WISE. Natural or unnatural, all is one to a thief. Besides, you must think that he had likewise companions to whom he was, for the wickedness that he saw in them, more firmly knit, than either of father or mother. Yea, and what had he cared if father and mother had died for grief for him. Their death would have been, as he would have counted, great release and liberty to him; for the truth is, they and their counsel were his bondage; yea, and if I forget not, I have heard some say that when he was, at times, among his companions he would greatly rejoice to think that his parents were old, and could not live long, and then, quoth he, I shall be mine own man, to do what I list, without their control.
ATTEN. Then it seems he counted that robbing of his parents was no crime.
WISE. None at all; and therefore he fell directly under that sentence, 'Whoso robbeth his father or his mother, and saith it is no transgression, the same is the companion of a destroyer' (Prov 28:24). And for that he set so light by them as to their persons and counsels, it was a sign that at present he was of a very abominable spirit, and that some judgment waited to take hold of him in time to come (1 Sam 2:25).
ATTEN. But can you imagine what it was, I mean, in his conceit, for I speak not now of the suggestions of Satan, by which doubtless he was put on to do these things; I say what it should be in his conceit, that should make him think that this his manner of pilfering and stealing was no great matter.
WISE. It was for that the things that he stole were small; to rob orchards, and gardens, and to steal pullen, and the like, these he counted tricks of youth, nor would he be beat out of it by all that his friends could say. They would tell him that he must not covet, or desire, and yet to desire is less than to take, even anything, the least thing that was his neighbour's; and that if he did, it would be a transgression of the law; but all was one to him; what through the wicked talk of his companions, and the delusion of his own corrupt heart, he would go on in his pilfering course, and where he thought himself secure, would talk of, and laugh at it when he had done.
ATTEN. Well I heard a man once, when he was upon the ladder with the rope about his neck, confess, when ready to be turned off by the hangman, that that which had brought him to that end was his accustoming of himself, when young, to pilfer and steal small things. To my best remembrance he told us, that he began the trade of a thief by stealing of pins and points;[15] and therefore did forewarn all the youth that then were gathered together to see him die, to take heed of beginning, though but with little sins; because by tampering at first with little ones, way is made for the commission of bigger.[16]
WISE. Since you are entered upon stories, I also will tell you one; the which, though I heard it not with mine own ears, yet my author I dare believe. It is concerning one old Tod, that was hanged about twenty years ago, or more, at Hertford, for being a thief. The story is this:—
At a summer assizes holden at Hertford, while the judge was sitting upon the bench, comes this old Tod into court, clothed in a green suit, with his leathern girdle in his hand, his bosom open, and all on a dung sweat, as if he had run for his life; and being come in, he spake aloud as follows:—My lord, saith he, here is the veriest rogue that breathes upon the face of the earth. I have been a thief from a child. When I was but a little one, I gave myself to rob orchards, and to do other such like wicked things, and I have continued a thief ever since. My lord, there has not been a robbery committed these many years, within so many miles of this place, but I have either been at it, or privy to it.
The judge thought the fellow was mad, but after some conference with some of the justices, they agreed to indict him; and so they did of several felonious actions; to all which he heartily confessed guilty, and so was hanged, with his wife at the same time.
ATTEN. This is a remarkable story indeed, and you think it is a true one.