for something to subsist on.

However, I did as he bade me, that you may be sure; and
having thus taken my leave of him, I never saw him more, for
he found means to break out of the bailiff's house that night
or the next, and go over into France, and for the rest of the
creditors scrambled for it as well as they could. How, I knew
not, for I could come at no knowledge of anything, more than
this, that he came home about three o'clock in the morning,
caused the rest of his goods to be removed into the Mint, and
the shop to be shut up; and having raised what money he could
get together, he got over, as I said, to France, from whence I
had one or two letters from him, and no more. I did not see him
when he came home, for he having given me such instructions
as above, and I having made the best of my time, I had no more
business back again at the house, not knowing but I might have
been stopped there by the creditors; for a commission of
bankrupt being soon after issued, they might have stopped me
by orders from the commissioners. But my husband, having
so dexterously got out of the bailiff's house by letting himself
down in a most desperate manner from almost the top of the
house to the top of another building, and leaping from thence,
which was almost two storeys, and which was enough indeed
to have broken his neck, he came home and got away his goods
before the creditors could come to seize; that is to say, before
they could get out the commission, and be ready to send their
officers to take possession.

My husband was so civil to me, for still I say he was much
of a gentleman, that in the first letter he wrote me from France,