The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

Well, at last I found this amphibious creature, this land-water thing

called a gentleman-tradesman; and as a just plague upon my folly, I was

catched in the very snare which, as I might say, I laid for myself. I

said for myself, for I was not trepanned, I confess, but I betrayed

myself.

This was a draper, too, for though my comrade would have brought me to

a bargain with her brother, yet when it came to the point, it was, it

seems, for a mistress, not a wife; and I kept true to this notion, that

a woman should never be kept for a mistress that had money to keep

herself.

Thus my pride, not my principle, my money, not my virtue, kept me

honest; though, as it proved, I found I had much better have been sold

by my she-comrade to her brother, than have sold myself as I did to a

tradesman that was rake, gentleman, shopkeeper, and beggar, all

together.

But I was hurried on (by my fancy to a gentleman) to ruin myself in the

grossest manner that every woman did; for my new husband coming to a

lump of money at once, fell into such a profusion of expense, that all

I had, and all he had before, if he had anything worth mentioning,

would not have held it out above one year.

He was very fond of me for about a quarter of a year, and what I got by

that was, that I had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of my money

spent upon myself, and, as I may say, had some of the spending it too.

'Come, my dear,' says he to me one day, 'shall we go and take a turn

into the country for about a week?' 'Ay, my dear,' says I, 'whither

would you go?' 'I care not whither,' says he, 'but I have a mind to

look like quality for a week. We'll go to Oxford,' says he. 'How,'

says I, 'shall we go? I am no horsewoman, and 'tis too far for a

coach.' 'Too far!' says he; 'no place is too far for a coach-and-six.

If I carry you out, you shall travel like a duchess.' 'Hum,' says I,

'my dear, 'tis a frolic; but if you have a mind to it, I don't care.'

Well, the time was appointed, we had a rich coach, very good horses, a

coachman, postillion, and two footmen in very good liveries; a

gentleman on horseback, and a page with a feather in his hat upon

another horse. The servants all called him my lord, and the

inn-keepers, you may be sure, did the like, and I was her honour the

Countess, and thus we traveled to Oxford, and a very pleasant journey

we had; for, give him his due, not a beggar alive knew better how to be

a lord than my husband. We saw all the rarities at Oxford, talked with

two or three Fellows of colleges about putting out a young nephew, that

was left to his lordship's care, to the University, and of their being

his tutors. We diverted ourselves with bantering several other poor

scholars, with hopes of being at least his lordship's chaplains and

putting on a scarf; and thus having lived like quality indeed, as to

expense, we went away for Northampton, and, in a word, in about twelve

days' ramble came home again, to the tune of about #93 expense.