The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

Away went I, and getting materials in a public house, I wrote a letter

from Mr. John Richardson of Newcastle to his dear cousin Jemmy Cole, in

London, with an account that he sent by such a vessel (for I remembered

all the particulars to a title), so many pieces of huckaback linen, so

many ells of Dutch holland and the like, in a box, and a hamper of

flint glasses from Mr. Henzill's glasshouse; and that the box was

marked I. C. No. 1, and the hamper was directed by a label on the

cording.

About an hour after, I came to the warehouse, found the

warehouse-keeper, and had the goods delivered me without any scruple;

the value of the linen being about #22.

I could fill up this whole discourse with the variety of such

adventures, which daily invention directed to, and which I managed with

the utmost dexterity, and always with success.

At length--as when does the pitcher come safe home that goes so very

often to the well?--I fell into some small broils, which though they

could not affect me fatally, yet made me known, which was the worst

thing next to being found guilty that could befall me.

I had taken up the disguise of a widow's dress; it was without any real

design in view, but only waiting for anything that might offer, as I

often did. It happened that while I was going along the street in

Covent Garden, there was a great cry of 'Stop thief! Stop thief!' some

artists had, it seems, put a trick upon a shopkeeper, and being

pursued, some of them fled one way, and some another; and one of them

was, they said, dressed up in widow's weeds, upon which the mob

gathered about me, and some said I was the person, others said no.

Immediately came the mercer's journeyman, and he swore aloud I was the

person, and so seized on me. However, when I was brought back by the

mob to the mercer's shop, the master of the house said freely that I

was not the woman that was in his shop, and would have let me go

immediately; but another fellow said gravely, 'Pray stay till Mr. ----'

(meaning the journeyman) 'comes back, for he knows her.' So they kept

me by force near half an hour. They had called a constable, and he

stood in the shop as my jailer; and in talking with the constable I

inquired where he lived, and what trade he was; the man not

apprehending in the least what happened afterwards, readily told me his

name, and trade, and where he lived; and told me as a jest, that I

might be sure to hear of his name when I came to the Old Bailey.