This was indeed probable enough, and the justice satisfied himself with
giving her an oath that she had not received or admitted any man into
her house to conceal him, or protect or hide him from justice. This
oath she might justly take, and did so, and so she was dismissed.
It is easy to judge what a fright I was in upon this occasion, and it
was impossible for my governess ever to bring me to dress in that
disguise again; for, as I told her, I should certainly betray myself.
My poor partner in this mischief was now in a bad case, for he was
carried away before my Lord Mayor, and by his worship committed to
Newgate, and the people that took him were so willing, as well as able,
to prosecute him, that they offered themselves to enter into
recognisances to appear at the sessions and pursue the charge against
him.
However, he got his indictment deferred, upon promise to discover his
accomplices, and particularly the man that was concerned with him in
his robbery; and he failed not to do his endeavour, for he gave in my
name, whom he called Gabriel Spencer, which was the name I went by to
him; and here appeared the wisdom of my concealing my name and sex from
him, which, if he had ever known I had been undone.
He did all he could to discover this Gabriel Spencer; he described me,
he discovered the place where he said I lodged, and, in a word, all the
particulars that he could of my dwelling; but having concealed the main
circumstances of my sex from him, I had a vast advantage, and he never
could hear of me. He brought two or three families into trouble by his
endeavouring to find me out, but they knew nothing of me, any more than
that I had a fellow with me that they had seen, but knew nothing of.
And as for my governess, though she was the means of his coming to me,
yet it was done at second-hand, and he knew nothing of her.
This turned to his disadvantage; for having promised discoveries, but
not being able to make it good, it was looked upon as trifling with the
justice of the city, and he was the more fiercely pursued by the
shopkeepers who took him.
I was, however, terribly uneasy all this while, and that I might be
quite out of the way, I went away from my governess's for a while; but
not knowing wither to wander, I took a maid-servant with me, and took
the stage-coach to Dunstable, to my old landlord and landlady, where I
had lived so handsomely with my Lancashire husband. Here I told her a
formal story, that I expected my husband every day from Ireland, and
that I had sent a letter to him that I would meet him at Dunstable at
her house, and that he would certainly land, if the wind was fair, in a
few days, so that I was come to spend a few days with them till he
should come, for he was either come post, or in the West Chester coach,
I knew not which; but whichsoever it was, he would be sure to come to
that house to meet me.