CHAPTER XIV

THE ROADS OUT OF LONDON (_continued_)

III.—THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Could the gay highwaymen who, a hundred years ago, were gathered to

their fathers at the end of a rope, down Tyburn way, revisit Finchley,

the poor fellows would sadly need a guide. Where, alas! is Finchley

Common, that wide-spreading expanse of evil omen on which those jovial

spirits were so thoroughly at home? Finchley Common, has long since

been divided up between the squatters who grabbed the public land when

Justice winked the other eye, as Justice had a trick of doing years

ago, when the process of enclosing commons was in full swing. There

still exists a large oak-tree by the road at a place called Brown's

Wells, opposite the "Green Man," and in the trunk of this last survival

of the "good old times" there have been found, from time to time, quite

a number of pistol bullets; the said bullets supposed to have been

fired at the trunk to frighten the highwaymen who might chance to be

hiding behind it, under cover of the night. The tree itself has long

borne the name of "Turpin's Oak," no less celebrated a person than the

redoubtable Dick himself having once frequented it. Turpin, of course,

is the greatest of all the rascals who made the name of the Great

North Road a name of dread. Before him, however, Jack Sheppard figured

here; but not, it is sad to relate, in an heroic manner. In fact,

that nimble-fingered youth who was no highwayman—merely a pickpocket

and housebreaker—after escaping from the "Stone Jug" (by which piece

of classic slang you are to understand Newgate is meant) had the

humiliation to be apprehended on Finchley Common, disguised in drink

and a butcher's blue smock. That was the worst of those roystering

blades. The drink was the undoing of them all. If only they had been

Good Templars, or sported the blue ribbon, it is quite certain that

they had not been cut off untimely; and might, with reasonable luck,

have even retired with a modest competence in early years.

One of the most savagely dramatic encounters on Finchley Common was

that which was enacted on July 11th, 1699, with "Captain" Edmund Tooll,

_alias_ Tooley, prominent on one side, and an unfortunate gentleman,

Mr. Robert Leader, on the other. Mr. Leader was travelling from London

across this waste, in company with his servant, when he was set upon

by Tooll and some companions (one of whom afterwards turned King's

evidence). They stripped Mr. Leader and his man, and, knocking the

unlucky gentleman down, brutally stamped on his face and stomach,

until, fearing he was to be killed, he begged pitifully for his life to

be spared. He then attempted to run away, and the blood-thirsty Tooll

shot him in the back, and wounded him so seriously that he died on the

following day. When Tooll was at length arrested, at the "Blue Ball,"

in Jermyn Street, he was wearing some of the murdered man's clothes. He

violently resisted, fired upon the officers, and, shortening a sword

he held, attempted to stab one of them. He retained this spirit even

in the dock, for when his resistance of arrest was mentioned, he said

he was only sorry he had not stabbed the officer to the heart. He was

executed, impenitent to the last, on February 2nd, 1700, and afterwards

hanged in chains on Finchley Common.

It was in 1724 that Jack Sheppard was arrested by Bow Street runners

on the Common, and the fact somewhat staggers one's belief in the wild

lawlessness of that place. One might just as soon expect to hear of the

Chief Commissioner of Police being kidnapped from Scotland Yard. And

yet it is quite certain Finchley was no safe place for a good young man

with five pounds in his pocket and a mere walking-stick in his hand,

whether he proposed to cross it by night or day. Even sixty-six years

later this evil reputation existed; for, in 1790, the Earl of Minto,

travelling to London, wrote to his wife that, instead of pushing on to

town at night, he would defer his entry until morning, "for I shall not

trust my throat on Finchley Common in the dark." Think of it! And Dick

Turpin had been duly executed fifty years before!

Between 1700 and 1800, in fact, this was a parlous place, and not one

of the better-known highwaymen but had tried his hand at "touching

the mails" as they went across this waste; or patrolled the darkest

side of the road, ready to spring upon the solitary traveller. Indeed,

the childlike simplicity of the lonely travellers of those days is

absolutely contemptible, considering the well-known dangers of the

roads. For instance, on the night of August 28th, 1720, a horseman

might have been observed in the act of crossing Finchley Common. He had

fifteen guineas in his pocket, and ambled along as though he had been

in Pall Mall, instead of on perhaps the most dangerous road in England.

At a respectable distance behind him came his servant, and, just in

front of him, midway of this howling wilderness, stood three figures.

"There is an eye that notes our coming," says the poet, and three pairs

of eyes had perceived this wayfarer. They belonged to an enterprising

individual named Spiggott and to two other ruffians whose names have

not been handed down to posterity. The weirdly named Spiggott was

apparently above disguising himself; his companions, however, might

have taken the parts of stage brigands, for one of them had the cape

of his coat buttoned over his chin, and the other wore a slouched hat

over his eyes. In addition to this, he kept the ends of his long wig in

his mouth—which seems rather a comic-opera touch than serious business.

It was, however, a favourite and effectual way with highwaymen of

disguising themselves. It is to be hoped, rather than expected, that

the traveller with the guineas saw the humour of it.

In the twinkling of an eye one brigand had seized his horse and made

him dismount, while the others covered him with their pistols. The

servant also was secured, the guineas transferred with the dexterity

of a practised conjurer, the horses turned loose, and then the three

rode away, leaving the traveller and his servant to get on as best

they could. Spiggott, in 1720, eventually paid the penalty of his

rashness in not disguising himself in accordance with the canons of

his high-toby craft, as taught on the stage, and in novels of the

eighteenth century, in which crape-masks are essential. When he was

caught, with some others, in an attempt on the Wendover waggon at

Tyburn, he was identified by the Finchley traveller. The end of him

was the end of all his kind, but it was not accomplished without

considerable trouble. He, with another prisoner named Thomas Phillips,

was in due form, and on several counts, indicted for highway robbery.

Both refused to plead, and stood silent in the dock. There was in those

times a fearful penalty for refusing to plead to an indictment: the

penalty known to legal jurisprudence as _peine forte et dure_, which

was, rendered into ordinary English, "pressing to death." The space at

Newgate long known as the Press Yard took its name from being the place

where this savage penalty was inflicted.

There was every inducement in those times for a criminal to refuse

to plead to his indictment. If he pleaded, and was eventually found

guilty, his property was, under the law as it then stood, forfeited to

the Crown, and his relations, even his wife and children, were deprived

of their very livelihood. A man might at one and the same time be an

unmitigated scoundrel, and yet have the very tenderest feelings for his

own, and many such an one endured the fearful martyrdom of pressing

to death in order to preserve his belongings to those who had been

dependent on him. For by enduring so much he could save everything, and

will it as he would.

The official sentence passed upon those who thus "stood mute of

malice," as the phrase ran, was "That the prisoner shall be remanded to

the place from whence he came, and put in a low, dark room, and there

laid on his back, without any manner of covering except a cloth round

his middle; and that as many weights shall be laid upon him as he can

bear, and more; and that he shall have no more sustenance but of the

worst bread and water, and that he shall not eat on the same day on

which he drinks, nor drink on the same day on which he eats; and he

shall so continue until he die." A refinement of this torture, more

worthy of a demon than a human being, was to place a sharp stone under

the prisoner's body.

Spiggott and Phillips were both sentenced to this ordeal, and Phillips

was taken in hand first. His courage, however, was not sufficient,

and he asked pitifully to be allowed to stand again in the dock and

plead. This was granted him, rather by way of a favour than as a right,

and he pleaded not guilty, but was convicted and in course of events

hanged.

William Spiggott was made of somewhat sterner stuff, and elected to

be pressed rather than plead. He was then, as the old picture shows,

stretched out upon the floor, his hands and feet secured, a board

placed upon his chest, and weights up to 350 lbs. gradually added. He

endured half an hour of this, but on another 50-lb. weight being added,

gasped out that he would plead. Such were the Chinese-like methods of

dealing with criminals in Merry England in the Good Old Days. Exactly

who those old days were good for, except the privileged classes, we may

long seek to discover; not with any very great hope of success.

