ed, that I strove to clamber up the balustrade of
the bridge, in order to obtain a better view of the daring adventurers.
Before I could accomplish my design, however, I felt myself seized by the
body, and, turning my head, perceived the old fruit-woman, who was
clinging to me.

"Nay, dear! don't--don't!" said she. "Don't fling yourself over--perhaps
you may have better luck next time!"

"I was not going to fling myself over," said I, dropping from the
balustrade; "how came you to think of such a thing?"

"Why, seeing you clamber up so fiercely, I thought you might have had ill
luck, and that you wished to make away with yourself."

"Ill luck," said I, going into the stone bower and sitting down. "What
do you mean? ill luck in what?"

"Why, no great harm, dear! cly-faking, perhaps."

"Are you coming over me with dialects," said I, "speaking unto me in
fashions I wot nothing of?"

"Nay, dear! don't look so strange with those eyes of your'n, nor talk so
strangely; I don't understand you."

"Nor I you; what do you mean by cly-faking?"

"Lor, dear! no harm; only taking a handkerchief now and then."

"Do you take me for a thief?"

"Nay, dear! don't make use of bad language; we never calls them thieves
here, but prigs and fakers: to tell you the truth, dear, seeing you
spring at that railing put me in mind of my own dear son, who is now at
Bot'ny: when he had bad luck, he always used to talk of flinging himself
over the bridge; and, sure enough, when the traps were after him, he did
fling himself into the river, but that was off the bank; nevertheless,
the traps pulled him out, and he is now suffering his sentence; so you
see you may speak out, if you have done anything in the harmless line,
for I am my son's own mother, I assure you."

"So you think there's no harm in stealing?"

"No harm in the world, dear! Do you think my own child would have been
transported for it, if there had been any harm in it? and what's more,
would the blessed woman in the book here have written her life as she has
done, and given it to the world, if there had been any harm in faking?
She, too, was what they call a thief and a cut-purse; ay, and was
transported for it, like my dear son; and do you think she would have
told the world so, if there had been any harm in the thing? Oh, it is a
comfort to me that the blessed woman was transported, and came back--for
come back she did, and rich too--for it is an assurance to me that my