Section 28

This was doubtless the happy minute, when, if I had hearkened to the blessed hint, from whatsoever hand it came, I had still a cast for an easy life. But my fate was otherwise determined; {the busy devil that drew me in had too fast hold of me to let me go back; but as poverty brought me in, so avarice kept me in, till there was no going back. As to the arguments which my reason dictated for persuading me to lay down, avarice stepped in and said, “Go on; you have had very good luck; go on till you have gotten four or five
_ hundred pounds, and then you shall leave off, and then you _ may live easy without working at all.”
Thus I, that was once in the devil’s clutches, was held fast there as with a charm, and had no power to go without the circle, till I was engulfed in labyrinths of trouble too great to get out at all.
A TERRIBLE EXAMPLE I75
However, these thoughts left some impression upon me, . and made me act with some more caution than before, and more than my directors used for themselves. My comrade, as I called her (she should have been called my teacher), with another of her scholars, was the first in the misfortune;
for, happening to be upon the hunt for purchase, they made ‘an attempt upon a linen-draper in Cheapside, but were snapped by a hawk’s-eyed journeyman, and seized with two pieces of cambric, which were taken also upon them.
This was enough to lodge them both in Newgate, where they had the misfortune to have some of their former sins brought to remembrance. Two other indictments being brought against them, and the facts being proved upon them, they were both condemned to die. They both pleaded their bellies, and were both voted quick with child; though my tutoress was no more with child than I was.
I went frequently to see them, and condole with them,
expecting that it would be my turn next; but the place gave me so much horror, reflecting that it was the place of my unhappy birth, and of my mother’s misfortunes, that I could not bear it, so I left off going to see them. __ And oh! could I but have taken warning by their disasters, I had been happy still, for I was yet free, and had nothing brought against me; but it could not be, my measure was not yet filled up.
My comrade, having the brand of an old offender, was executed; the young offender was spared, having obtained a reprieve, but lay starving a long while in prison, till at last she got her name into what they call a circuit pardon, and
“so came off.
This terrible example of my comrade frighted me heartily, and for a good while I made no excursions; but one night, in the neighbourhood of’ my governess’s house, they cried “Fire.” My governess looked out, for we were all up, and
cried immediately that such a gentlewoman’ s house was all of a light fire atop, and so indeed it was. Here she gives me a jog. “Now, child,” says she, “there is a rare opportunity, the fire being so near that you may go to it before the street is blocked up with the crowd.” She presently gave me my cue. “Go, child,” says she, “to the house, and run in and tell the lady, or anybody you see, that you come to help Nn 837
a
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them, and that you came from such a gentlewoman”’; that is, one of her acquaintance farther up the street.
Away I went, and, coming to the house, I found them all in confusion, you may be sure. I ran in, and finding one of the maids, ‘‘Alas! sweetheart,” said I, “how came this dismal accident? Where is your mistress? Is she safe? And
where are the children? I come from Madam to help you.” Away runs the maid. “Madam, madam,” says she, screaming as loud as she could yell, “here is a gentlewoman come from Madam to help us.”” The poor woman, half out of her wits, with a bundle under her arm, and two little children, comes towards me. “Madam,” says I, “let me carry the poor children to Madam ; she desires you to send them; she’ll take care of the poor lambs”; and so I takes one of them out of her hand, and she lifts the other up into my arms. “Ay, do, for God’s sake,” says she, “carry them. Oh! thank her for her kindness.” “Have you anything else to secure, madam?” says I; “she will take care of it.” “Oh dear!” says she, “God bless her; take this bundle of plate and carry it to her too. Oh, she is a good woman! Oh, we are utterly ruined, undone!”” And away she runs from me out of her wits, and the maids after her, and away comes I with the two children and the bundle.
I was no sooner got into the street but I saw another woman come tome. ‘‘Oh!” says she, “mistress,” in a piteous tone, “you will let fall the child. Come, come, this is a sad time;
- let me help you”; and immediately lays hold of my bundle to carry it forme. “No,” says I; “if you will help me, take the child by the hand, and lead it for me but to the upper end of the street; I'll go with you and satisfy you for your pains.”
