the shop, and she went one way, and I went another. We had not been long out of the shop, but the mercer missed his piece of stuff, and sent his messengers, one one way and one another, and they presently seized her that had the piece of damask upon her; as for me, I had very luckily stepped into a house where there was a lace-chamber up one pair of stairs, and had the satisfaction, or the terror indeed, of looking out of the window upon the noise they made, and seeing the poor creature dragged away in triumph to the justice, who immediately committed her to Newgate. I was careful to attempt nothing in the lacechamber, but tumbled their goods about pretty much to spend time, then bought a few yards of edging, and paid for it, and came away very sadhearted indeed for the poor woman who was in tribulation for what I only had stolen. Here, again, my own caution stood me in good stead, namely, that though I often robbed with these people I never let them know who I was or where I lodged; nor did they ever find out my lodging, though they often endeavoured to watch me to it. They all knew me by the name of Moll Flanders, though even some of them neither believed I was she nor knew me to be so. My name was public among them, indeed, but how to find me out they knew not, not so much as how to guess at my quarters, whether they were at the east end of the town or the west; and this wariness was my safety upon all occasions. I kept close a great while upon the occasion of this woman's disaster. I knew that if I should do anything that should miscarry, and should be carried to prison, she would be there and ready to witness against me, and perhaps save her life at my expense. I considered that I began to be very well known by name at the Old Bailey, though they did not know my face, and that if I should fall into their hands I should be treated as an old offender; and for this reason I was resolved to see what this poor creature's fate should be before I stirred abroad, though several times in her distress I conveyed money to her for her relief. At length she came to her trial, and she pleaded she did not steal the things; but that one Mrs Flanders, as she heard her called, (for she did not know her) gave the bundle to her after they came out of the shop, and bade her carry it home to her lodging. They asked her where this Mrs Flanders was? but she could not produce her, neither could she give the least account of me; and the mercer's men swearing positively that she was in the shop when the goods were stolen ; that they immediately missed them, and pursued her, and found them upon her; thereupon the jury brought her in guilty; but the court considering that she really was not the person that stole the goods, an inferior assistant, and that it was very possible she could not find out this Mrs Flanders, meaning me, though it would save her life, which indeed was true; I say, considering all this, they allowed her to be transported, which was the utmost favour she could obtain, only that the court told her that if she could in the meantime produce the said Mrs Flanders, they would intercede for her pardon; that is to say, if she could find me out and hang me, she should not be transported. This I took care to make impossible to her, and so she was shipped off in pursuance of her sentence a little while after. I must repeat it again, that the fate of this poor woman troubled me exceedingly; and I began to be very pensive, knowing that I was really the instrument of her disaster; but the preservation of my own life, which was so evidently in danger, took off all my tenderness; and seeing she was not put to death, I was very easy at her transportation, because she was then out of the way of doing me any mischief, whatever should happen. The disaster of this woman was some months before that of the last recited story, and was indeed partly the occasion of my governess proposing to dress me up in men's clothes that I might go about unobserved, as indeed I did; but I was soon tired of that disguise, as I said, for indeed it exposed me to too many difficulties. I was now easy as to all fear of witnesses against me, for all those that had either been concerned with me, or that knew me by the name of Moll Flanders, were either hanged or transported; and if I should have had the misfortune to be taken I might call myself anything else as well as Moll Flanders, and no old sins could be placed to my account; so I began to run a tick again with the more freedom, and several successful adventures I made, though not such as I had made before. We had at that time another fire happened not a great way off from the place where my governess lived, and I made an attempt there, as before; but as I was not soon enough before the crowd of people came in, and could not get to the house I aimed at, instead of a prize I got a mischief, which had almost put a period to my life, and all my wicked doings together; for the fire being very furious, and the people in a great fright in removing their goods, and throwing them out of windows, a wench from out of a window threw a feather-bed just upon me. It is true, the bed being soft, it broke no bones, but as the weight was great, and made greater by the fall, it beat me down and laid me dead for a while; nor did the people concern themselves much to deliver me from it, or to recover me at all; but I lay like one dead or neglected a good while; till somebody going to remove the bed out of the way, helped me up; it was indeed a wonder the people in the house had not thrown other goods out after it, and which might have fallen upon it, and then I had been inevitably killed; but I was reserved for further afflictions. This accident, however, spoiled my market for that time, and I