The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

She was a woman of a admirable address, and wanted nobody to introduce

her; she told her tale much better than I shall be able to tell it for

her, for she was a mistress of her tongue, as I have said already. She

told him that she came, though a stranger, with a single design of

doing him a service and he should find she had no other end in it; that

as she came purely on so friendly an account, she begged promise from

him, that if he did not accept what she should officiously propose he

would not take it ill that she meddled with what was not her business.

She assured him that as what she had to say was a secret that belonged

to him only, so whether he accepted her offer or not, it should remain

a secret to all the world, unless he exposed it himself; nor should his

refusing her service in it make her so little show her respect as to do

him the least injury, so that he should be entirely at liberty to act

as he thought fit.

He looked very shy at first, and said he knew nothing that related to

him that required much secrecy; that he had never done any man any

wrong, and cared not what anybody might say of him; that it was no part

of his character to be unjust to anybody, nor could he imagine in what

any man could render him any service; but that if it was so

disinterested a service as she said, he could not take it ill from any

one that they should endeavour to serve him; and so, as it were, left

her a liberty either to tell him or not to tell, as she thought fit.

She found him so perfectly indifferent, that she was almost afraid to

enter into the point with him; but, however, after some other

circumlocutions she told him that by a strange and unaccountable

accident she came to have a particular knowledge of the late unhappy

adventure he had fallen into, and that in such a manner, that there was

nobody in the world but herself and him that were acquainted with it,

no, not the very person that was with him.

He looked a little angrily at first. 'What adventure?' said he.

'Why,' said she, 'of your being robbed coming from Knightbr----;

Hampstead, sir, I should say,' says she. 'Be not surprised, sir,' says

she, 'that I am able to tell you every step you took that day from the

cloister in Smithfield to the Spring Garden at Knightsbridge, and

thence to the ---- in the Strand, and how you were left asleep in the

coach afterwards. I say, let not this surprise you, for, sir, I do not

come to make a booty of you, I ask nothing of you, and I assure you the

woman that was with you knows nothing who you are, and never shall; and

yet perhaps I may serve you further still, for I did not come barely to

let you know that I was informed of these things, as if I wanted a

bribe to conceal them; assure yourself, sir,' said she, 'that whatever

you think fit to do or say to me, it shall be all a secret as it is, as

much as if I were in my grave.' He was astonished at her discourse, and said gravely to her, 'Madam,

you are a stranger to me, but it is very unfortunate that you should be

let into the secret of the worst action of my life, and a thing that I

am so justly ashamed of, that the only satisfaction of it to me was,

that I thought it was known only to God and my own conscience.' 'Pray,

sir,' says she, 'do not reckon the discovery of it to me to be any part

of your misfortune. It was a thing, I believe, you were surprised

into, and perhaps the woman used some art to prompt you to it; however,

you will never find any just cause,' said she, 'to repent that I came

to hear of it; nor can your own mouth be more silent in it that I have

been, and ever shall be.' 'Well,' says he, 'but let me do some justice to the woman too; whoever

she is, I do assure you she prompted me to nothing, she rather declined

me. It was my own folly and madness that brought me into it all, ay,

and brought her into it too; I must give her her due so far. As to

what she took from me, I could expect no less from her in the condition

I was in, and to this hour I know not whether she robbed me or the

coachman; if she did it, I forgive her, and I think all gentlemen that

do so should be used in the same manner; but I am more concerned for

some other things that I am for all that she took from me.' My governess now began to come into the whole matter, and he opened

himself freely to her. First she said to him, in answer to what he had

said about me, 'I am glad, sir, you are so just to the person that you

were with; I assure you she is a gentlewoman, and no woman of the town;

and however you prevailed with her so far as you did, I am sure 'tis

not her practice. You ran a great venture indeed, sir; but if that be

any part of your care, I am persuaded you may be perfectly easy, for I

dare assure you no man has touched her, before you, since her husband,

and he has been dead now almost eight years.' It appeared that this was his grievance, and that he was in a very

great fright about it; however, when my governess said this to him, he

appeared very well pleased, and said, 'Well, madam, to be plain with

you, if I was satisfied of that, I should not so much value what I

lost; for, as to that, the temptation was great, and perhaps she was

poor and wanted it.' 'If she had not been poor, sir ----,' says my

governess, 'I assure you she would never have yielded to you; and as

her poverty first prevailed with her to let you do as you did, so the

same poverty prevailed with her to pay herself at last, when she saw

you were in such a condition, that if she had not done it, perhaps the

next coachman might have done it.' 'Well,' says he, 'much good may it do her. I say again, all the

gentlemen that do so ought to be used in the same manner, and then they

would be cautious of themselves. I have no more concern about it, but

on the score which you hinted at before, madam.' Here he entered into

some freedoms with her on the subject of what passed between us, which

are not so proper for a woman to write, and the great terror that was

upon his mind with relation to his wife, for fear he should have

received any injury from me, and should communicate if farther; and

asked her at last if she could not procure him an opportunity to speak

with me. My governess gave him further assurances of my being a woman

clear from any such thing, and that he was as entirely safe in that

respect as he was with his own lady; but as for seeing me, she said it

might be of dangerous consequence; but, however, that she would talk

with me, and let him know my answer, using at the same time some

arguments to persuade him not to desire it, and that it could be of no

service to him, seeing she hoped he had no desire to renew a

correspondence with me, and that on my account it was a kind of putting

my life in his hands.