[Illustration: SPIGGOTT PRESSED AT NEWGATE.]

Spiggott, being then graciously permitted to plead, was in his turn

tried, found guilty, and hanged at Tyburn. He is notable as having been

the last criminal to suffer this penalty.

Nathaniel Hawes, who practised on Finchley Common about the same time

as Spiggott and his friends, was taken in 1721 in an unsuccessful

attempt to rob a gentleman on that wild spot. Not only was his attempt

a failure, but he was himself taken prisoner and handed over to justice

by his intended victim. He also refused to plead. He would die, he

declared, as he had lived, a gentleman. The reason for his refusing to

plead was that the brave clothes in which he had been seized were taken

off his back. Like most of his contemporaries, he had a mind, if he

must make the journey to Tyburn, to go there respectably, and to cut a

dash to the last. He would plead if they were returned, but not unless.

"No one shall say I was hanged in a dirty shirt and a ragged coat."

So they pressed this most particular fellow up to 250 lbs. After a few

minutes he declared himself ready, nay anxious, to plead, and he was

accordingly put back, tried, and found guilty: going those three miles

to Tyburn after all, it is melancholy to relate, in the grimy shirt and

tattered duds of his very proper aversion.

Of the other names in the long and distinguished roll of road-agents

who figure on Finchley Common at some time or another in their

meteoric careers, it is not possible here to say much. There were the

resourceful and courageous Captain Hind, the whimsically named "Old

Mob," burly Tom Cox, Neddy Wicks, and Claude Du Vall. They have, most

of them, their separate niches in these pages.

Room, however, by your leave, for those thoroughly business-like

men, Messrs. Everett and Williams, who entered into a duly drawn and

properly attested deed of partnership, by which it was agreed that they

should work together on Finchley Common and elsewhere, and divide the

profits of their labours into equal shares. Their industry prospered,

and the common fund soon reached the very respectable total of £2,000.

But when required to render accounts, and to pay over half this amount,

Mr. Williams, treasurer of this precious firm, refused. The old proverb

of "Honour among thieves" was therefore proved a fallacy. Everett

thereupon brought an action at law against his defaulting partner,

and a verdict for £20 was actually obtained, and appealed against by

the defendant. The court then very properly found the whole matter

scandalous, bad in law, and contrary to public policy. Everett was

sentenced to pay costs, and the lawyers engaged on either side were

fined £50 each for their part in this discreditable affair.

IV.—THE OXFORD ROAD

The way through Uxbridge and High Wycombe to Oxford is largely

illustrated elsewhere in these pages, in the biographies of "Old Mob,"

and of Withers, in which Uxbridge and the neighbourhood of Hillingdon

figure largely. Having once passed Hillingdon, travellers were

comparatively unmolested until they came to Shotover Hill, near Oxford.

Shotover Hill was the scene of the barber's encounter with a knight

of the road. The barber, travelling afoot with a sum of money, had

been foolish enough to explain, in the parlour of an inn, how he had

cunningly hidden his store among the implements of his trade he was

carrying with him. Arrived on the hill-top, he was accosted by the

figure of a road-agent who had, "from information received," a very

accurate knowledge of how much money the barber was carrying, and where

he carried it.

"Wer—what do you wer—want?" asked the trembling barber.

"Only a sher—shave," rejoined the knight of the road, mocking the man's

frightened speech; "so out with your shaving-pot and razor, and fall

to't!" And he sat himself down on the grassy bank.

With fumbling hands the barber undid his bag, and brought forth the

shaving tackle, whereupon the highwayman, stretching his legs as though

by accident, managed to upset the pot. Over it went, and smashed upon a

stone, displaying that store of golden guineas.

"Ho, ho, my friend!" said the highwayman. "You're not so poor as you

thought. 'Tis treasure-trove, indeed, and of right belongs to the

King. God bless him! But since His Majesty has small need of a matter

of twenty guineas, and I a very pressing one, I'll e'en pouch them

myself!" And, so doing, and vaulting into the saddle, he was gone.

Along this same route, in the woodland road between West Wycombe and

Stokenchurch, Jack Shrimpton, the highwayman, met a barrister who

greatly admired the horse Shrimpton was riding, and offered him £30 for

it. Needless to say, the coin promptly changed hands, but the horse did

not.

Shrimpton was a native of Buckinghamshire, and was born at Penn, near

Beaconsfield. He had been in his youth apprenticed to the soap-making

trade, and was afterwards in the army.

One day he happened in a roadside inn upon a traveller who chanced to

be the common hangman. He took a glass of wine with him, and, talking

over his profession, he asked the hangman, "What is the reason, when

you perform your office, that you put the knot just under the ear? In

my opinion, if you were to fix it in the nape of the neck, it would be

easier for the sufferer."

The hangman said, "I have hanged a great many in my time, sir; but,

upon my word, I have never yet had any complaint. However, if it should

be your good luck to make use of me, I will, to oblige you, hang you

after your own way."

"I want none of your favours," replied Shrimpton heatedly, for the joke

had struck nearer home than the hangman could have imagined.

In yet another incident, Shrimpton does not figure to advantage; and,

one way and another, we shall not perhaps be ungenerous if we think him

to have been something of an ass.

Meeting a miller who had failed in business, and, losing his all,

had taken to the high-toby profession, he was summoned to "Stand!"

Shrimpton was mounted and armed; the miller was on foot, and had only a

cudgel, and when the practised highwayman produced his pistol, abjectly

surrendered.

"Surely," said Shrimpton, disgusted with such an amateurish method,

"you are but a young highwayman, or you would have knocked me down

first and bade me to stand afterwards."

He then confided to the miller that he had recently robbed a neighbour

of £150, and was now waiting for a traveller who was coming with

six-score guineas. "Assist me," he said, "and you shall have half the

booty."

The miller agreed, but presently, taking Shrimpton off his guard,

knocked him down from behind with his cudgel. As the unfortunate

highwayman lay in the road, slowly regaining consciousness, he saw the

treacherous and villainous miller pouching his gold, and preparing to

hastily depart with his horse.

"Good-bye," said the miller, "and, harkye, be off as soon as you

can, or I'll have you hanged for robbing your neighbour, by your own

confession."

"Thus," says the old historian of these things, "the Biter was bit,

and Shrimpton swore he would nevermore take upon himself to learn

strangers how to rob upon the highway." Excellent resolution! But he

had little time wherein to put it into practice, for he was presently

hanged, while his career was yet young, on St. Michael's Hill, Bristol,

September 4th, 1713.

Of later travellers, by coach or by postchaise, who, fully aware of

the risks they ran on all these great roads running out of London, hid

their valuables carefully in their boots and other places of which they

imagined the highwaymen could have no suspicion, there is not much

space left here to tell. Let it, however, be said that those highwaymen

were as well-informed as are modern Customs officers of likely places

for secreting property; and when the coaches and chaises were stopped,

and the travellers bidden hand over their money and watches, it was no

use for them to declare that they had nothing. At the pistol-muzzle

they were bidden take off their boots or other articles of dress. This

was humorously known among the highwaymen as "shelling the peas."

[Illustration: "SHELLING THE PEAS."]

MOLL CUTPURSE: THE "ROARING GIRL"

[Illustration:

MOLL CUTPURSE.]