came home to my governess much hurt and bruised, and frightened to the last degree, and it was a good while before she could set me upon my feet again. It was now a merry time of the year, and Bartholomew fair was begun. I had never made any walks that way, nor was the common part of the fair of much advantage to me, but I took a turn this year into the cloisters, and among the rest, I fell into one of the raffling shops. It was a thing of no great consequence to me, nor did I expect to make much of it; but there came a gentleman extremely well dressed, and very rich, and as 'tis frequent to talk to everybody in those shops, he singled me out, and was very particu | lar with me. First he told me he would put in for me to raffle, and did so; and some small mat ter coming to his lot, he presented it to me; I think it was a feather muff. Then he continued to keep talking to me with a more than common appearance of respect; but still very civil and much like a gentleman. He held me in talk so long till at last he drew me out of the raffling place to the shop door, and then to take a walk in the cloister, still talking of a thousand things cursorily, without anything to the purpose; at last he told me that, without compliment, he was charmed with my company, and asked me if I durst trust myself in a coach with him; he told me he was a man of honour, and would not offer any thing to me unbecoming him as such. I seemed to decline it a while, but suffered myself to be importuned a little, and then yielded. I was at a loss in my thoughts to conclude at first what this gentleman designed; but I found afterwards he had had some drink in his head, and that he was not very unwilling to have some more. He carried me in the coach to the Springgarden at Knight's-bridge, where we walked in the gardens, and he treated me very handsomely, but I found he drank very freely; he pressed me also to drink, but I declined it. Hitherto he kept his word with me, and of fered me nothing amiss; we came away in the coach again, and he brought me into the streets, and by this time it was near ten o'clock at night, and he stopped the coach at a house, where it seems he was acquainted, and where they made no scruple to show us up stairs into a room with a bed in it. At first I seemed to be unwilling to go up, but after a few words I yielded to that too, being indeed willing to see the end of it, and in hopes to make something of it at last. As for the bed, &c., I was not much concerned about that part. Here he began to be a little freer with me than he had promised; and I by little and little yielded to everything, so that in a word he did what he pleased with me; I need say no more. All this while he drank freely too, and about one in the morning we went into the coach again. The air and the shaking of the coach made the drink he had get more up in his head than it was before, and he grew uneasy in the coach, and was for acting over again what he had been doing before; but as I thought my game now secure, I resisted him and brought him to be a little still, which had not lasted five minutes, but he fell fast asleep. I took this opportunity to search him to a nicety: I took a gold watch, with a silk purse of gold, his fine full-bottom perriwig, and silver. fringed gloves, his sword and fine snuff-box, and gently opening the coach door, stood ready to jump out while the coach was going on; but the coach stopping in a narrow street beyond Templebar to let another coach pass, I got softly out, fastened the door again, and gave my gentleman and the coach the slip both together, and got off very securely. This was an adventure indeed unlooked for, and perfectly undesigned by me; though I was not so past the merry part of life as to forget how to behave when a fop so blinded by his appetite should not know an old woman from a young one. I did not indeed look so old as I was and virtuous wife, and thereby sowing the conby ten or twelve years; yet I was not a young tagion in the life-blood of his posterity? wench of seventeen, and it was easy enough to Would such a gentleman but consider the conbe distinguished. There is nothing so absurd, temptible thoughts which the very women they so surfeiting, so ridiculous as a man heated by are concerned with in such cases as these have wine in his head, and a wicked gust in his in- of them, it would be a surfeit to them. As I elination together; he is in possession of two said above, they' value not the pleasure, they devils at once, and can no more govern himself are raised by no inclination to the man; the pasby his reason than a mill can grind without water.sive jade thinks of no pleasure but the money; His vice tramples upon all that was in him that and when he is, as it were, drunk in the ecstacies had any good in it, if any such thing there was; of his wicked pleasure, her hands are in his nay, his very sense is blinded by its own rage, and pockets searching for what she can find there; he acts absurdities even in his view; such as and of which he can no more be sensible in the drinking more when he is drunk already; pick- moment of his folly, than he can fore-think of it ing up a common woman, without regard to what when he goes about it. she is or who she is, whether sound or rotten, clean or unclean, whether ugly or handsome, whether old or young, and so blinded as not really to distinguish. Such a man is worse than a lunatic; prompted by his vicious corrupted head, he no more knows what he is doing than this wretch of mine knew when I picked his pocket of his watch and his purse of gold. These are men of whom Solomon says, "they go like an ox to the slaughter till a dart strike through their liver;" an admirable description, by the way, of the foul disease, which is a poisonous deadly contagion mingling with the blood, whose centre or fountain is in the liver, from whence by the swift circulation of the whole mass, that dreadful nauseous plague strikes immediately through his liver, and his spirits are infected, his vitals stabbed through as with a dart. 