She could not avoid going, after what I said; but the creature, in short, was one of the same business with me, and wanted nothing but the bundle; however, she went with me to the door, for she could not help it. When we were come there I whispered her, “Go, child,” said I, “I understand your trade; you may meet with purchase enough.”
She understood me and walked off. I thundered at the door with the children, and as the people were raised before by the noise of the fire, I was soon let in, and I said, “Is madam awake? Pray tell her Mrs. - desires the favour
THEFT AT A FIRE 1977
of her to take the two children in; poor lady, she will be undone, their house is all of a flame.” They took the children in very civilly, pitied the family in distress, and away came I with my bundle. One of the maids asked me if I was not to leave the bundle too. I said, “No, sweetheart, *tis to go to another place; it does not belong to them.”
I was a great way out of the hurry now, and so I went on and brought the bundle of plate, which was very considerable, straight home to my old governess. She told me she would not look into it, but bade me go again and look for more.
She gave me the like cue to the gentlewoman of the next house to that which was on fire, and I did my endeavour to go, but by this time the alarm of fire was so great, and so many engines playing, and the street so thronged with people, that I could not get near the house whatever I could do; so I came back again to. my governess’s, and taking the
- bundle up into my chamber, I began to examine it. It is with horror that I tell what a treasure I found there; ’tis enough to say, that besides most of the family plate, which was ‘considerable, I found a gold chain, an old-fashioned thing, the locket ‘of which was broken, so that I suppose it had not been used some years, but the gold was not the worse for that; also a little box of burying rings, the lady’s wedding-ring, and some broken bits of old lockets of gold, a gold watch, and a purse with about {24 value in old pieces of gold coin, and several other things of value.
This was the greatest and the worst prize that ever I was concerned in; for indeed, though, as I have said above, I was hardened now beyond the power of all reflection in other cases, yet it really touched me to the very soul when I looked into this treasure, to think of the poor disconsolate gentlewoman who had lost so much besides, and who would think, to be sure, that she had saved her plate and best things; how she would be surprised when she should find that
_ she had been deceived, and that the person that took her children and her goods had come, as was pretended, from the gentlewoman in the next street, but that the children had been put upon her without her own knowledge.
I say, I confess the inhumanity of this action moved me very much, and made me relent exceedingly, and tears stood in my eyes upon that subject; but with all my sense of its
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being cruel and inhuman, I could never find in my heart to make any restitution. The reflection wore off, and I quickly forgot the circumstances that attended it.
Nor was this all; for though by this job I was become considerably richer than before, yet the resolution I had formerly taken of leaving off this horrid trade when I had gotten a little more, did not return, but I must still get more; and the avarice had such success, that I had no more thoughts of coming to a timely alteration of life, though without it I could expect no safety, no tranquillity in the possession of what I had gained; a little more, and a little more, was the case still.
At length, yielding to the importunities of my crime, I cast off all remorse, and all the reflections on that head turned to no more than this, that I might perhaps come to have one booty more that might complete all; but though I certainly had that one booty, yet every hit looked towards another, and was so encouraging to me to go on with the trade, that I had no gust to the laying it down.
In this condition, hardened by success, and resolving to go on, I fell into the snare in which I was appointed to meet with my last reward for this kind of life. But even this was not yet, for I met with several successful adventures more in this way.
My governess was for a while really concerned for the
misfortune of my comrade that had been hanged, for she
-knew enough of my governess to have sent her the same way, and which made her very uneasy; indeed she was in a very great fright. *
It is true that when she was gone, and had not told what she knew, my governess was easy as to that point, and perhaps glad she was hanged, for it was in her power to have obtained a pardon at the expense of her friends; but the loss of her, and the sense of her kindness in not making her market of what she knew, moved my governess to mourn very sincerely for her. I comforted her as well as I could, and she in return hardened me to merit more completely the same fate. :
However, as I have said, it made me the more wary, and particularly I was very shy of shoplifting, especially among
a“
the mercers and drapers, who are a oo ie fellows that have —
a A SAFE JOB 179 _ their eyes very much about them. I made a venture or two _ among the lace folks and the milliners, and particularly at _ one shop where two young women were newly set up, and had not been bred to the trade. There I carried off a piece of bone-lace, worth six or seven pounds, and a paper of thread. But this was but once; it was a trick that would not serve again.