Moll Cutpurse must needs have a place here, by right of her intimate

association with the highwaymen, rather than her own exploits. She was

not, in fact, a highway robber at all; nor, of course, was her name

Cutpurse, but Mary Frith. The daughter of a shoemaker, whose name,

as a reporter of the old school might say, does not "transpire," she

was born in Barbican, City of London, in 1592. Tradition tells how

she was born with clenched fists: sure sign of a wild and adventurous

nature. Her muscles and her spirit alike were mannish. As a girl, she

was, in the obsolete language of the seventeenth century, a "tom-rig"

and "rump-scuttle"; and a "quarter-staff" was more agreeable to her

than a distaff. And not only more agreeable, but more natural, and she

worsted many a pretty fellow in fair fight with that weapon, with which

only the strong and the active could prevail. Her father proposed to

apprentice her to a saddler, but she refused, and she was put aboard

a ship bound for Virginia, to be sold into the plantations. It seems

a drastic way with a rebellious daughter; but it failed, for Moll

escaped before even the ship had left the Port of London. Love never

entered into the career of Moll, and as she had the strength of a man

and a masculine voice that procured her the name of the "Roaring Girl,"

she early concluded to wear masculine attire. In Middleton's comedy,

written about her when she was still young, he makes a character

declare: "She has the spirit of four great parishes, and a voice

that will drown all the city." It will thus be seen that she was at

an early age well known to those who lived their life in London. And

for excellent reasons. She had not only become a member of a gang of

thieves and pickpockets, who frequented the Bear Garden in Southwark

and other popular resorts, but had graduated with amazing ease and

swiftness in the art of slitting pockets and extracting purses, and

from that had by force of an organising brain elevated herself into the

position of a plotter of robberies and high directress of clyfakers

and bung-snatchers. So well was the destination known of most of the

watches and trinkets that were continually disappearing, that the

owners of them were often knocking at her door in Fleet Street, ready

to ransom their property for a well-recognised percentage of its value,

before the thieves had returned with it; and they had to be politely

requested to call again. In those halcyon days of the receivers of

stolen property, before the evil career of Jonathan Wild had caused an

Act of Parliament to be passed, dealing with them on the same footing

as the actual thieves, much was done in this way of ransom and ready

brokerage, and, so long as it was done with discretion, with advantage

to all concerned. The owners got their own again, with the expenditure

of a comparatively trifling sum, the gang carried on their operations

with a large degree of security, and the wily Moll made an excellent

income. She was witty and original, and—such was the spirit of the

age—she became rather the fashion among the riotous young blades of

town, who were then "seeing life." The highwaymen knew her well, and

resorted to her house when they had taken watches and jewellery they

could not themselves, without the gravest risk, endeavour to sell. They

trusted her, and the public, coming to redeem the articles, did the

same; and indeed, as intermediary between losers and finders, she was

honesty itself: absolutely beyond suspicion.

Thus wagged the merry days until the Civil War altered the complexion

of things. The times had been growing, for some few years before,

curiously out of joint. The people, once taken with the mad pranks and

outrageous humours of the society in which she moved, had grown more

serious-minded, and the gay gallants who still continued to "see life"

were no longer regarded with indulgence. The ripple of Puritanism that

had arisen in the time of James the First and had then been little more

than a religious expression, had increased in the time of his son to

an overwhelming wave of politico-religious fury. It swept on, blotting

out the theatres, frowning down all levity and finally breaking into

warfare between the two different ideals cherished by Roundheads and

Royalists.

The gallants naturally became Cavaliers, and went warring for their

King over the country; but in the City there was a strict, stern way

of regarding things that did Moll's business no good. Like all her

associates, she was a Royalist. The alliance perhaps does that cause no

service in the pages of history; but we must take it as we find it, and

make the best or the worst of the fact, just as our own partisanship

dictates.

She detailed trusty members of her organisation to persecute, in their

own particular way, leading members of the detested party that had

acquired political ascendency. On one occasion, while they robbed Lady

Fairfax on her way to church, the "Roaring Girl" herself set out,

according to the legend, to rob the husband, Fairfax, the Parliamentary

general, with her own hands, on Hounslow Heath. It seems beyond belief,

but the tale is at any rate a very old one, to be traced back almost as

far as her own day. The story tells how she shot Fairfax in the arm,

killed two horses ridden by the servants attending him, and secured all

the money the general had with him. We may go so far as to concede that

this was what the "Roaring Girl" would have rejoiced to do, had it been

possible; but imagination refuses to carry us further.

Moll's fortune declined during the long years of the Commonwealth,

which fact is, at any rate, something for Cromwellians to plume

themselves upon. That she should live to see the Restoration and

Charles the Second upon the throne, was one of her most ardent desires.

She never doubted that he would be restored, and was careful to leave

a sum of twenty pounds, by will, to celebrate the event, if it should

happen to be deferred beyond her time. She died of dropsy, just one

year before the Restoration took place.

CAPTAIN PHILIP STAFFORD

I do not think, if the highwaymen were with us again, that they would

be treated by their victims with the extraordinary lenience shown

them in those (in that respect) easy-going seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries. It was commonly sufficient for a "knight of the road" who

had been good enough to refrain from abuse or personal violence to say

at parting, "God bless you," and then to shake hands with his victim,

for that victim to go his way and never think of laying an information.

And that is one of the reasons why the high-toby trade flourished so

bravely in times when to be convicted of highway robbery meant death.

The law, in fact, overreached itself, and the awful extremity of the

penalty, so far from discouraging highwaymen, really encouraged their

kind; for those were, after all, not the heartless periods we are

taught to think them, and comparatively few were prepared to swear away

the life of a fellow-creature in revenge for the loss of guineas or

jewellery. Had the penalty been less tragic there would have been more

informations.

But it was in the years following the Civil War, ending with the

execution of Charles the First, that the roads in general, and

Maidenhead Thicket in particular, attained their greatest notoriety.

The whole country, indeed, swarmed with the adventurers who had

attached themselves to the fortunes of the Cavalier party, and with

gentlemen ruined in the cause of the King; their property sequestrated

by Parliament and their persons subject to arrest. When the fighting

was done, many of them became brigands and preyed upon honest men. If

their victims chanced to be of the opposite faction, well and good;

but it really mattered little to them of whom they levied unlawful

tribute upon the road, and in short, the broken Cavaliers turned

highwaymen, of whom we read in the classic pages of Smith and Johnson,

were no favourable advertisement of their defeated party. Captain

Alexander Smith, to whose diligence we owe the accounts of these

seventeenth-century highwaymen, was himself of Royalist sympathies:

the fact peeps out from almost every page of his work; but he had not

the wit to see that the careers of his sorry heroes, as told by him,

show them in general to be bullies, ready at a moment's notice, with a

gush of cant, to justify their acts, fully as revolting as any of the

cant that ever proceeded from what we are taught to believe was the

canting party. They were a scoundrelly crew, whose highway work was but

an incident, and that a comparatively venial one, in lives compact of

almost incredible viciousness.

A prominent figure was that of Philip Stafford, a desperate fellow who,

born about 1622, and originally the son of a gentleman-farmer in the

neighbourhood of Newbury, had seen some fighting for the King, and,

like many another highwayman of that period, was known as "captain."

Maidenhead Thicket was a favourite lurk of his. Here it was he met a

clergyman, shot his horse, robbed him of forty guineas, and bound him

to a tree.

We read that Stafford soon grew successful in his profession and

amassed a considerable sum of money; and then thought it well to

retreat to a village in the north of England, and live there in a

retired and frugal manner. It does not seem a characteristic resolution

for a highwayman to take. The quiet life, it might be supposed, would

not suit such an one. But such is the story told of him.

The more to avoid suspicion, he assumed the appearance of sanctity, and

attended the village church and the parish meetings, and soon acquired

great popularity as a speaker among the simple country people. After he

had continued there about a year the minister died, and we are expected

to believe the fantastic story that Stafford was elected in his stead,

and that he "acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction" of the

people; until, indeed, he went off with the plate.

He then, tired of the simple life, resumed his evil courses. Near

Reading he waylaid a farmer, jogging home from market, and, worming

himself into the unsuspecting man's confidence, found he had with

him £33, the price of two loads of wheat just sold. He relieved

the unfortunate man of that sum; but this was his last exploit.

