The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

My next concern was to know, if possible, what was his business there;

but that was impossible. Sometimes my imagination formed an idea of

one frightful thing, sometimes of another; sometime I thought he had

discovered me, and was come to upbraid me with ingratitude and breach

of honour; and every moment I fancied he was coming up the stairs to

insult me; and innumerable fancies came into my head of what was never

in his head, nor ever could be, unless the devil had revealed it to him.

I remained in this fright nearly two hours, and scarce ever kept my eye

from the window or door of the inn where they were. At last, hearing a

great clatter in the passage of their inn, I ran to the window, and, to

my great satisfaction, saw them all three go out again and travel on

westward. Had they gone towards London, I should have been still in a

fright, lest I should meet him on the road again, and that he should

know me; but he went the contrary way, and so I was eased of that

disorder.

We resolved to be going the next day, but about six o'clock at night we

were alarmed with a great uproar in the street, and people riding as if

they had been out of their wits; and what was it but a hue-and-cry

after three highwaymen that had robbed two coaches and some other

travellers near Dunstable Hill, and notice had, it seems, been given

that they had been seen at Brickhill at such a house, meaning the house

where those gentlemen had been.

The house was immediately beset and searched, but there were witnesses

enough that the gentlemen had been gone over three hours. The crowd

having gathered about, we had the news presently; and I was heartily

concerned now another way. I presently told the people of the house,

that I durst to say those were not the persons, for that I knew one of

the gentlemen to be a very honest person, and of a good estate in

Lancashire.

The constable who came with the hue-and-cry was immediately informed of

this, and came over to me to be satisfied from my own mouth, and I

assured him that I saw the three gentlemen as I was at the window; that

I saw them afterwards at the windows of the room they dined in; that I

saw them afterwards take horse, and I could assure him I knew one of

them to be such a man, that he was a gentleman of a very good estate,

and an undoubted character in Lancashire, from whence I was just now

upon my journey.