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, in the room of it. After he had done, he says to her, "Now, hav'nt 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 finger felt 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, and a purse of counters in her pocket to be ready on all such occasions, and I doubt not practised 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 think how such a gentleman run a daily risk of being undone, every time a glass of wine got into his head. 66 It is true this poor unguarded wretch was in no danger from me, though I was greatly apprehensive at first of what danger I might be in from him; but he was really to be pitied in one respect, that he seemed to be a good sort of a man in himself, a gentleman that had no harm in his But as to the purchase I got, and how entirely design, a man of sense and of fine behaviour, a I stript him, she told me it pleased her wondercomely handsome person, a sober solid coun- fully well. "Nay, child," said she, the usage tenance, a charming beautiful face, and every-may, for aught I know, do more to reform him thing that could be agreeable; only had unhap- than all the sermons that ever he will hear in his pily had some drink the night before, had not life;" and if the remainder of the story be true, been in bed, as he told me when we were toso it did. gether; was hot, and his blood fired with wine, and in that condition his reason, as it were asleep, had given him up. As for me, my business was his money, and what I could make of him; and after that if I could have found out any way to have done it, I would have sent him safe home to his house and to his family, for it was ten to one but he had an honest, virtuous wife and innocent children, that were anxious for his safety, and would have been glad to have gotten him home, and have taken care of him till he was restored to himself; and then with what shame and regret would he look back upon himself! How would he reproach himself with associating himself with a whore? picked up in the worst of all holes, the cloister, among the dirt and filth of all the town. How would he be trembling for fear he had got the pox, for fear a dart had struck through his liver, and hate himself every time he looked back upon the madness and brutality of this debauch! How would he, if he had any principles of honour, as I verily believe he had; I say how would he abhor the thought of giving any ill distemper, if he had it, as for aught he knew he might, to his modest I found the next day she was wonderfully inquisitive about this gentleman. The description gave her of him, his dress, his person, his face, all concurred to make her think of a gentleman whose character she knew. She mused awhile, and I going on in the particulars, says she, “I'll lay a hundred pounds I know the man. 66 "I am sorry if you do," says 1; "for I would not have him exposed on any account in the world; he has had injury enough already, and I would not be instrumental to do him any more." No, no," says she, "I will do him no injury, 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 I 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. She laid her scheme another way, and without acquainting me with it, but she was resolved to find it out; so she goes to a certain friend of hers who was acquainted in the family that she guessed at, and told her 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 readily to do it, and accordingly goes to the house, to see if the gentleman were in town. The next day she came 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 to 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 perriwig, 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." 66 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." Well, then," says I, “he fell into bad hands after I left him, for I left him safe enough." About ten days after, or a little more, my governess goes again to her friend, to introduce ber 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 to him. She was a woman of an 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 said already. She told him that she came, though a stranger, with a sincere desire 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 a 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 whe ther he accepted the offer or not, it should re main 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 de 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 is what any man could render him any service; but that if it was as she said, he could not take it al from any one that they should endeavour to serve him; and so, as it were, left her at liberty either to tell him, or not to tell him, 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 circumie Icutions, she told him, that by a strange and accountable accident she came to have a partcular knowledge of the late unhappy adventure he had fallen into; and that in such a manner. that there was nobody in the world but hersel and him that were acquainted with it; no, noti the very person that was with him. 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 that he has; it's no business of mine I tell you. only want to speak with him; my business is of another nature."- But," says her friend, "let your business be of what it will, you cannot see him yet, for he is not yet 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 very 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 very much want to speak with him." 66 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 devil you have done to him; why, you "What ad He looked a little angry at first. venture?" said he.