According to Johnson, he had scarcely taken leave of the farmer when

two gentlemen, well mounted, came up, and, being informed of what

had happened, rode after Stafford, and, in the space of an hour,

overtook and dismounted him, seized the money, and carried him before

a Justice of the Peace, who committed him to prison. At the ensuing

Assizes he was tried and condemned. During his imprisonment he lived

in a sumptuous manner, and, after the lax customs of the time, was

even visited by many of his own profession, who formed a plan for his

escape. But rumours of this being noised about, the day of execution

was changed, and the scheme for his rescue was foiled.

He made the customary brave show at that last scene. Dressed in "a

fine light suit of clothes, with a nosegay in his breast," he at first

appeared perfectly unconcerned, and seems to have been the first of a

long line of bold fellows who, given a last drink at a tavern on the

way, promised to pay for it when they returned: an excellent jest.

But, arriving at the place of execution at Reading, looking wistfully

around, and seeking to prolong the preliminaries, in hope of that

promised rescue, he faltered and trembled when the looked-for friends

made no appearance. Presenting the sheriff with a paper containing a

short account of his adventures, he was duly hanged.

"By his particular desire," the sheriff had him buried under the tower

of St. Mary's Church.

CAPTAIN JAMES HIND, THE "PRINCE OF PRIGS"

By a general consensus of the opinions current in his age, Captain

James Hind was incomparable among his fellow-highwaymen for courage,

for resource, and for courtesy, and succeeding ages, although prolific

in highwaymen, failed to produce the like of him.

James Hind was born in 1616 at Chipping Norton, the son of a saddler,

and began life as apprentice to a butcher of that town. The lives

of celebrated men, as told in popular biographies, afford many

contradictions, and the career of Hind, set forth in the innumerable

chapbooks of his own period, of the era of the Catnach press, and in

a robustious kind of juvenile gutter-literature, that has survived

even to our own day, is told in a variety of ways. His course was

sufficiently adventurous, but his biographers have not condescended to

the critical attitude; and thus, among the tales of wonder in which

he moves, there are doubtless many that have simply accrued, just

as the house-flies of summer are attracted to fly-papers. Indeed,

as the highwaymen have ever been something (and generally a good

deal) of heroes, so legends inevitably have gathered round them. If

their exploits have not found a Homer to do for them what the Greek

poet performed for the heroes of the _Iliad_, that is merely their

misfortune, and they have had to be content with a Smith, a Johnson,

and the trivial production of scribblers fortunate in anonymity.

Among the earliest of the chapbooks dealing with the short life and

merry of Captain Hind is that scarce and curious print entitled _No

Jest like a True Jest_, which presents us with what is quaintly styled

"the true Protracture" of him, reproduced here. Observe his gallant

bearing, the bravery of his dress, his winning smile, his lady-like

feet! He carries a formidable pistol, it is true, but as you note him

standing so debonair beside his gallant charger, you perceive, as it

were, the courtesy and consideration that unfailingly accompanied his

actions, shining out behind the rude methods of the old wood-engraver

who seems to have hewed the portrait out of the wood with a billhook.

[Illustration: THE "TRUE PROTRACTURE" OF CAPTAIN HIND.]

According to _No Jest like a True Jest_, which is but indifferently

truthful in many of its details, and does not strike one as being a

jest-book, Hind's father, before apprenticing him to a butcher, "put

him to school, intending to make him a Scholar, but he minded his

wagish Pastimes more than his Book," and so all ideas of a liberal

education were cut off. Nor was the apprenticeship to the butchering

more successful, for he, "having a Running Pate, soon grew weary

of that also, and in conclusion ran away from his Master." Excusing

himself, by complaining of the rough and quarrelsome character of the

master, he borrowed two pounds from his mother, and fled to London.

He was fifteen years of age at this time, and, if we may believe the

biographers—a difficult enough exercise—"he soon contracted a relish

for the pleasures of the town. A bottle and a female companion became

his principal delight, and occupied the greater part of his time. So

precocious were the 'prentice-boys of the early seventeenth century,

and so far did forty shillings go!"

Ere long this youthful adventurer found his way into the society

of highwaymen. It was in the Poultry Compter, whither he had been

consigned for his part in a drunken riot, that he first made the

acquaintance of Robert Allen, who was expert in most thievish arts.

Over a bottle they struck up a friendship, and Allen presently

introduced him to the gang he himself captained. They were mounted men,

and the first test of the young recruit was the choice of a horse.

He chose, with the unerring judgment in horseflesh that was one of

his distinguishing characteristics through life, the best animal in

the stable. Taken then to Shooter's Hill, and set to bid the first

traveller "Stand and deliver!" he acquitted himself in so finished a

manner as to win the respect of his new comrades, who, witnessing the

exploit from the leafy coverts beside the road, could not withhold

their admiration.

[Illustration:

Here now thou seest me as a Butcher's Boy,

And sporting with a Dog in Merriment;

Hereafter, thou wilt read the Tricks I play,

Which may afford Thee pleasure and content.

For there's no Robb'ry yet I ere did doe,

But doth contain at least a jest or two.]

The horseman whom he thus robbed instantly handed over the ten guineas

he was possessed of, and was no doubt bitterly wondering how he was

to get home in a penniless state, when Hind courteously returned him

one guinea. "This," said he, "is for handsel sake." The watching band

of highwaymen marvelled greatly. Here was an intrepid youngster, the

coolest hand at robbery, courteously giving back a percentage of his

honest earnings. They were witnessing the foundation of a new school

in an old art, a school that, although its fit pupils were few and

far between, did at least establish a tradition that, while it did

not greatly advantage the travelling world, did at least serve to

win a long line of highwaymen an amount of forbearance that seems to

us moderns almost incredible. The law visited highway robbery with

sentences of the utmost ferocity, but individuals, as a general rule,

took their losses, not only with an astonishing philosophy, but with a

remarkable display of good-nature.

Insult a man, and he may brook it,

But keep your hands out of his breeches pocket,

says a well-known couplet; but here we have the strange spectacle of

courtesy disarming the resentment caused by the turning out of those

pockets! Hind was not yet the holder of a commission, but he was

evidently already captain of himself.

Those were successful years, in which Hind scoured the roads with

Allen's band. They robbed by wholesale, but never did the gentlemanly

Hind omit the courteous formula of raising his hat on requesting a

delivery. Your tax-gatherer and rate-collector of modern times do not

do so much, in the presentation of their "Demand Notes."

Not only did Allen's gang pervade the country upon horseback: they

conducted operations in lordly style, travelling often in carriages, or

setting forth, some equipped as noblemen and others as their servants,

all the better to conduct their campaign of robbery. Allen, of course,

like most highwaymen of that time, was of Royalist sympathies. He

conceived the magnificent idea of waylaying the travelling coach of

no less a personage than His Highness, the Lord Protector of the Realm,

Oliver Cromwell himself, on the way from Huntingdon. Unfortunately,

the coach was guarded by seven servants, unusually full of fight, and

so the attack not merely failed, but several of the highwaymen were

captured, among them their leader, Allen, who, a short time later,

suffered at Tyburn for his error of judgment. Hind was fortunate enough

to escape, by dint of a good horse and excellent horsemanship.

[Illustration: ALLEN AND HIND ATTACK OLIVER CROMWELL'S CARRIAGE.]

We are told, however, that Hind's horse was killed by the exhausting

efforts of this escape. Having no money to purchase another (how

on earth did the highwaymen manage to dissipate all the money they

stole?), he was under the necessity of trying his fortune on foot

until he should find means to procure another. It was not long before

he espied a horse tied to a hedge, with a saddle on, and a brace of

pistols in the holsters.

"This is my horse," cried Hind to the owner, whom he observed on the

other side of the hedge, and forthwith he vaulted into the saddle.

"The horse is mine, you rascal!" roared the owner, making a dash for it.

"Sir," rejoined Hind, "you may consider yourself well off, that I have

left you with all your money in your pocket to buy another, which you

had best lay out before I meet you again, lest you should be worse

used." So saying, he rode off in search of new booty.

