The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

For this piece of service the captain demanded of us six thousand

weight of tabacco, which he said he was accountable for to his

freighter, and which we immediately bought for him, and made him a

present of twenty guineas besides, with which he was abundantly

satisfied.

It is not proper to enter here into the particulars of what part of the

colony of Virginia we settled in, for divers reasons; it may suffice to

mention that we went into the great river Potomac, the ship being bound

thither; and there we intended to have settled first, though afterwards

we altered our minds.

The first thing I did of moment after having gotten all our goods on

shore, and placed them in a storehouse, or warehouse, which, with a

lodging, we hired at the small place or village where we landed--I say,

the first thing was to inquire after my mother, and after my brother

(that fatal person whom I married as a husband, as I have related at

large). A little inquiry furnished me with information that Mrs. ----,

that is, my mother, was dead; that my brother (or husband) was alive,

which I confess I was not very glad to hear; but which was worse, I

found he was removed from the plantation where he lived formerly, and

where I lived with him, and lived with one of his sons in a plantation

just by the place where we landed, and where we had hired a warehouse.

I was a little surprised at first, but as I ventured to satisfy myself

that he could not know me, I was not only perfectly easy, but had a

great mind to see him, if it was possible to so do without his seeing

me. In order to that I found out by inquiry the plantation where he

lived, and with a woman of that place whom I got to help me, like what

we call a chairwoman, I rambled about towards the place as if I had

only a mind to see the country and look about me. At last I came so

near that I saw the dwellinghouse. I asked the woman whose plantation

that was; she said it belonged to such a man, and looking out a little

to our right hands, 'there,' says she, is the gentleman that owns the

plantation, and his father with him.' 'What are their Christian

names?' said I. 'I know not,' says she, 'what the old gentleman's name

is, but the son's name is Humphrey; and I believe,' says she, 'the

father's is so too.' You may guess, if you can, what a confused

mixture of joy and fight possessed my thoughts upon this occasion, for

I immediately knew that this was nobody else but my own son, by that

father she showed me, who was my own brother. I had no mask, but I

ruffled my hood so about my face, that I depended upon it that after

above twenty years' absence, and withal not expecting anything of me in

that part of the world, he would not be able to know anything of me.

But I need not have used all that caution, for the old gentleman was

grown dim-sighted by some distemper which had fallen upon his eyes, and

could but just see well enough to walk about, and not run against a

tree or into a ditch. The woman that was with me had told me that by a

mere accident, knowing nothing of what importance it was to me. As

they drew near to us, I said, 'Does he know you, Mrs. Owen?' (so they

called the woman). 'Yes,' said she, 'if he hears me speak, he will

know me; but he can't see well enough to know me or anybody else'; and

so she told me the story of his sight, as I have related. This made me

secure, and so I threw open my hoods again, and let them pass by me.

It was a wretched thing for a mother thus to see her own son, a

handsome, comely young gentleman in flourishing circumstances, and

durst not make herself known to him, and durst not take any notice of

him. Let any mother of children that reads this consider it, and but

think with what anguish of mind I restrained myself; what yearnings of

soul I had in me to embrace him, and weep over him; and how I thought

all my entrails turned within me, that my very bowels moved, and I knew

not what to do, as I now know not how to express those agonies! When

he went from me I stood gazing and trembling, and looking after him as

long as I could see him; then sitting down to rest me, but turned from

her, and lying on my face, wept, and kissed the ground that he had set

his foot on.