that I had no gust to the thought of 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 of
being undone.
I remained still with my governess, who was for a while really
concerned for the misfortune of my comrade that had been
hanged, and who, it seems, 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 opened mouth
to tell 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 on
the other hand, 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
the mercers and drapers, who are a set of fellows that have
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 I got notice of two young women who were newly
set up, and had not been bred to the trade. There I think 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, but they were but trifles too,
though sufficient to live on. After this nothing considerable
offering for a good while, I began to think that I must give
over the 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, it seems, in the
trade they carried on, and partners in something else. 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
upon anything 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, as a thing out of
my way, I would not embark in, so they went without me.