To rob the rich, to act as special providence to the poor, to

succour the distressed, and to plague the existence of their

political opponents seem to have been as much the attributes of the

seventeenth-century highwaymen as they were of that merry outlaw,

Robin Hood. It is thus that, in the vilely printed pamphlets written

by illiterates, composed of blunted type, struck off upon incredibly

bad paper by the aid of rickety hand-presses, and sold at the old

country fairs, the highwaymen have always had a niche in the affections

of the rustics, who had no purse nor gear to lose. Hind was of this

type, whether actually or as the creature of legend it is now no use

to inquire. We learn, for instance, how, riding through the town of

Warwick, and hearing a commotion in a side street, he drew rein to

discover the cause. An innkeeper, he was told, had been arrested at

the suit of a rascally old usurer, for a debt of twenty pounds. It

was the work of a few minutes for Hind to leap from his horse, to pay

the money, and thus to release the innkeeper. "Generosity!" you will

exclaim. Well, no; or, at any rate, merely a generous impulse that

cost him nothing but a little physical exertion, for what was easier

to Hind than recovering again those twenty sovereigns! He followed the

money-lender out of the town, and, overtaking him in a lonely place,

said, with his forceful politeness, "My good friend, I lent you, of

late, a sum of twenty pounds. Repay at once, or I take your miserable

life!"

Twenty sovereigns were with fear and trembling handed over, together

with another twenty, "for interest," and when this ill-used man sought

to recover his due from the innkeeper under legal plea of "duress," or

what not technical terms, he was not only defeated on the innkeeper

producing his signed discharge, but was soundly flogged into the

bargain.

The fanciful book of Hind's exploits called _The English Gusman_,

published in 1652, contains some marvellous stories, notably that in

which a witch gives him a talisman protecting him for three years. He

had been staying the night at the "George" inn, Hatfield, and leaving

early the next morning, encountered an ill-favoured old woman who

begged alms of him.

"His horse presently staid, and would go no further. 'Sir,' said the

old woman, 'I have something to say to you, and then you shall be gone.'

"Hind, not liking her Countenance, puld out five shillings and gave

her, thinking she would but like a Gipsee, tell his fortune, said,

'Good woman, I am in haste.'

"'Sir,' said she, 'I have staid all this morning to speak to you; and

would you have me lose my labour?'

"'Speak your mind,' said Hind.

"The old woman began thus: 'Captain Hind, you ride and go in many

dangers; wherefore, by my poor skill, I have thought of a way to

preserve you for the space of three years; but, that time being past,

you are no more than an ordinary man, and a mischance may fall on you,

as well as another; but if you be in England, come to me, and I will

renew the Verteu of this Charm again.'

[Illustration: CAPTAIN HIND, THE CAVALIER HERO.]

"In saying these words, she puld out of her bosom a little box, almost

like a Sun-Dyal, and gave it to Captain Hind, and said to him, 'When

you are in any distress, open this, and which way you see the Star

turns, ride or go that way, and you shall escape all dangers.'

"So she switched him with a white Rod that was in her hand, and strook

the horse on the buttocks, and bid him farewell. The horse presently

leaped forward with such courage that Hind could not turn to give her

thanks; but, guessing her will it should be so, rode on his way."

[Illustration:

Next; here am I presented to thy view,

Mounted aloft upon a gallant Nagg:

And then behinde me doth appear to you,

How I'm enchanted by an ugly Hagg.

For Three years' space: A little time I wot;

Yet many Pranks I plai'd, and Purses got.]

The talisman, according to the author of these marvels, lasted him

until the time when he was present at the siege of Youghal, and its

expiry was marked by his being wounded there.

He was a wide traveller, our gallant "Captain." We hear of him as a

"true Royalist," receiving a commission from Sir William Compton, and

find him at the desperate two-months' siege of Colchester, where the

beleaguered Royalists made a last stand for Charles the First. On the

surrender of that town, August 27th, 1648, to Fairfax, he managed to

escape in woman's, or, according to another account, sailor's clothes.

The scene now shifts to Enfield, and we perceive Hind and the regicide,

Hugh Peters, encountering in the green rides of the Chase. Politely

Hind requests his purse, yet discloses a not altogether inopportune

pistol. To this Peters replies with a defensive volley of texts. "Thou

shalt not steal; let him that stole steal no more," and the like,

together with a variety of paraphrases of the eighth commandment.

Hind, anxious to answer Peters in his own vein, finds himself a little

floored at first, from want of practice, but presently he begins,

"Verily," says he, imitating the sanctimonious tones of the Puritan,

"if thou hadst regarded the Divine principles, as thou oughtest to

have done, thou wouldst not have wrested them to such an abominable

and wicked sense as thou didst the words of the Prophet, when he said,

'Bind their Kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron.'

Didst thou not then, detestable hypocrite, endeavour from these words

to aggravate the misfortunes of thy Royal master, whom thy cursed

republican party unjustly murdered before the gate of his own palace?"

[Illustration:

Stand and Deliver! Next in order comes;

Quickly your Money. Make no stay at all,

For my aim's high, and at those greater sums,

The lesser lead to Tyburn's funeral.

Here's all the difference, as 'tis manifest,

I got their money: they received a jest.]

Here Peters began to extenuate the action of the regicides, and to

quote Scriptural authority; with an excursus upon the sinfulness of

robbery.

"Pray, sir," replies Hind, Doctor of Divinity, _pro tem._, "make no

reflection against men of my profession, for Solomon plainly said,

'Do not despise a thief.' But it is to little purpose for us to

dispute: the substance of what I have to say is this: Deliver thy money

presently, or else I shall send thee out of the world to thy master,

the Devil, in an instant."

"These terrible words of the Captain," we are told, "so terrified the

old Presbyterian that he gave him thirty broad pieces of gold, and then

departed."

But Hind must needs still further humiliate the enemy. He accordingly

rode after him at full speed, and, overtaking him, addressed him in

this wise: "Sir, now I think of it, I am convinced this misfortune has

happened to you because you did not obey the words of the Scripture,

which says, expressly, 'Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass,

in your purses for your journey,' whereas it is evident that you had

provided a pretty decent quantity of gold. However, as it is now in my

power to make you fulfil another commandment, I would by no means slip

the opportunity; therefore, pray, give me your cloak. You know, sir, it

is commanded that, if any man take away thy cloak, thou must not refuse

thy coat also."

[Illustration: HIND ROBS DR. PETERS.]

The old Puritan shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably before he

proceeded to uncloak them, but on Hind assuring him he must needs be

obeyed, he surrendered the garment, and off went the highwayman with it.

The next Sunday, ascending his pulpit, Peters held forth, with a

natural warmth of feeling, upon the crime of highway robbery, taking

as his text, "I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on?" when an

honest plain man present, who had heard of the incident, exclaimed,

"Upon my word, sir, I believe there is nobody here can tell you,

unless Captain Hind were here." The which put the congregation into

such an excessive fit of laughter that the parson was made to blush,

and descended from his prattling-box without further prosecuting the

subject.

It was upon the road between Sherborne and Shaftesbury that Hind

fell in with Serjeant Bradshaw, prominent among those who had sat in

judgment upon the King. Bradshaw was in his travelling chariot, and,

progressing with a considerable degree of state, declined to be robbed;

mentioning his name.

"Pooh!" exclaimed Hind, "I fear neither you nor any king-killing

villain alive. I have now as much power over you as you lately had over

the King, and I should do God and my country good service if I made

the same use of it; but live, villain, to suffer the pangs of thine

own conscience, till Justice shall lay her iron hand upon thee, and

require an answer for thy crimes, who are unworthy to die by any hands

but those of the common hangman, or at any other place than Tyburn.

Nevertheless, though I spare thy life, deliver up thy money, or die for

thine obstinacy."

To save a miserable life, he put his trembling hand into his pocket,

and drew out about forty shillings in silver, which he presented to the

Captain, who swore he would that minute shoot him through the heart,

unless he found him coin of another species. The Serjeant was then

compelled to present Hind with a purse full of Jacobuses.