-"Why, sir," said she, "of your being robbed coming from Knightsbri 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 Gardens at Knightsbridge, and thence to the Strand, and how you were left asleep in the coach afterwards: I say, let not this surprise you, for sit. I do not come to make a booty of you. I as nothing of you, and I assure you the woman that was with you knows nothing who you are, and in the 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, 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 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 sur prised into, and perhaps the woman used some art to prompt you to it; however, you will never and any just cause," said she, "to repent that I came to hear of it, nor can your own mouth be more silent in it than 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 her into it too. 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; I think all gentlemen that do so should be used in the same manner; but I am more concerned for some other things than I am for all that she took from me." My governess now began to come into the whole matter, and he offered himself freely to her. First, she said to him, in answer to what he said about me: "I am glad, sir, you are so just to the person that you were with; I assure you she is a gentlewoman and no woman of the town, and however you prevailed on her so far as you did, I am sure it is not her practice. You ran a great venture indeed, sir, but if that be any part of your care, I am persuaded you may be perfectly easy, for I dare assure you no man has touched her before you, since her husband, and he has been dead now almost eight years." | It appeared that this was his grievance, and that he was in a very great fright about it; how ever, when my governess said this to him, he appeared very well pleased, and said: "Well, Madam, to be plain with you, if I was satisfied of that, I should not so much value what I lost; for as to that, the temptation was great, and perhaps she was poor and wanted it."-" If she had not been poor, sir," says my governess, "I assure you she would not have yielded to you, and as her poverty first prevailed with her to let you do as you did, so the same poverty prevailed with her to pay herself at last, when she saw you was in such a condition, that if she had not done it, perhaps the next coachman or chairman might have done it " Here he entered into some freedoms with her on the subject of what passed between us, which are not so proper for a woman to write, and the great terror that was upon his mind with relation to his wife, for fear he should have received an injury from me, and should communicate it further; and asked her at last if she could not procure him an opportunity to speak with me. My governess gave him further assurances of my being a woman clear from any such thing, and that he was as entirely safe in that respect as he was with his own lady; but as for seeing me, she said it might be of dangerous consequence; but, however, that she could talk with me, and let him know my answer; using at the same time some arguments to persuade him not to desire it,' and that it could be of no service to him, saying she hoped he had no desire to renew a correspondence with me, and that on my account it was a kind of putting life into his hands. He told her he had a great desire to see me; that he would give her any assurances that were in his power not to take any advantage of me; and that, in the first place, he would give me a general release from all demands of any kind. She insisted, as it might tend to a further divulging the secret, and might in the end be injurious to him, entreating him not to press for it, so at length he desisted. They had some discourse upon the subject of the things he had lost, and he seemed to be very desirous of his gold watch, and told her if she could procure that for him, he would willingly give as much for it as it was worth; she told him she would endeavour to procure it for him, and leave the valuing it to himself. Accordingly the next day she carried the watch, and he gave her thirty guineas for it, though it seems it cost much more. Then he spoke something of his perriwig, which it seems cost him threescore guineas, and his snuff box, and in a few days more she carried them too, which obliged him very much, and he gave her thirty more. The next day I sent him his fine sword and cane GRATIS, and demanded nothing of him, but I had no mind to see him, unless it had been so, that he might be satisfied I knew who he was, which he was not willing to. Then he entered into a long tale with her, of the manner how she came to know all this matter. She framed a long talk of that part: how she had it from me, that I had told the whole story to, and that was to help me to dispose of the goods, and this confidante brought the things to her, she being by profession a pawnbroker; and she hearing of his worship's disaster, guessed at the thing in general; that having gotten the things into her hands, she had resolved to come and try as she had done. She then gave him repeated assurances that it should never go out of her mouth, and though she knew the woman very well, yet she had not let her know, meaning me, anything of it; that is to say, who the person was, which, by the way, was false; but, however, it was not to his damage, for I never opened my mouth of it to anybody. I had a great many thoughts in my head about my seeing him again, and was often sorry that I had refused it. I was persuaded, that if I had seen him and let him know that I knew him, I |