The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

But my own distresses silenced all these reflections, and the prospect

of my own starving, which grew every day more frightful to me, hardened

my heart by degrees. It was then particularly heavy upon my mind, that

I had been reformed, and had, as I hoped, repented of all my past

wickedness; that I had lived a sober, grave, retired life for several

years, but now I should be driven by the dreadful necessity of my

circumstances to the gates of destruction, soul and body; and two or

three times I fell upon my knees, praying to God, as well as I could,

for deliverance; but I cannot but say, my prayers had no hope in them.

I knew not what to do; it was all fear without, and dark within; and I

reflected on my past life as not sincerely repented of, that Heaven was

now beginning to punish me on this side the grave, and would make me as

miserable as I had been wicked.

Had I gone on here I had perhaps been a true penitent; but I had an

evil counsellor within, and he was continually prompting me to relieve

myself by the worst means; so one evening he tempted me again, by the

same wicked impulse that had said 'Take that bundle,' to go out again

and seek for what might happen.

I went out now by daylight, and wandered about I knew not whither, and

in search of I knew not what, when the devil put a snare in my way of a

dreadful nature indeed, and such a one as I have never had before or

since. Going through Aldersgate Street, there was a pretty little

child who had been at a dancing-school, and was going home, all alone;

and my prompter, like a true devil, set me upon this innocent creature.

I talked to it, and it prattled to me again, and I took it by the hand

and led it along till I came to a paved alley that goes into

Bartholomew Close, and I led it in there. The child said that was not

its way home. I said, 'Yes, my dear, it is; I'll show you the way

home.' The child had a little necklace on of gold beads, and I had my

eye upon that, and in the dark of the alley I stooped, pretending to

mend the child's clog that was loose, and took off her necklace, and

the child never felt it, and so led the child on again. Here, I say,

the devil put me upon killing the child in the dark alley, that it

might not cry, but the very thought frighted me so that I was ready to

drop down; but I turned the child about and bade it go back again, for

that was not its way home. The child said, so she would, and I went

through into Bartholomew Close, and then turned round to another

passage that goes into St. John Street; then, crossing into Smithfield,

went down Chick Lane and into Field Lane to Holborn Bridge, when,

mixing with the crowd of people usually passing there, it was not

possible to have been found out; and thus I enterprised my second sally

into the world.