What a devil of talk possessed Hind. To be robbed and insulted, that

was perhaps endurable; but to be lectured—oh, horrible!

"_This_, sir," says he, receiving the purse, "is the metal that wins

my heart for ever! O precious gold! I admire and adore thee, as much

as either Bradshaw, Prynne, or any other villain of the same stamp.

This is that incomparable medicament which the republican physicians

call the wonder-working plaster. It is truly Catholic in operation,

and somewhat akin to the Jesuit's powder, but more effectual. The

virtues of it are strange and various; it maketh justice deaf, as well

as blind; and takes out spots of the deepest treasons, as easily as

Castile soap does common stains. It alters a man's constitution in

two or three days, more than the virtuoso's transfusion of blood can

do in seven years. 'Tis a great alexiopharmick, and helps poisonous

principles of rebellion, and those that use them. It miraculously

exalts and purifies the eyesight, and makes traitors behold nothing

but innocence in the blackest malefactors. It is a mighty cordial for

a declining cause: it stifles faction and schism, as certainly as the

itch is destroyed by butter and brimstone. In a word, it makes fools

wise men, and wise men fools, and both of them knaves. The very colour

of this precious balm is bright and dazzling. If it be properly applied

to the fist, that is, in a decent manner, and in a competent dose, it

infallibly performs all the above-mentioned cures, and many others, too

numerous to be here mentioned."

With this, probably having quite exhausted himself, he haughtily

pistolled the six horses that drew Bradshaw's carriage, and so left the

unfortunate regicide, stripped of his money, deprived of all means of

locomotion, and stunned by his flow of verbiage.

This, like the most of Hind's exploits, was robbing on the grand

scale. To be sure, he rarely stooped to little larcenies, for he was

a practical philosopher among the "skilful surveyors of highways

and hedges" that he and his kind were pleased to style themselves.

"Remember what I tell you," he would say; "disgrace not yourselves for

small sums, but aim high, and for great ones; the least will bring you

to the gallows."

There spoke the "Prince of Prigs," who was indeed so notable in his own

lifetime that he had the honour accorded him of a play written around

his exploits while yet he survived to add to them. It is not a good

play, but that is no fault of our "gentleman" highwayman: the thing

is that it should have been written and printed at all. Thus runs the

title-page, that he himself may have read:

An Excellent Comedy

called, The

PRINCE OF PRIGGS

Revels:

or

The Practises of that grand Thief Captain

JAMES HIND

Relating

Divers of his Pranks and Exploits, never

heretofore published by any.

Repleat with various Conceits, and Tarltonian Mirth,

suitable to the Subject

Written by J. S.

London, Printed for G. Horton, 1651.

Seventy pounds he took from Colonel Harrison, another of the regicides,

on the Bath Road, at Maidenhead Thicket; and so at one and the same

time avenged his King and full-lined his pockets. A hue-and-cry was

raised immediately, and the "Captain" was in danger long before he

suspected it. It was an innkeeper who warned him—for the taverners and

tapsters of that, of earlier, and of succeeding ages were ower sib to

the gentlemen of the high-toby trade, and stood them in good stead

whenever possible.

In this situation, it seems, Hind experienced an unwonted access of

nervousness, and was apprehensive of every person he met upon the road.

He had reached Knowl Hill, some four miles only from the spot where

he had held up Harrison in his carriage, when a gentleman's servant,

George Symson by name, riding at full speed after his master, came

dashing by. With his mind full of the hue-and-cry raised after him,

Hind, supposing this to be one of his pursuers, turned about, and

raising his pistol, shot the unfortunate man dead: the only occasion of

his taking life.

In May 1649, he was at The Hague, in the councils of Charles the

Second. Thence, after a three days' stay, he crossed to Ireland and was

made a corporal in the Duke of Ormonde's Life Guards. Wounded in action

with Cromwell's troopers before Youghal, he escaped to Dungannon, but

plague raged there, and he sailed for Scilly, which had a clean bill of

health, and was, moreover, the safest place in which a hunted Royalist,

highwayman or not, could at that time find himself. For, when all else

had failed, even in the staunch and long-enduring West, the Scilly

Isles still held out for the cause. The King was dead, but his son

reigned in the hearts of the Cavaliers, and a faithful band, captained

by Sir John Grenville, retired to that remote archipelago, fortified

the islands, and made them a privateering base. It was not until June

1651, that Blake's flotilla forced them to surrender.

Meanwhile, so famous had Hind become, that rumour posted him everywhere

where highway robberies were reported. He was already in his lifetime a

kind of bogey, or will-o'-wisp sort of a fellow, who could miraculously

be in at least two places at one and the same time. Thus, while he was

certainly in Scilly, _The Perfect Weekly Account_ of September 13th,

1649, reports from Bedford: "Last night was brought into this gaol,

two prisoners taken up upon pursuit by the county, for robbing some

soldiers of about £300 upon the way, in the day-time: there were five

in the fact, and are very handsome gentlemen: they will not confess

their names, and therefore are supposed to be gentlemen of quality, and

'tis conceived they are of the knot of Captain Hind, that grand thief

of England, that hath his associates upon all roads. They strewed at

least £100 upon the way, to keep the pursuers doing, that they might

not follow them."

No doubt this would have been an enterprise entirely after Hind's own

heart; but he was not there, nor were the highwaymen of his company.

Again, September 20th: "Yesterday about 20 horse of Hind's party (the

grand highway thief) in the space of two hours robbed about 40 persons

between Barnet and Wellin. They let none pass, to carry news while they

staid about this work, by which means they all escaped before the

county could be raised, but the Lord General's horse are diligent in

seeking after them."

Hind remained in the sanctuary afforded by the Scilly Isles for eight

months, and then travelled to the Isle of Man, where he sojourned

thirteen weeks. There had been little scope for his peculiar activities

on Scilly, but he found more opportunities on the Isle of Man, the

kingdom at that time of my lord the Earl of Derby, to whom he obtained

an introduction. He even became what modern diplomats would describe

as a _persona grata_ in that island Court. Robbery had been unknown

in this most fortunate of the Fortunate Isles before ever Hind set

foot there; but with his advent a perfect epidemic of highway robbery

prevailed. The Manxmen would have been of the densest had they not

connected the coming of Hind with these disasters, and they laid

their suspicions before the Governor, Sir Philip Musgrave, who,

with Hind by his side, in good-fellowship thought the insinuation

absurdly ungenerous. Hind declared his innocence, but protested his

willingness to suffer the extremest penalty of the island laws, if

he were recognised for the thief. This offer was not so impetuously

ingenuous as it looked, for, naturally, if he were so recognised, he

would perforce, in the usual course of affairs, be made to suffer; and

secondly, he had already taken the precaution of robbing in disguise.

The Manxmen had come to the Governor with tales of an aged, hairy

man, with long hair and beard; and confronted with the youthful

Cavalier-like Hind, protested with apologies, that this was not the

man. And then, when they were gone, what must our tricksy Captain do

but produce, for the Governor's amusement, the shameless wigs and

costumes in which he had masqueraded. There must have been a deal

of fellow-feeling in that Governor, and little humour. Your true

humorist could not possibly have resisted the obvious conclusion to the

screaming farce, and would have had Hind fettered and sent off at once

to the deepest dungeon available.

[Illustration: HIND SHOWS HIS DISGUISE.]

Hind then went across the Border into Scotland, where preparations

were afoot for an armed invasion of England on behalf of Charles

the Second. At Stirling he loyally kissed the hand of His Majesty

and offered his services, not in taking purses on the road, but

in fighting for the cause. The King commended him to the Duke of

Buccleuch, and he came south and fought for Charles (the "King of

Scots," as the Republicans were pleased to call him) at the disastrous

Battle of Worcester. Escaping in the headlong flight, he hid himself

in London. Near the close of that year, 1651, lodging in the name of

James Brown, in the house of one Denzys, who exercised the trade of

a barber over against St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, in Fleet Street, he

was betrayed to the Republican party and carried before the Speaker of

the House of Commons, who, after a lengthy examination "in regard to

his late engagement with Charles Stewart, and whether he was the man

that accompanied the Scots king for the furtherance of his escape,"

committed him in irons to the Gatehouse. There was a choice before

his captors of the charge to be preferred. At first he was removed to

Newgate, and tried at the sessions for highway robbery. A rude woodcut

in a biography shows him, visited by his wife and father, at this stage

of affairs, with a pitiful verse beneath.

