The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2)

by Daniel Defoe

tobusiness, he had no knowledge of his accounts; he bustled a little aboutit, indeed, at first, and put on a face of business, but he soon grewslack; it was below him to inspect his books, he committed all that tohis clerks and book-keepers; and while he found money in cash to pay themaltman and the excise, and put some in his pocket, he was perfectlyeasy and indolent, let the main chance go how it would.

  I foresaw the consequence of this, and attempted several times topersuade him to apply himself to his business; I put him in mind how hiscustomers complained of the neglect of his servants on one hand, and howabundance broke in his debt, on the other hand, for want of the clerk'scare to secure him, and the like; but he thrust me by, either with hardwords, or fraudulently, with representing the cases otherwise than theywere.

  However, to cut short a dull story, which ought not to be long, he beganto find his trade sunk, his stock declined, and that, in short, he couldnot carry on his business, and once or twice his brewing utensils wereextended for the excise; and, the last time, he was put to greatextremities to clear them.

  This alarmed him, and he resolved to lay down his trade; which, indeed,I was not sorry for; foreseeing that if he did not lay it down in time,he would be forced to do it another way, namely, as a bankrupt. Also Iwas willing he should draw out while he had something left, lest Ishould come to be stripped at home, and be turned out of doors with mychildren; for I had now five children by him, the only work (perhaps)that fools are good for.

  I thought myself happy when he got another man to take his brewhouseclear off his hands; for, paying down a large sum of money, my husbandfound himself a clear man, all his debts paid, and with between two andthree thousand pounds in his pocket; and being now obliged to removefrom the brewhouse, we took a house at ----, a village about two milesout of town; and happy I thought myself, all things considered, that Iwas got off clear, upon so good terms; and had my handsome fellow hadbut one capful of wit, I had been still well enough.

  I proposed to him either to buy some place with the money, or with partof it, and offered to join my part to it, which was then in being, andmight have been secured; so we might have lived tolerably at leastduring his life. But as it is the part of a fool to be void of counsel,so he neglected it, lived on as he did before, kept his horses and men,rid every day out to the forest a-hunting, and nothing was done all thiswhile; but the money decreased apace, and I thought I saw my ruinhastening on without any possible way to prevent it.

  I was not wanting with all that persuasions and entreaties couldperform, but it was all fruitless; representing to him how fast ourmoney wasted, and what would be our condition when it was gone, made noimpression on him; but like one stupid, he went on, not valuing all thattears and lamentations could be supposed to do; nor did he abate hisfigure or equipage, his horses or servants, even to the last, till hehad not a hundred pounds left in the whole world.

  It was not above three years that all the ready money was thus spendingoff; yet he spent it, as I may say, foolishly too, for he kept novaluable company neither, but generally with huntsmen andhorse-coursers, and men meaner than himself, which is anotherconsequence of a man's being a fool; such can never take delight in menmore wise and capable than themselves, and that makes them conversewith scoundrels, drink, belch with porters, and keep company alwaysbelow themselves.

  This was my wretched condition, when one morning my husband told me hewas sensible he was come to a miserable condition, and he would go andseek his fortune somewhere or other. He had said something to thatpurpose several times before that, upon my pressing him to consider hiscircumstances, and the circumstances of his family, before it should betoo late; but as I found he had no meaning in anything of that kind, as,indeed, he had not much in anything he ever said, so I thought they werebut words of course now. When he had said he would be gone, I used towish secretly, and even say in my thoughts, I wish you would, for if yougo on thus you will starve us all.

  He stayed, however, at home all that day, and lay at home that night;early the next morning he gets out of bed, goes to a window which lookedout towards the stable, and sounds his French horn, as he called it,which was his usual signal to call his men to go out a-hunting.

  It was about the latter end of August, and so was light yet at fiveo'clock, and it was about that time that I heard him and his two men goout and shut the yard gates after them. He said nothing to me more thanas usual when he used to go out upon his sport; neither did I rise, orsay anything to him that was material, but went to sleep again after hewas gone, for two hours or thereabouts.

