The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

My poor afflicted governess was now as much concerned as I, and a great

deal more truly penitent, though she had no prospect of being brought

to trial and sentence. Not but that she deserved it as much as I, and

so she said herself; but she had not done anything herself for many

years, other than receiving what I and others stole, and encouraging us

to steal it. But she cried, and took on like a distracted body,

wringing her hands, and crying out that she was undone, that she

believed there was a curse from heaven upon her, that she should be

damned, that she had been the destruction of all her friends, that she

had brought such a one, and such a one, and such a one to the gallows;

and there she reckoned up ten or eleven people, some of which I have

given account of, that came to untimely ends; and that now she was the

occasion of my ruin, for she had persuaded me to go on, when I would

have left off. I interrupted her there. 'No, mother, no,' said I,

'don't speak of that, for you would have had me left off when I got the

mercer's money again, and when I came home from Harwich, and I would

not hearken to you; therefore you have not been to blame; it is I only

have ruined myself, I have brought myself to this misery'; and thus we

spent many hours together.

Well, there was no remedy; the prosecution went on, and on the Thursday

I was carried down to the sessions-house, where I was arraigned, as

they called it, and the next day I was appointed to be tried. At the

arraignment I pleaded 'Not guilty,' and well I might, for I was

indicted for felony and burglary; that is, for feloniously stealing two

pieces of brocaded silk, value #46, the goods of Anthony Johnson, and

for breaking open his doors; whereas I knew very well they could not

pretend to prove I had broken up the doors, or so much as lifted up a

latch.

On the Friday I was brought to my trial. I had exhausted my spirits

with crying for two or three days before, so that I slept better the

Thursday night than I expected, and had more courage for my trial than

indeed I thought possible for me to have.

When the trial began, the indictment was read, I would have spoke, but

they told me the witnesses must be heard first, and then I should have

time to be heard. The witnesses were the two wenches, a couple of

hard-mouthed jades indeed, for though the thing was truth in the main,

yet they aggravated it to the utmost extremity, and swore I had the

goods wholly in my possession, that I had hid them among my clothes,

that I was going off with them, that I had one foot over the threshold

when they discovered themselves, and then I put t' other over, so that

I was quite out of the house in the street with the goods before they

took hold of me, and then they seized me, and brought me back again,

and they took the goods upon me. The fact in general was all true, but

I believe, and insisted upon it, that they stopped me before I had set

my foot clear of the threshold of the house. But that did not argue

much, for certain it was that I had taken the goods, and I was bringing

them away, if I had not been taken.