The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel JackDefoe, Daniel
General
The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel Jack
Defoe, Daniel
Adventure stories, English; England -- Social life and customs -- 18th century -- Fiction; Picaresque fiction
When we had got it he came out to me, who stood but at the door, and
pulling me by the sleeve, “Run, Jacque,” says he, “for our lives;” and
away he scours, and I after him, never resting, or scarce looking about
me, till we got quite up into Fenchurch Street, through Lime Street
into Leadenhall Street, down St. Mary Axe to London Wall, then through
Bishopsgate Street and down Old Bedlam into Moorfields. By this time we
were neither of us able to run very fast; nor need we have gone so far,
for I never found that anybody pursued us. When we got into Moorfields
and began to take breath, I asked him what it was frighted him so.
“Fright me, you fool!” says he; “I have got a devilish great bag of
money.” “A bag!” said I. “Ay, ay,” said he; “let us get out into the
fields where nobody can see us, and I’ll show it you.” So away he had
me through Long Alley, and cross Hog Lane and Holloway Lane, into the
middle of the great field, which since that has been called the
Farthing Pie-House Fields. There we would have sat down, but it was all
full of water; so we went on, crossed the road at Anniseed Cleer, and
went into the field where now the great hospital stands; and finding a
by-place, we sat down, and he pulls out the bag. “Thou art a lucky boy,
Jacque,” says he; “thou deservest a good share of this job, truly; for
it is all along of thy lucky news.” So he pours it all out into my hat;
for, as I told you, I now wore a hat.
How he did to whip away such a bag of money from any man that was awake
and in his senses I cannot tell; but there was a great deal in it, and
among it a paperful by itself. When the paper dropped out of the bag,
“Hold,” says he, “that is gold!” and began to crow and hollow like a
mad boy. But there he was baulked; for it was a paper of old
thirteenpence-halfpenny pieces, half and quarter pieces, with
ninepences and fourpence-halfpennies—all old crooked money, Scotch and
Irish coin; so he was disappointed in that. But as it was there was
about £17 or £18 in the bag, as I understood by him; for I could not
tell money, not I.
Well, he parted this money into three; that is to say, into three
shares—two for himself and one for me, and asked if I was content. I
told him yes, I had reason to be contented. Besides, it was so much
money added to that I had left of his former adventure that I knew not
what to do with it, or with myself, while I had so much about me.
This was a most exquisite fellow for a thief; for he had the greatest
dexterity at conveying anything away that he scarce ever pitched upon
anything in his eye but he carried it off with his hands, and never
that I know of missed his aim or was caught in the fact.
He was an eminent pickpocket, and very dexterous at ladies’ gold
watches; but he generally pushed higher at such desperate things as
these; and he came off the cleanest and with the greatest success
imaginable; and it was in these kinds of the wicked art of thieving
that I became his scholar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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