any revenge.
When we were at supper he brought the poor fellow in to
make acknowledgment, which he would have done with as
much mean humility as his offence was with insulting
haughtiness and pride, in which he was an instance of a
complete baseness of spirit, impious, cruel, and relentless
when uppermost and in prosperity, abject and low-spirited
when down in affliction. However, I abated his cringes, told
him I forgave him, and desired he might withdraw, as if I did
not care for the sight of him, though I had forgiven him.
I was now in good circumstances indeed, if I could have
known my time for leaving off, and my governess often said
I was the richest of the trade in England; and so I believe I
was, for I had #700 by me in money, besides clothes, rings,
some plate, and two gold watches, and all of them stolen, for
I had innumerable jobs besides these I have mentioned. Oh!
had I even now had the grace of repentance, I had still leisure
to have looked back upon my follies, and have made some
reparation; but the satisfaction I was to make for the public
mischiefs I had done was yet left behind; and I could not forbear
going abroad again, as I called it now, than any more I could
when my extremity really drove me out for bread.
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 sable 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