Colonel Jack. Даниэль Дефо

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СКАЧАТЬ yet come in for a share; so he told me, if he had success, I should have my share as much as if I had been principal; and this he assured me was a custom of the trade, in order to encourage young beginners, and bring them into the trade with courage, for that nothing was to be done if a man had not the heart of the lion.

      I hesitated at the matter a great while, objecting the hazard, and telling the story of Captain Jacque, my elder brother, as I might call him. «Well, colonel», says he, «I find you are faint-hearted, and to be faint-hearted is indeed to be unfit for our trade, for nothing but a bold heart can go through stitch with this work; but, however, as there is nothing for you to do, so there is no risk for you to run in these things the first time. If I am taken», says he, «you have nothing to do in it; they will let you go free; for it shall easily be made appear, that whatever I have done, you had no hand in it».

      Upon these persuasions I ventured out with him; but I soon found that my new friend was a thief of quality, and a pickpocket above the ordinary rank, and that aimed higher abundantly than my brother Jacque. He was a bigger boy than I a great deal; for though I was now near fifteen years old, I was not big of my age; and as to the nature of the thing, I was perfectly a stranger to it. I knew indeed what at first I did not, for it was a good while before I understood the thing as an offence. I looked on picking pockets as a kind of trade, and thought I was to go apprentice to it. It is true this was when I was young in the society, as well as younger in years, but even now I understood it to be only a thing for which, if we were catched, we ran the risk of being ducked or pumped, which we call soaking, and then all was over; and we made nothing of having our rags wetted a little; but I never understood, till a great while after, that the crime was capital, and that we might be sent to Newgate for it, till a great fellow, almost a man, one of our society, was hanged for it; and then I was terribly frighted, as you shall hear by-and-by.

      Well, upon the persuasions of this lad, I walked out with him; a poor innocent boy, and (as I remember my very thoughts perfectly well) I had no evil in my intentions. I had never stolen anything in my life; and if a goldsmith had left me in his shop, with heaps of money strewed all round me, and bade me look after it, I should not have touched it, I was so honest; but the subtle tempter baited his hook for me, as I was a child, in a manner suited to my childishness, for I never took this picking of pockets to be dishonesty, but, as I have said above, I looked on it as a kind of trade that I was to be bred up to, and so I entered upon it, till I became hardened in it beyond the power of retreating. And thus I was made a thief involuntarily, and went on a length that few boys do, without coming to the common period of that kind of life – I mean to the transport-ship, or to the gallows.

      The first day I went abroad with my new instructor, he carried me directly into the city, and as we went first to the water-side, he led me into the long-room at the custom-house. We were but a couple of ragged boys at best, but I was much the worse. My leader had a hat on, a shirt, and a neckcloth; as for me, I had neither of the three, nor had I spoiled my manners so much as to have a hat on my head since my nurse died, which was now some years. His orders to me were to keep always in sight, and near him, but not close to him, nor to take any notice of him at any time till he came to me; and if any hurly-burly happened, I should by no means know him, or pretend to have anything to do with him.

      I observed my orders to a tittle. While he peered into every corner and had his eye upon everybody, I kept my eye directly upon him, but went always at a distance, and on the other side of the long-room, looking as it were for pins, and picking them up out of the dust as I could find them, and then sticking them on my sleeve, where I had at last gotten forty or fifty good pins; but still my eye was upon my comrade, who, I observed, was very busy among the crowds of people that stood at the board doing business with the officers who pass the entries and make the cockets, &c.

      At length he comes over to me, and stooping as if he would take up a pin close to me, he put some thing into my hand, and said, «Put that up, and follow me downstairs quickly». He did not run, but shuffled along apace through the crowd, and went down, not the great stairs which we came in at, but a little narrow staircase at the other end of the long-room. I followed, and he found I did, and so went on, not stopping below, as I expected, nor speaking one word to me, till, through innumerable narrow passages, alleys, and dark ways, we were got up into Fenchurch Street, and through Billiter Lane into Leadenhall Street, and from thence into Leadenhall Market.

      It was not a meat-market day, so we had room to sit down upon one of the butchers’ stalls, and he bid me lug out. What he had given me was a little leather letter-case, with a French almanac stuck in the inside of it, and a great many papers in it of several kinds.

      We looked them over, and found there was several valuable bills in it, such as bills of exchange and other notes, things I did not understand; but among the rest was a goldsmith’s note, as he called it, of one Sir Stephen Evans, for £ 300, payable to the bearer, and at demand. Besides this, there was another note for £ 12, 10s., being a goldsmith’s bill too, but I forget the name. There was a bill or two also written in French, which neither of us understood, but which, it seems, were things of value, being called foreign bills accepted.

      The rogue, my master, knew what belonged to the goldsmiths’ bills well enough, and I observed, when he read the bill of Sir Stephen, he said, «This is too big for me to meddle with»; but when he came to the bill £ 12, 10s., he said to me, «This will do. Come hither, Jacque»; so away he runs to Lombard Street, and I after him, huddling the other papers into the letter-case. As he went along he inquired the name out immediately, and went directly to the shop, put on a good, grave countenance, and had the money paid him without any stop or question asked. I stood on the other side the way looking about the street, as not at all concerned with anybody that way, but observed that when he presented the bill he pulled out the letter-case, as if he had been a merchant’s boy, acquainted with business, and had other bills about him.

      They paid him the money in gold, and he made haste enough in telling it over, and came away, passing by me, and going into Three King Court, on the other side of the way; then we crossed back into Clement’s Lane, made the best of our way to Cole Harbour, at the water-side, and got a sculler for a penny to carry us over the water to St. Mary Overy’s stairs, where we landed, and were safe enough.

      Here he turns to me; «Colonel Jacque», says he, «I believe you are a lucky boy; this is a good job. We’ll go away to St. George’s Fields and share our booty». Away we went to the Fields, and sitting down in the grass, far enough out of the path, he pulled out the money. «Look here, Jacque», says he, «did you ever see the like before in your life?» «No, never», says I; and added very innocently, «Must we have it all?» «We have it!» says he, «who should have it?» «Why», says I, «must the man have none of it again that lost it?» «He have it again!» says he. «What d’ye mean by that?» «Nay, I don’t know», says I. «Why, you said just now you would let him have the t’other bill again, that you said was too big for you».

      He laughed at me. «You are but a little boy», says he, «that’s true, but I thought you had not been such a child neither»; so he mighty gravely explained the thing to me thus: that the bill of Sir Stephen Evans was a great bill for £ 300, «and if I», says he, «that am but a poor lad, should venture to go for the money, they will presently say, how should I come by such a bill, and that I certainly found it or stole it; so they will stop me», says he, «and take it away from me, and it may bring me into trouble for it too; so», says he, «I did say it was too big for me to meddle with, and that I would let the man have it again, if I could tell how. But for the money, Jacque, the money that we have got, I warrant you he should have none of that. Besides», says he, «whoever he be that has lost this letter-case, to be sure, as soon as he missed it, he would run to the goldsmith and give notice that if anybody came for the money they would be stopped; but I am too old for him there», says he.

      «Why», says I, «and what will you do with the bill? Will you throw it away? If you do, somebody else will find it», says I, «and they will go and take the money». «No, no», says he; «then they will be stopped and examined, as I СКАЧАТЬ