The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

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.