Didactic fiction; Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
The first person v/ho accosted him was called Blear-eyed Moll, a woman
of no very comely appearance. Her eye (for she had but one), whence
she derived her nickname, was such as that nickname bespoke; besides
which, it had two remarkable qualities; for first, as if Nature had
been careful to provide for her own defect, it constantly looked
towards her blind side; and secondly, the ball consisted almost
entirely of white, or rather yellow, with a little grey spot in the
corner, so small that it was scarce discernible. Nose she had none;
for Venus, envious perhaps at her former charms, had carried off the
gristly part; and some earthly damsel, perhaps, from the same envy,
had levelled the bone with the rest of her face: indeed it was far
beneath the bones of her cheeks, which rose proportionally higher than
is usual. About half a dozen ebony teeth fortified that large and long
canal which nature had cut from ear to ear, at the bottom of which was
a chin preposterously short, nature having turned up the bottom,
instead of suffering it to grow to its due length.
Her body was well adapted to her face; she measured full as much round
the middle as from head to foot; for, besides the extreme breadth of
her back, her vast breasts had long since forsaken their native home,
and had settled themselves a little below the girdle.
I wish certain actresses on the stage, when they are to perform
characters of no amiable cast, would study to dress themselves with
the propriety with which Blear-eyed Moll was now arrayed. For the sake
of our squeamish reader, we shall not descend to particulars; let it
suffice to say, nothing more ragged or more dirty was ever emptied out
of the round-house at St Giles's.
We have taken the more pains to describe this person, for two
remarkable reasons; the one is, that this unlovely creature was taken
in the fact with a very pretty young fellow; the other, which is more
productive of moral lesson, is, that however wretched her fortune may
appear to the reader, she was one of the merriest persons in the whole
prison.
Blear-eyed Moll then came up to Mr. Booth with a smile, or rather
grin, on her countenance, and asked him for a dram of gin; and when
Booth assured her that he had not a penny of money, she replied--"D--n
your eyes, I thought by your look you had been a clever fellow, and
upon the snaffling lay [Footnote: A cant term for robbery on the
highway] at least; but, d--n your body and eyes, I find you are some
sneaking budge [Footnote: Another cant term for pilfering] rascal." She
then launched forth a volley of dreadful oaths, interlarded with some
language not proper to be repeated here, and was going to lay hold on
poor Booth, when a tall prisoner, who had been very earnestly eying
Booth for some time, came up, and, taking her by the shoulder, flung
her off at some distance, cursing her for a b--h, and bidding her let
the gentleman alone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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