The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

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.