But my own distresses silenced all these reflections, and the prospect
of my own starving, which grew every day more frightful to me, hardened
my heart by degrees. It was then particularly heavy upon my mind, that
I had been reformed, and had, as I hoped, repented of all my past
wickedness; that I had lived a sober, grave, retired life for several
years, but now I should be driven by the dreadful necessity of my
circumstances to the gates of destruction, soul and body; and two or
three times I fell upon my knees, praying to God, as well as I could,
for deliverance; but I cannot but say, my prayers had no hope in them.
I knew not what to do; it was all fear without, and dark within; and I
reflected on my past life as not sincerely repented of, that Heaven was
now beginning to punish me on this side the grave, and would make me as
miserable as I had been wicked.
Had I gone on here I had perhaps been a true penitent; but I had an
evil counsellor within, and he was continually prompting me to relieve
myself by the worst means; so one evening he tempted me again, by the
same wicked impulse that had said 'Take that bundle,' to go out again
and seek for what might happen.
I went out now by daylight, and wandered about I knew not whither, and
in search of I knew not what, when the devil put a snare in my way of a
dreadful nature indeed, and such a one as I have never had before or
since. Going through Aldersgate Street, there was a pretty little
child who had been at a dancing-school, and was going home, all alone;
and my prompter, like a true devil, set me upon this innocent creature.
I talked to it, and it prattled to me again, and I took it by the hand
and led it along till I came to a paved alley that goes into
Bartholomew Close, and I led it in there. The child said that was not
its way home. I said, 'Yes, my dear, it is; I'll show you the way
home.' The child had a little necklace on of gold beads, and I had my
eye upon that, and in the dark of the alley I stooped, pretending to
mend the child's clog that was loose, and took off her necklace, and
the child never felt it, and so led the child on again. Here, I say,
the devil put me upon killing the child in the dark alley, that it
might not cry, but the very thought frighted me so that I was ready to
drop down; but I turned the child about and bade it go back again, for
that was not its way home. The child said, so she would, and I went
through into Bartholomew Close, and then turned round to another
passage that goes into St. John Street; then, crossing into Smithfield,
went down Chick Lane and into Field Lane to Holborn Bridge, when,
mixing with the crowd of people usually passing there, it was not
possible to have been found out; and thus I enterprised my second sally
into the world.