When he came home, he could not avoid appearing very thoughtful, and Jenny fearful of some new disaster, would not let him rest until he had acquainted her fully with his design, which he would not consent to do until she promised to comply with a proposal he was to make her, after he had revealed the secret she was so desirous to know.  When he had told her his project, she next demanded what the condition was to which she had bound herself to yield.  Benson replied that it was to remain at some place thirty or forty miles distant from where he intended to go, that she might not be exposed to any inconveniences from that unhappy figure he saw himself obliged to make.  It was with great reluctance that she ratified the consent he had given, but at length, after much persuasion, she again acknowledged he was in the right, and promised to do as he would have her.  Things being thus adjusted, nothing remained for him to do but to get ready for his journey, and that his mate might be the less timorous of the event, he told her he had procured another supply of twenty-five guineas.

His cloak-bag was soon stored with such medicines as he thought proper, and having packed up a few practical books he thought he might have occasion for, he took a place for himself and Jenny, who passed for his wife, in the stage coach for Huntingdon, at a village near which, paying the people for a month’s board, he left his consort, and having hired horses to Boston, he took a young fellow from Huntingdon with him thither.

As Benson had a very smooth tongue, so he set off the wonderful properties of his drugs in so artful a manner that in the space of a fortnight he had cleared L10 besides his expenses.  As he had left Jenny five guineas in her pocket, he wrote to her to pay the people another month’s board, and assured her that he would return within that space.  Hiring accordingly visited Sleaford, and some other great towns thereabouts, in seven weeks’ time he set out for his return into Huntingdonshire, with fifty guineas, all clear gain, in his pockets.  This good luck encouraged him to run through the greatest part of the North of England in the same manner, and within the compass of three years he cleared upwards of L500.  At the time of his making this calculation he was set down at Bristol, in order to exercise his talent in that great city; but an unexpected accident broke all his measures.  Just as his stage was set up, and he mounted, and opening his harangue which was now become familiar to him, a constable stepped up upon the stage, and told him that a gentleman had sworn a robbery directly against him, and he must go immediately before the mayor.  This put him into a lamentable confusion.  He knew himself innocent, but the character of a mountebank was sufficient to make the thing believed at first, and therefore he could not be blamed for his apprehensions, especially considering he took it as a just return for that robbery which he had committed in town, and for which he made no satisfaction when it was so fully in his power.