That I may make short of this black part of this story, I was attacked
by two wenches that came open-mouthed at me just as I was going out at
the door, and one of them pulled me back into the room, while the other
shut the door upon me. I would have given them good words, but there
was no room for it, two fiery dragons could not have been more furious
than they were; they tore my clothes, bullied and roared as if they
would have murdered me; the mistress of the house came next, and then
the master, and all outrageous, for a while especially.
I gave the master very good words, told him the door was open, and
things were a temptation to me, that I was poor and distressed, and
poverty was when many could not resist, and begged him with tears to
have pity on me. The mistress of the house was moved with compassion,
and inclined to have let me go, and had almost persuaded her husband to
it also, but the saucy wenches were run, even before they were sent,
and had fetched a constable, and then the master said he could not go
back, I must go before a justice, and answered his wife that he might
come into trouble himself if he should let me go.
The sight of the constable, indeed, struck me with terror, and I
thought I should have sunk into the ground. I fell into faintings, and
indeed the people themselves thought I would have died, when the woman
argued again for me, and entreated her husband, seeing they had lost
nothing, to let me go. I offered him to pay for the two pieces,
whatever the value was, though I had not got them, and argued that as
he had his goods, and had really lost nothing, it would be cruel to
pursue me to death, and have my blood for the bare attempt of taking
them. I put the constable in mind that I had broke no doors, nor
carried anything away; and when I came to the justice, and pleaded
there that I had neither broken anything to get in, nor carried
anything out, the justice was inclined to have released me; but the
first saucy jade that stopped me, affirming that I was going out with
the goods, but that she stopped me and pulled me back as I was upon the
threshold, the justice upon that point committed me, and I was carried
to Newgate. That horrid place! my very blood chills at the mention of
its name; the place where so many of my comrades had been locked up,
and from whence they went to the fatal tree; the place where my mother
suffered so deeply, where I was brought into the world, and from whence
I expected no redemption but by an infamous death: to conclude, the
place that had so long expected me, and which with so much art and
success I had so long avoided.