so too. Come hither, and we'll try.' But Amy did not go. 'Go, you fool', says I, 'can't you? I freely give you both leave.' But Amy would not go. 'Nay, you whore', says I, 'you said, if I would put you to bed, you would with all your heart.' And with that I sat her down, pulled off her stockings and shoes, and all her clothes piece by piece, and led her to the bed to him. 'Here', says 1, 'try what you can do with your maid Amy.' She pulled back a little, would not let me pull off her clothes at first, but it was hot weather, and she had not many clothes on, and particularly no stays on; and at last, when she saw I was in earnest, she let me do what I would. So I fairly stripped her, and then I threw open the bed and thrust her in.
I need say no more. This is enough to convince anybody that I did not think him my husband, and that I had cast off all principle and all modesty, and had effectually stifled conscience.
Amy, I dare say, began now to repent, and would fain have got out of bed again; but he said to her, 'Nay, Amy, you see your mistress has put you to bed; 'tis all her doing; you must blame her.' So he held her fast, and, the wench being naked in the bed with him, it was too late to look back, so she lay still and let him do what he would with her.
Had I looked upon myself as a wife, you cannot suppose I would have been willing to have let my husband lie with my maid, much less before my face, for I stood by all the while; but, as I thought myself a whore, I cannot say but that it was something designed in my thoughts that my maid should be a whore too, and should not reproach me with it.
Amy, however, less vicious than I, was grievously out of sorts the next morning, and cried and took on most vehemently, that she was ruined and undone, and there was no pacifying her; she was a whore, a slut, and she was undone! undone! and cried almost all day. I did all I could to pacify her. 'A whore!' says I. 'Well, and am not I a whore as well as you?' 'No, no', says Amy; 'no, you are not, for you are married.' 'Not I, Amy', says I; 'I do not pretend to it. He may marry you to morrow, if he will, for anything I could do to hinder it I am not married. I do not look upon it as anything.' Well, all did not pacify Amy, but she cried two or three days about it; but it wore off by degrees.
But the case differed between Amy and her master exceedingly; for Amy retained the same kind temper she always had; but, on the contrary, he was quite altered, for he hated her heartily, and could, I believe, have killed her after it, and he told me so, for he thought this a vile action; whereas what he and I had done he was perfectly easy in, thought it just, and esteemed me as much his wife as if we had been married from our youth, and had neither of us known any other; nay, he loved me, I believe, as entirely as if I had been the wife of his youth. Nay, he told me it was true, in one sense, that he had two wives, but that I was the wife of his affection, the other the wife of his aversion.
I was extremely concerned at the aversion he had taken to my maid Amy, and used my utmost skill to get it altered; for, though he had indeed debauched the wench, I knew that I was the principal occasion of it; and, as he was the best-humoured man in the world, I never gave him over till I prevailed with him to be easy with her, and, as I was now become the devil's agent to make others as wicked as myself, I brought him to lie with her again several times after that, till at last, as the poor girl said, so it happened, and she was really with child.
