The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

It was not long after the affair with the mercer was made up, that I

went out in an equipage quite different from any I had ever appeared in

before. I dressed myself like a beggar woman, in the coarsest and most

despicable rags I could get, and I walked about peering and peeping

into every door and window I came near; and indeed I was in such a

plight now that I knew as ill how to behave in as ever I did in any. I

naturally abhorred dirt and rags; I had been bred up tight and cleanly,

and could be no other, whatever condition I was in; so that this was

the most uneasy disguise to me that ever I put on. I said presently to

myself that this would not do, for this was a dress that everybody was

shy and afraid of; and I thought everybody looked at me, as if they

were afraid I should come near them, lest I should take something from

them, or afraid to come near me, lest they should get something from

me. I wandered about all the evening the first time I went out, and

made nothing of it, but came home again wet, draggled, and tired.

However, I went out again the next night, and then I met with a little

adventure, which had like to have cost me dear. As I was standing near

a tavern door, there comes a gentleman on horseback, and lights at the

door, and wanting to go into the tavern, he calls one of the drawers to

hold his horse. He stayed pretty long in the tavern, and the drawer

heard his master call, and thought he would be angry with him. Seeing

me stand by him, he called to me, 'Here, woman,' says he, 'hold this

horse a while, till I go in; if the gentleman comes, he'll give you

something.' 'Yes,' says I, and takes the horse, and walks off with him

very soberly, and carried him to my governess.

This had been a booty to those that had understood it; but never was

poor thief more at a loss to know what to do with anything that was

stolen; for when I came home, my governess was quite confounded, and

what to do with the creature, we neither of us knew. To send him to a

stable was doing nothing, for it was certain that public notice would

be given in the Gazette, and the horse described, so that we durst not

go to fetch it again.

All the remedy we had for this unlucky adventure was to go and set up

the horse at an inn, and send a note by a porter to the tavern, that

the gentleman's horse that was lost such a time was left at such an

inn, and that he might be had there; that the poor woman that held him,

having led him about the street, not being able to lead him back again,

had left him there. We might have waited till the owner had published

and offered a reward, but we did not care to venture the receiving the

reward.