The Fortunes & Misfortunes of the Famous. Moll Flanders

him up short, and told him I hoped he did not understand by

my speaking, that I should expect any supply from him if he

had money; that, on the other hand, though I had not a great

deal, yet I did not want, and while I had any I would rather

add to him than weaken him in that article, seeing, whatever

he had, I knew in the case of transportation he would have

occasion of it all.

He expressed himself in a most tender manner upon that head.

He told me what money he had was not a great deal, but that

he would never hide any of it from me if I wanted it, and that

he assured me he did not speak with any such apprehensions;

that he was only intent upon what I had hinted to him before

he went; that here he knew what to do with himself, but that

there he should be the most ignorant, helpless wretch alive.

I told him he frighted and terrified himself with that which

had no terror in it; that if he had money, as I was glad to hear

he had, he might not only avoid the servitude supposed to be

the consequence of transportation, but begin the world upon

a new foundation, and that such a one as he could not fail of

success in, with the common application usual in such cases;

that he could not but call to mind that is was what I had

recommended to him many years before and had proposed it

for our mutual subsistence and restoring our fortunes in the

world; and I would tell him now, that to convince him both

of the certainty of it and of my being fully acquainted with the

method, and also fully satisfied in the probability of success,

he should first see me deliver myself from the necessity of

going over at all, and then that I would go with him freely,

and of my own choice, and perhaps carry enough with me to

satisfy him that I did not offer it for want of being able to live

without assistance from him, but that I thought our mutual

misfortunes had been such as were sufficient to reconcile us

both to quitting this part of the world, and living where

nobody could upbraid us with what was past, or we be in any

dread of a prison, and without agonies of a condemned hole

to drive us to it; this where we should look back on all our

past disasters with infinite satisfaction, when we should

consider that our enemies should entirely forget us, and that

we should live as new people in a new world, nobody having

anything to say to us, or we to them.

I pressed this home to him with so many arguments, and

answered all his own passionate objections so effectually that

he embraced me, and told me I treated him with such sincerity

and affection as overcame him; that he would take my advice,

and would strive to submit to his fate in hope of having the

comfort of my assistance, and of so faithful a counsellor and

such a companion in his misery. But still he put me in mind

of what I had mentioned before, namely, that there might be

some way to get off before he went, and that it might be

possible to avoid going at all, which he said would be much

better. I told him he should see, and be fully satisfied, that I

would do my utmost in that part too, and if it did not succeed,

yet that I would make good the rest.

We parted after this long conference with such testimonies of

kindness and affection as I thought were equal, if not superior,

to that at our parting at Dunstable; and now I saw more plainly

than before, the reason why he declined coming at that time

any farther with me toward London than Dunstable, and why,

when we parted there, he told me it was not convenient for

him to come part of the way to London to bring me going, as

he would otherwise have done. I have observed that the

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