The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders - Page 210/256

I was overwhelmed with grief for him; my own case gave me no

disturbance compared to this, and I loaded myself with reproaches on

his account. I bewailed his misfortunes, and the ruin he was now come

to, at such a rate, that I relished nothing now as I did before, and

the first reflections I made upon the horrid, detestable life I had

lived began to return upon me, and as these things returned, my

abhorrence of the place I was in, and of the way of living in it,

returned also; in a word, I was perfectly changed, and become another

body.

While I was under these influences of sorrow for him, came notice to me

that the next sessions approaching there would be a bill preferred to

the grand jury against me, and that I should be certainly tried for my

life at the Old Bailey. My temper was touched before, the hardened,

wretched boldness of spirit which I had acquired abated, and conscious

in the prison, guilt began to flow in upon my mind. In short, I began

to think, and to think is one real advance from hell to heaven. All

that hellish, hardened state and temper of soul, which I have said so

much of before, is but a deprivation of thought; he that is restored to

his power of thinking, is restored to himself.

As soon as I began, I say, to think, the first think that occurred to

me broke out thus: 'Lord! what will become of me? I shall certainly

die! I shall be cast, to be sure, and there is nothing beyond that but

death! I have no friends; what shall I do? I shall be certainly cast!

Lord, have mercy upon me! What will become of me?' This was a sad

thought, you will say, to be the first, after so long a time, that had

started into my soul of that kind, and yet even this was nothing but

fright at what was to come; there was not a word of sincere repentance

in it all. However, I was indeed dreadfully dejected, and disconsolate

to the last degree; and as I had no friend in the world to communicate

my distressed thoughts to, it lay so heavy upon me, that it threw me

into fits and swoonings several times a day. I sent for my old

governess, and she, give her her due, acted the part of a true friend.

She left no stone unturned to prevent the grand jury finding the bill.

She sought out one or two of the jurymen, talked with them, and

endeavoured to possess them with favourable dispositions, on account

that nothing was taken away, and no house broken, etc.; but all would

not do, they were over-ruled by the rest; the two wenches swore home to

the fact, and the jury found the bill against me for robbery and

house-breaking, that is, for felony and burglary.