Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

menaces. I knew not exactly what passed in the first fury of my distraction, but at length it quite exhausted me. In the evening, being calm through mere languor and debility, and no precaution having been taken to detain me, because I was not thought able to escape, I found means to steal down stairs, and get into the street without being missed. Wretched as I was, I felt some emotions of joy when I first found myself at liberty; though it was no better than the liberty of an exile in a desert, where having escaped from the dungeon and the wheel, he must yet, without a miracle, be destroyed by savages or hunger. It was not long, indeed, before I reflected that I knew no house that would receive me, and that I had no money in my pocket. I had not, however, the least inclination to go back. I sometimes thought of returning to my old mistress, the mantuamaker; but the moment I began to anticipate the malicious inference she would draw from my absence and appearance, and her triumph in the mournful necessity that urged me to return, I determined rather to suffer any other evil that could befal me.

"Thus destitute and forlorn, feeble and dispirited, I continued to creep along till the shops were all shut, and the deserted streets became silent. The busy crowds, which had almost borne me before them, were now dissipated; and every one was retired home, except a few wretched outcasts like myself, who were either huddled together in a corner, or strolling about not knowing whither they went. It is not easy to conceive the anguish with which I reflected upon my condition; and, perhaps, it would scarcely have been thought possible, that a person who was not a fugitive from justice, nor an enemy to labour, could be thus destitute even of the little that is essential to life, and in danger of perishing for want in the midst of a populous city, abounding

:

with accommodations for every rank, from the peer to the beggar. Such, however, was my lot. I found myself compelled by necessity to pass the night in the street, without hope of passing the next in any other place, or, indeed, in procuring food to support me till it arrived. I had now fasted the whole day; my languor increased every moment; I was weary and fainting; my face was covered with a cold sweat, and my legs trembled under me; but I did not dare to sit down, or to walk twice along the same street, lest I should have been seized by the watch, or insulted by some voluntary vagabond in the rage or wantonness of drunkenness or lust. I knew not, indeed, well how to vary my walk; but imagined that, upon the whole, I should be more safe in the city, than among the brothels in the Strand, or in streets which, being less frequented, are less carefully watched for though I scarce ventured to consider the law as my friend, yet I was more afraid of those who should attempt to break the peace, than those who were appointed to keep it. I went forward, therefore, as well as I was able, and passed through St. Paul's Church-yard as the clock struck one; but such was my misfortune, that the calamity which I dreaded overtook me in the very place to which I had fled to avoid it. Just as I was crossing at the corner into Cheapside, I was laid hold on by a man not meanly dressed, who would have hurried me down towards the Old Change. I knew not what he said, but I strove to disengage myself from him without making any reply: my struggles, indeed, were weak; and the man still keeping his hold, and perhaps, mistaking the feebleness of my resistance for some inclination to comply, proceeded to indecencies, for which I struck him with the sudden force that was supplied by rage and indignation: but my whole strength was exhausted in the blow, which the

brute instantly returned, and repeated till I fell, Instinct is still ready in the defence of life, however wretched and though the moment before I had wished to die, yet in this distress I spontaneously cried out for help. My voice was heard by a watchman, who immediately ran towards me, and finding me upon the ground, lifted up his lantern, and examined me with an attention, which made me reflect with great confusion upon the disorder of my dress, which before had not once occurred to my thoughts; my hair hung loosely about my shoulders, my stays were but half-laced, and the rest of my clothes were carelessly thrown on in the tumult and distraction of mind, which prevented my attending to trivial circumstances when I made my escape from Wellwood's. My general appearance, and the condition in which I was found, convinced the watchman that I was a strolling prostitute; and finding that I was not able to rise without assistance, he also concluded that I was drunk; he, therefore, set down his lantern, and calling his comrade to assist him, they lifted me up. As my voice was faltering, my looks wild, and my whole frame so feeble, that I tottered as I stood, the man was confirmed in his first opinion; and seeing my face bloody, and my eyes swelled, he told me with a sneer, that to secure me from farther ill-treatment, he would provide a lodging for me till the morning; and accordingly they dragged me between them to the Compter, without any regard to my entreaties or distress.

"I passed the night in agonies, upon which even now I shudder to look back; and in the morning I was carried before a magistrate. The watchman gave an account of his having found me very drunk, crying out murder, and breeding a riot in the street, at one o'clock in the morning: I was scarcely yet sober,' he said, as his worship might see, and had

[ocr errors]

been pretty handsomely beaten but he supposed it was for an unsuccessful attempt to pick a pocket, at which I must have been very dexterous, indeed, to have succeeded in that condition.'

"This account, however injurious, was greatly confirmed by my appearance: I was almost covered with kennel-dirt, my face was discoloured, my speech was inarticulate, and I was so oppressed with faintness and terror, that I could not stand without a support. The magistrate, however, with great kindness, called upon me to make my defence, which I attempted by relating the truth; but the story was told with so much hesitation, and was in itself so wild and improbable, so like the inartificial tales that are hastily formed as an apology for detected guilt, that it could not be believed; and I was told, that except I could support my character by some credible witness, I should be committed to Bridewell.

"I was thunderstruck at this menace; and had formed ideas so dreadful of the place to which I was to be sent, that my dungeon at the mantua-maker's became a palace in the comparison; and to return thither, with whatever disadvantages, was now the utmost object of my hope. I, therefore, desired that my mistress might be sent for, and flattered myself that she would at least take me out of a house of correction, if it were only for the pleasure of tormenting me herself.

"In about two hours the messenger returned, and with him my tyrant, who eyed me with such malicious pleasure, that my hopes failed me the moment I saw her, and I almost repented that she was come. She was, I believe, glad of an opportunity effectually to prevent my obtaining any part of her business; which she had some reason to fear; and, therefore, told the justice who examined her, that she had taken me a beggar from the parish four years ago,

6

[ocr errors]

and taught me her trade; but that I had been always sullen, mischievous, and idle; and it was more than a month since I had clandestinely left her service, in decent and modest apparel fitting my condition; and that she would leave his worship to judge, whether I came honestly by the tawdry rags which I had on my back.' This account, however correspondent with my own, served only to confirm those facts which condemned me: it appeared incontestably that I had deserted my service, and been debauched in a brothel, where I had been furnished with clothes, and contined more than a month. That I had been ignorant of my situation, prostituted without my consent, and at last had escaped to avoid farther injury, appeared to be fictitious circumstances, invented to palliate my offence: the person whom I had accused lived in another county; and it was necessary for the present to bring the matter to a short issue my mistress, therefore, was asked, whether she would receive me again, upon my promise of good behaviour; and upon her peremptory refusal, my mittimus was made out, and I was committed to hard labour. The clerk, however, was ordered to take a memorandum of my charge against Wellwood, and I was told that inquiry should be made about her.

[ocr errors]

"After I had been confined about a week, a note was brought me without date or name, in which I was told, that my malice against those who would have been my benefactors was disappointed; that if I would return to them, my discharge should be procured, and I should still be kindly received; but that if I persisted in my ingratitude, it should not be unrevenged.' From this note I conjectured, that Wellwood had found means to stop an inquiry into her conduct, which she had discovered to have been begun upon my information, and had thus learned

« ForrigeFortsett »