The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

This may be thought inconsistent in itself, and wide from the business

of this book; particularly, I reflect that many of those who may be

pleased and diverted with the relation of the wild and wicked part of

my story may not relish this, which is really the best part of my life,

the most advantageous to myself, and the most instructive to others.

Such, however, will, I hope, allow me the liberty to make my story

complete. It would be a severe satire on such to say they do not

relish the repentance as much as they do the crime; and that they had

rather the history were a complete tragedy, as it was very likely to

have been.

But I go on with my relation. The next morning there was a sad scene

indeed in the prison. The first thing I was saluted with in the

morning was the tolling of the great bell at St. Sepulchre's, as they

call it, which ushered in the day. As soon as it began to toll, a

dismal groaning and crying was heard from the condemned hole, where

there lay six poor souls who were to be executed that day, some from

one crime, some for another, and two of them for murder.

This was followed by a confused clamour in the house, among the several

sorts of prisoners, expressing their awkward sorrows for the poor

creatures that were to die, but in a manner extremely differing one

from another. Some cried for them; some huzzaed, and wished them a

good journey; some damned and cursed those that had brought them to

it--that is, meaning the evidence, or prosecutors--many pitying them,

and some few, but very few, praying for them.

There was hardly room for so much composure of mind as was required for

me to bless the merciful Providence that had, as it were, snatched me

out of the jaws of this destruction. I remained, as it were, dumb and

silent, overcome with the sense of it, and not able to express what I

had in my heart; for the passions on such occasions as these are

certainly so agitated as not to be able presently to regulate their own

motions.

All the while the poor condemned creatures were preparing to their

death, and the ordinary, as they call him, was busy with them,

disposing them to submit to their sentence--I say, all this while I was

seized with a fit of trembling, as much as I could have been if I had

been in the same condition, as to be sure the day before I expected to

be; I was so violently agitated by this surprising fit, that I shook as

if it had been in the cold fit of an ague, so that I could not speak or

look but like one distracted. As soon as they were all put into carts

and gone, which, however, I had not courage enough to see--I say, as

soon as they were gone, I fell into a fit of crying involuntarily, and

without design, but as a mere distemper, and yet so violent, and it

held me so long, that I knew not what course to take, nor could I stop,

or put a check to it, no, not with all the strength and courage I had.