It was always reckoned a safe job when we heard of a new shop, and especially when the people-were such as were not bred to shops. Such may depend upon it that they will be visited once or twice at their beginning, and they must be very sharp indeed if they can prevent it.
I made another adventure or two after this, but they were but trifles. Nothing considerable offering for a good while, I began to think that I must give over trade in earnest; but my governess, who was not willing to lose me, and expected ~ great things of me, brought me one day into company with a young woman and a fellow that went for her husband, though, as it appeared afterwards, she was not his wife, but they were partners in the trade they carried on, and in something else too. In short, they robbed together, lay together, were taken together, and at last were hanged together.
I came into a kind of league with these two by the help of my governess, and they carried me out into three or four adventures, where I rather saw them commit some coarse and unhandy robberies, in which nothing but a great stock of impudence on their side, and gross negligence on the people’s side who were robbed, could have made them successful. So I resolved from that time forward to be very cautious how I adventured with them; and, indeed, when two or three unlucky projects were proposed by them, I declined the offer, and persuaded them against it. One time they particularly proposed robbing a watchmaker of three gold watches, which they had eyed in the daytime, and found the place where he laid them. One of them had so many keys of all kinds, that he made no question to open the place where the watchmaker had laid them; and so we made a kind of an appointment; but when I came to look narrowly _ into the thing, I found they proposed breaking open. the house, and this I would not embark in, so they went without
me. They did get into the house by main force, and broke
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up the locked place where the watches were, but found but one of the gold watches, and a silver one, which they took, and got out of the house again very clear. But the family being alarmed, cried out, “Thieves,” and the man was pursued and taken; the young woman had got off too, but unhappily was stopped at a distance, and the watches found upon her. And thus I had a second escape, for they were convicted, and both hanged, being old offenders, though but young people; and as I said before that they robbed together, so now they hanged together, and there ended my new partnership.
I began now to be very wary, having’ so narrowly escaped a scouring, and having such an example before me; but I had a new tempter, who prompted me every day—I mean my governess; and now a prize presented, which as it came by her management, so she expected a good share of the booty. There was a good quantity of Flanders lace lodged in a private house, where she had heard of it, and Flanders lace being prohibited, it was a good booty to any custom- house officer that could come at it. I had a full account from my governess, as well of the quantity as of the very place where it was concealed; so I went to a custom-house officer, and told him I had a discovery to make to him, if he would assure me that I should have my due share of the reward. This was so just an offer, that nothing could be fairer; so he agreed, and taking a constable and me with him, we beset ‘the house. As I told him I could go directly to the place he left it to me; and the hole being very dark, I squeezed myself into it, with a candle in my hand, and so reached the pieces out to him, taking care as I gave him some so to secure as much about myself as I could conveniently dispose of. There was near {300 worth of lace in the whole, and I secured about £50 worth of it myself. The people of the house were not owners of the lace, but a merchant who had entrusted them with it; so that they were not so surprised as I thought they would be.
I left the officer overjoyed with his prize, and fully satisfied with what he had got, and appointed to meet him at a house of his own directing, where I came after I had disposed of the cargo I had about me, of which he had not the least suspicion. When I came he began to capitulate, believing I did not
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"understand the right I had in the prize, and would fain have put me off with £20; but I let him know that I was not
so ignorant as he supposed I was; and yet I was glad, too, that he offered to bring me to a certainty. I asked {100,
_and he rose up to £30; I fell to £80, and he rose again to
£40; in a word, he offered £50, and I consented, only demand- ing a piece of lace, which I thought came to about £8 or 9, as if it had been for my own wear, and he agreed to it. Sol got {50 in money paid me that same night, and made an end of the bargain; nor did he ever know who I was, or where to inquire for me, so that if it had been discovered that part of the goods were embezzled, he could have made no challenge upon me for it.