The charges not being sustained by sufficient evidence, he was sent

under a strong guard to Reading, there to be tried, March 1st, 1652,

for the murder of George Symson at Knowl Hill. Convicted of this,

he would forthwith have been hanged, had it not been for an Act

of Oblivion that had been passed, securing an indemnity for "all

past offences." This, apparently, did not include the offence of

high treason; and so reduced, much against their will, to making a

political martyr of Hind, the high personages of the Commonwealth,

after endeavouring to dispose of him on the ignoble charges of highway

robbery and murder, removed him by Order in Council to Worcester gaol,

where he was condemned for high treason.

[Illustration:

Behold! at last, the saddest sight of all;

Poor Hind! Now in the hole at Newgate lies,

His wife and father both lament his thrall

And are much troubled at his miseries.

His book and candle his companions be;

Though now in chains, he hopes for liberty.]

The book published at this period, entitled _The English Gusman_, one

of those purporting to give an authentic life of Hind, narrates a

conversation in his cell, here or at Newgate. Hind says: "I had not

been here now if there had not been a Judas abroad, for indeed I was

betrayed by one who formerly served the King, but now he is for you

(pointing to a Captain who was present), but God forgive him."

The keeper of the prison then called him from the fireside to the

window, to see if the iron shackles upon his legs were in order.

"Well," said Hind, "all this I value not threepence. I owe a debt to

God, and a debt I must pay. Blessed be His name, that He hath kept

me from shedding blood unjustly, which is now a great comfort to me.

Neither have I wronged any poor man of the worth of a penny, but I must

confess that I have (when I have been necessitated to) made bold with

a rich bumpkin, or a lying lawyer, whose full-fed fees from the rich

farmer doth too much impoverish the poor cottage-keeper."

The many "witty jingles" he put forth occasioned much laughter, but a

gentleman standing by said, "Captain, you are not brought hither for

robbing, but for treason."

"Treason," replied Hind; "I am not guilty in the least."

"Yes, sir," replied the gentleman, "you are, for complying with Charles

Stuart, and engaging against the Commonwealth of England."

"Alas! sir, it seems that is enough to hang one."

"I am afraid you will find it so," answered the gentleman.

"Well, God's will be done," replied Hind; "I value it not threepence

to lose my life in so good a cause; and if it were to do again, I

protest," said he, laying his hand on his breast, "I would do the

like."

"Come," said the keeper, "no more of this discourse; clear the room."

Hind in due course suffered the hateful penalty for high treason at

Worcester. He maintained a light and frolicsome demeanour to the last.

"These are filthy, jingling spurs," he remarked with a laugh, pointing

to the fetters that clanked about his legs as he walked from the bar,

"but I hope to exchange them ere long."

He was drawn to the scene of execution, then hanged, and afterwards

quartered: his head being placed midway on the Severn bridge, and the

other portions of him over the several gates of the city, September

24th, 1652.

JOHN CLAVEL, "GENTLEMAN"

One of the really notable highwaymen of the early years of the

seventeenth century was John Clavel, who came from an ancient, if

perhaps not particularly distinguished, family, tracing their descent

back to Walter de Clavile, in the reign of William the Conqueror. For

more than seven hundred years the Clavel, or Clavell, family flourished

in a modest way upon their manor of Smedmore, on the Dorset coast, in

the neighbourhood of Kimmeridge, and finally ended with the death,

_s.p._, as genealogists would say, of George Clavel in 1774. The only

Clavel who fully emerges from the obscurity in which the family were

content to remain, from the days of the original Walter until those of

the ultimate George, is John Clavel, whose vocation was robbery under

arms upon the highway. What laid this calling upon him, the personal

history of John Clavel does not inform us; but probably, when we

consider that he was merely a nephew of Sir William Clavel, the head of

the family, we shall be correct in placing him among those younger sons

and expectant heirs who, however great were their expectations in some

more or less remote future, were generally, in the present tense, not

only poor, but head over ears in debt. As the history of the highwaymen

has already shown us, their ranks were very largely recruited from

those youthful members of reputable families, whose family name was

better than their personal credit. Confound the law of primogeniture,

and pity the sorrows of a younger son with an excellent ancestry and an

empty purse!

Our present hero, John Clavel, who was born in 1603, was

heir-presumptive to his uncle, the Dorset squire. Whether that uncle

kept him shorter of money than an heir should be, or whether he was

a gamester who sought to repair his losses at cards or dice by the

hazard of the road, who shall say? Not I. Perhaps he even robbed on the

highway for sheer joy of it: such sportsmen were not unknown. But, by

all accounts and just inferences, he had been no mere amateur, out for

a solitary adventure, when he was laid by the heels and cast into the

King's Bench Prison. He had made an occupation of highway robbery.

Thus we read, in one of the _News Letters_ written by Joseph Mead,

that purveyor of London intelligence to country gentlemen in 1626:

"February 11th, Mr. Clavell, a gentleman, a knight's eldest son (?), a

great highway robber, and of posts, was, together with a soldier, his

companion, arraigned and condemned, on Monday last, at the King's Bench

bar. He pleaded for himself that he had never struck or wounded

any man, had never taken anything from their bodies, as rings, etc.,

never cut their girths or saddles, or done them, when he robbed, any

corporeal violence. He was, with his companion, reprieved. He sent the

following verses to the King, for mercy:

I that have robb'd so oft, am now bid stand;

Death and the law assault me, and demand

My life and means. I never used men so;

But having ta'en their money, let them go.

Yet must I die! And is there no reliefe?

The King of Kings had mercy on a thiefe!

So may our gracious King too, if he please,

Without his council, grant me a release.

God is his precedent, and men shall see

His mercy goe beyond severity."

[Illustration: JOHN CLAVEL.

That I may neither brave another's blame

Through wronge suspicions, nor yet act ye same

At any time hereafter, but prove true:—

Loe! to be knowne, you have my face at viewe.]

He was reprieved, as the newsmonger tells us, but that was not

sufficient. He must not merely escape the death-sentence, but be set

free. To that end he wrote in October 1627, in prison, the curious

pamphlet, largely in verse, styled the _Recantation of an Ill-led

Life_, and published in the following year. He does not forget to style

himself, on the title-page, "Gentleman," and has even a Latin tag;

perhaps, you know, as evidence of his gentility. Yet he grovels through

many pages in so abject a style no man of spirit could endure. Whether

he was so thorough-paced a highwayman as he tearfully declares himself

to have been is, of course, not to be resolved by us, at this interval

of time; but, according to his own showing, he was not only an adept,

but deep in the counsels of the high-toby gloaks and a past-master

in all their devices. These, with the hope of a pardon, he proceeds

to betray, at much length, in his "recantation," which he describes

as "A discouerie of the Highway Law. With Vehement dissuasions to

all (in that kind) offenders. As also Many cautelous Admonitions

and full Instructions, how to know, shun, and apprehend a Theefe.

Most Necessarie for all honest Trauellers to per'use, obserue, and

Practise." This travellers' handy handbook was "Approued by the King's

most Excellent Maiestie, and published by his expresse Command," by one

Robert Meighen.

The _Recantation_ sets out with an extraordinary number of rhymed

dedications addressed to the King, the Queen, the Ladies of the Court,

"the Right Honourable the Lords of His Maiestie's most Honourable

Priuie Counsaile and Counsail of Warre," the Judges of the King's

Bench, and others; ending with an appeal to the "Right Worshipful, his

euer dear and well-approued good Uncle, Sir William Clavell, Knight

Banneret," whom he requests:

... if againe

I euer take a course what shall be vaine,

Or if of any ill I faultie be,

O then for ever disinherit me.

