My mother, good woman, had no share of troubles. An old woman that bred me, commending her one day, said, she was of such a taking behaviour, that she bewitched all she had to do with; but they say, she talked something concerning her intercourse with a great he-goat, which had like to have brought her to the stake, to try whether she had anything of the nature of the salamander, and could live in fire. It was reported that she had an excellent hand at soldering cracked maidens, and disguising of grey hairs. Some gave her the name of a pleasure-broker, others of a reconciler; but the ruder sort, in coarse language, called her downright bawd, and universal money-catcher. It would make anybody in love with her to see with what a pleasant countenance she took this from all persons. I shall not spend much time in relating what a penitential life she led; but she had a room into which nobody went besides herself, and sometimes I was admitted on account of my tender years; it was all beset with dead men’s skulls, which she said were to put her in mind of mortality, though others in spite to her pretended they were to put tricks upon the living. Her bed was corded with halters malefactors had been hanged in; and she used to say to me: “D’ye see these things? I show them as remembrances to those I have a kindness for, that they may take heed how they live, and avoid coming to such an end.”
My parents had much bickering about me, each of them contending to have me brought up to his or her trade; but I, who from my infancy had more gentleman like thoughts, applied myself to neither. My father used to say to me: “My child, this trade of stealing is no mechanic trade, but a liberal art.” Then pausing and fetching a sigh, he went on: “There is no living in this world without stealing. Why do you think the constables and other officers hate us as they do? Why do they sometimes banish, sometimes whip us at the cart’s tail, and at last hang us up like flitches of bacon without waiting for All Saints’ Day to come?”[5] (I cannot refrain from tears when I think of it, for the good old man wept like a child, remembering how often they had flogged him.) “The reason is, because they would have no other thieves among them but themselves and their gang; but a sharp wit brings us out of all dangers. In my younger days I plied altogether in the churches, not out of pure religious zeal, and had been long ago carted, but that I never told tales, though they put me to the rack; for I never confessed but when our holy mother the Church commands us. With this business and my trade, I have made a shift to maintain your mother as decently as I could.” “You maintain me!” answered my mother, in a great rage (for she was vexed I would not apply me to the sorcery), “it was I that maintained you; I brought you out of prison by my art, and kept you there with my money. You may thank the potions I gave you for not confessing, and not your own courage. My good pots did the feat; and were it not for fear I should be heard in the streets, I would tell all the story, how I got in at the chimney, and brought you out at the top of the house.” Her passion was so high, that she would not have given over here, had not the string of a pair of beads broke, which were all dead men’s teeth she kept for private uses. I told them very resolutely I would apply myself to virtue, and go on in the good way I had proposed, and therefore desired them to put me to school, for nothing was to be done without reading and writing. They approved of what I said, though they both muttered at it a while betwixt them. My mother fell to stringing her dead men’s teeth, and my father went away, as he said, to trim one—I know not whether he meant his beard or his purse. I was left alone, praising God that he had given me such clever parents, and so zealous for my welfare.