I found also that in following this trade she always melted down the
plate she bought, that it might not be challenged; and she came to me
and told me one morning that she was going to melt, and if I would, she
would put my tankard in, that it might not be seen by anybody. I told
her, with all my heart; so she weighed it, and allowed me the full
value in silver again; but I found she did not do the same to the rest
of her customers.
Some time after this, as I was at work, and very melancholy, she begins
to ask me what the matter was, as she was used to do. I told her my
heart was heavy; I had little work, and nothing to live on, and knew
not what course to take. She laughed, and told me I must go out again
and try my fortune; it might be that I might meet with another piece of
plate. 'O mother!' says I, 'that is a trade I have no skill in, and if
I should be taken I am undone at once.' Says she, 'I could help you to
a schoolmistress that shall make you as dexterous as herself.' I
trembled at that proposal, for hitherto I had had no confederates, nor
any acquaintance among that tribe. But she conquered all my modesty,
and all my fears; and in a little time, by the help of this
confederate, I grew as impudent a thief, and as dexterous as ever Moll
Cutpurse was, though, if fame does not belie her, not half so handsome.
The comrade she helped me to dealt in three sorts of craft, viz.
shoplifting, stealing of shop-books and pocket-books, and taking off
gold watches from the ladies' sides; and this last she did so
dexterously that no woman ever arrived to the performance of that art
so as to do it like her. I liked the first and the last of these
things very well, and I attended her some time in the practice, just as
a deputy attends a midwife, without any pay.
At length she put me to practice. She had shown me her art, and I had
several times unhooked a watch from her own side with great dexterity.
At last she showed me a prize, and this was a young lady big with
child, who had a charming watch. The thing was to be done as she came
out of church. She goes on one side of the lady, and pretends, just as
she came to the steps, to fall, and fell against the lady with so much
violence as put her into a great fright, and both cried out terribly.
In the very moment that she jostled the lady, I had hold of the watch,
and holding it the right way, the start she gave drew the hook out, and
she never felt it. I made off immediately, and left my schoolmistress
to come out of her pretended fright gradually, and the lady too; and
presently the watch was missed. 'Ay,' says my comrade, 'then it was
those rogues that thrust me down, I warrant ye; I wonder the
gentlewoman did not miss her watch before, then we might have taken
them.' She humoured the thing so well that nobody suspected her, and I was got
home a full hour before her. This was my first adventure in company.
The watch was indeed a very fine one, and had a great many trinkets
about it, and my governess allowed us #20 for it, of which I had half.
And thus I was entered a complete thief, hardened to the pitch above
all the reflections of conscience or modesty, and to a degree which I
must acknowledge I never thought possible in me.