  It must be a little surprising to the reader to tell him at once, thatafter this I never saw my husband more; but, to go farther, I not onlynever saw him more, but I never heard from him, or of him, neither ofany or either of his two servants, or of the horses, either what becameof them, where or which way they went, or what they did or intended todo, no more than if the ground had opened and swallowed them all up, andnobody had known it, except as hereafter.

  I was not, for the first night or two, at all surprised, no, nor verymuch the first week or two, believing that if anything evil had befallenthem, I should soon enough have heard of that; and also knowing, that ashe had two servants and three horses with him, it would be the strangestthing in the world that anything could befall them all but that I mustsome time or other hear of them.

  But you will easily allow, that as time ran on, a week, two weeks, amonth, two months, and so on, I was dreadfully frighted at last, and themore when I looked into my own circumstances, and considered thecondition in which I was left with five children, and not one farthingsubsistence for them, other than about seventy pounds in money, and whatfew things of value I had about me, which, though considerable inthemselves, were yet nothing to feed a family, and for a length of timetoo.

  THE BREWER AND HIS MEN

  I heard him and his two men go out and shut the yard gates after them]

  What to do I knew not, nor to whom to have recourse: to keep in thehouse where I was, I could not, the rent being too great; and to leaveit without his orders, if my husband should return, I could not think ofthat neither; so that I continued extremely perplexed, melancholy, anddiscouraged to the last degree.

  I remained in this dejected condition near a twelvemonth. My husband hadtwo sisters, who were married, and lived very well, and some other nearrelations that I knew of, and I hoped would do something for me; and Ifrequently sent to these, to know if they could give me any account ofmy vagrant creature. But they all declared to me in answer, that theyknew nothing about him; and, after frequent sending, began to think metroublesome, and to let me know they thought so too, by their treatingmy maid with very slight and unhandsome returns to her inquiries.

  This grated hard, and added to my affliction; but I had no recourse butto my tears, for I had not a friend of my own left me in the world. Ishould have observed, that it was about half a year before thiselopement of my husband that the disaster I mentioned above befell mybrother, who broke, and that in such bad circumstances, that I had themortification to hear, not only that he was in prison, but that therewould be little or nothing to be had by way of composition.

  Misfortunes seldom come alone: this was the forerunner of my husband'sflight; and as my expectations were cut off on that side, my husbandgone, and my family of children on my hands, and nothing to subsistthem, my condition was the most deplorable that words can express.

  I had some plate and some jewels, as might be supposed, my fortune andformer circumstances considered; and my husband, who had never stayed tobe distressed, had not been put to the necessity of rifling me, ashusbands usually do in such cases. But as I had seen an end of all theready money during the long time I had lived in a state of expectationfor my husband, so I began to make away one thing after another, tillthose few things of value which I had began to lessen apace, and I sawnothing but misery and the utmost distress before me, even to have mychildren starve before my face. I leave any one that is a mother ofchildren, and has li
ved in plenty and in good fashion, to consider andreflect what must be my condition. As to my husband, I had now no hopeor expectation of seeing him any more; and indeed, if I had, he was aman of all the men in the world the least able to help me, or to haveturned his hand to the gaining one shilling towards lessening ourdistress; he neither had the capacity or the inclination; he could havebeen no clerk, for he scarce wrote a legible hand; he was so far frombeing able to write sense, that he could not make sense of what otherswrote; he was so far from understanding good English, that he could notspell good English; to be out of all business was his delight, and hewould stand leaning against a post for half-an-hour together, with apipe in his mouth, with all the tranquillity in the world, smoking, likeDryden's countryman, that whistled as he went for want of thought, andthis even when his family was, as it were, starving, that little he hadwasting, and that we were all bleeding to death; he not knowing, and aslittle considering, where to get another shilling when the last