But Sir William did even better than that. To be on the safer side, he

disinherited him at once, without waiting for his nephew to prove the

sincerity of his professions, and bequeathed his estates to a distant

relative.

In the meanwhile, however, John Clavel did at any rate manage to

produce a popular book. Three editions of it are known; but whether

the book was purchased as a curiosity, or as a practical guide to safe

travelling upon the highways, there is nothing to show. The heads of

his counsel are interesting:

"Acknowledgement and Confession.

"Absolute Defiance of those that follow my late course of life, living

vpon the spoile.

"The highway law.

"How soon they spend what unlawfully they get.

"Instruction for the honest traueller: What he is to take heed vnto,

before he take his journey.

"How to carry himself in his inn.

"The danger of trauelling on the Sabbath Day.

"How as he rides he shall know a thief from an honest man.

"An instance how dangerous it is to grow familiar with any stranger

upon the way.

"When to ride.

"Where to ride.

"How to ride.

"What is best to be done if he is beset.

"If by chance he is surprised, how to behave himself.

"Being robbed, how to follow, which way to set forth the Hue and Cry,

how to coast, and where to find the thieves," etc., etc.

He appears to have largely favoured the Dover Road, in his professional

exploits:

... Though I oft have seen Gad's Hill and those

Red tops of mountains, where good people lose

Their ill-kept purses, I did never climb

Parnassus Hill, or could adventure time

To tread the Muse's Mazes, or their floor,

Because I knew that they are lightly poor,

And Shooter's Hill was fitter far for me,

When pass'd releases for my own poverty.

He then proceeds to tell in verse how the inns are often kept by

landlords in league with highwaymen, who not infrequently spend thrice

as much as honest travellers, or whose servants are either placed there

by the knights of the road, or are bribed by them to investigate the

contents of travellers' saddle-bags and valises.

Having done this, the hints he next gives to innkeepers, on how to

distinguish between highwaymen and decent travellers, seem rather

superfluous. As to the stigmata of the highwaymen themselves, besides

those

vizards, hoods, disguise,

Masks, muzzles, mufflers, patches on their eyes;

Those beards, those heads of hair, and that great wen,

Which is not natural.

there are the following simpler devices:

Next of a theefe, the vsuall markes be these,

(Which as you ride you may observe with ease)

They muffle with their cloakes, or else their coate

Hides all their clothes, that so you may not note

What sutes they haue, a handkercher they were

About their neckes, or Cipresse, which they reare

Ouer their mouthes, and noses, with their hand

Iust at the time when as they bid you stand;

Perhaps since here I haue discouered this,

They will now leaue them off, that you may misse

Your obseruation, be you therefore sure

As soone as they come riding somewhat neere,

To gaze full at their faces, you shall see

Them turn their heads away, as if so bee

They had spide something on the tother side,

Which if they doe, then keepe your distance wide.

Obviously, the better course for the highway robber who loved his

profession, and not only meant to rob successfully, but to live long in

the enjoyment of his gains, was to carefully dress the part. To muffle

themselves up in cloaks, like conspirators, would be to send even the

least prudent traveller off in hurried flight. Such methods were mere

danger-signals, and no security against subsequent recognition. But

with an artificial nose, or a bushy beard, and little transforming

touches of that sort, a careful road-agent might reckon on a long and

lucrative practice; always supposing he kept his own counsel and held

aloof from bad company. This, however, judging from the careers of most

of their kind, seems to have been asking too much.

But to return to the strange fortunes of John Clavel. His piteous

appeal from prison (or perhaps rather the family influence brought to

bear) at length procured him release. He promised in his book, if set

at liberty, to fight for his King:

... I do intend

Whilst these your wars endure, even there to spend

My time in that brave service.

But there is nothing to show how he occupied himself when once again

he was restored to society; there is, however, a curious little notice

added to the third edition of the _Recantation_, by the publisher, by

which it would seem gossip had been doing an injustice to our sinner

repentant. Thus it reads:

"The late and general false report of his relapse and untoward

death, made me most willing again to publish this work of his,

to let you know he not only lives, but hath also made good all

these his promises and strict resolutions: insomuch that it has

become very disputable amongst wise men, whether they should most

admire his former ill-ways, or his now most singular reformation,

whereat no man outjoys his friend and yours.—RICHARD MEIGHEN."

This brand plucked from the burning appears to have died in 1642.

WILLIAM DAVIS, THE GOLDEN FARMER

There stands on the summit of the steep hill as you go westward out

of Bagshot, along the Exeter Road, a commonplace inn at the fork of

the roads leading respectively to Camberley and to Frimley. The "Jolly

Farmer"—for that is the name of the inn—looks squarely eastward, down

the hill, and seems no doubt, to most who pass this way, not worth

even a glance. Nor, indeed, is it beautiful or interesting. Its former

sign, however,—the sign of the "Golden Farmer"—enshrined an interesting

story of the road. The forerunner of the present house stood on the

right-hand side of the way, and was named the "Golden Farmer," in

allusion to a highwayman, once only too well known in the neighbourhood.

William Davis flourished in the seventeenth century. Born at Wrexham,

he was early taken to Sudbury, in Gloucestershire, where he eventually

married the daughter of a wealthy innkeeper. He had eighteen children,

and it would almost seem, by the tone of his early biographers, that

this unfortunate fact went some way towards excusing his career. He

was, to the day of his death, a farmer, and for a good many years

cultivated land in the neighbourhood of Bagshot; a district remarkable

in those times rather for wild heaths than for agricultural value. And

long it remained of this character, and infested with highwaymen, for

we find the poet Gay in 1715, in his fine narrative poem, _A Journey to

Exeter_, writing:

Prepared for war, now Bagshot heath we cross,

Where broken gamesters oft repair their loss.

Mr. William Davis was a man very greatly respected for his singular

habit of always paying his debts in gold. Paper money—whether notes,

bills, or cheques—never passed from him to his creditors. Good, honest

guineas, of red, minted gold—tender no man refused—were his only

medium. Those who did business with him thought this an eccentricity,

but an amiable one; and as the years went on, he accumulated more and

more respect.

But in all those years he was in reality a busy highwayman. Many

stories are told of him, and by them it appears that he did by no means

confine his activities to the neighbourhood of Bagshot. Prudence now

and again sent him further afield, to till—to adopt a formula that

would have appealed to him as a farmer—comparatively uncropped ground.

Thus we find him once ranging so far as Salisbury Plain, and there

bidding the coachman, who was driving the Duchess of Albemarle, to

rein in his horses, or—presenting a pistol—take the consequences. He

had "a long engagement" with postilion, coachman, and two footmen, and

wounded them all. He does not appear to have suffered; which does not

say much for the marksmanship, the courage, or the resource of the

Duchess's guard, whose guardianship was thus proved so ineffectual.

But it is a hero-worshipping biographer of highwaymen, who tells the

story. The "Golden Farmer" seems on this occasion to have departed from

his almost invariable custom, and to have torn the Duchess's diamond

rings from her fingers. Probably he would have had her watch also,

only the appearance of some other travellers made him prudently fly:

followed by a torrent of bad language from Her Grace, who could hold

her own with the best, or worst, in that line, having been, before she

married General Monk, none other than Nan Clarges, washerwoman, and the

daughter of a blacksmith, and well versed in abuse.

Anon, we have the "Golden Farmer" on Finchley Common. He had waited

there one day, riding back and forth between four and five hours,

hoping for some likely traveller, and none had come. Imagine him,

shivering in the bitter blast, and angrily wondering what had become of

every one. At last a young gentleman came riding along, unconscious of

danger. Up rode the highwayman to him, and gave him a flap across his

shoulders with the flat of his hanger.

"How slow you are!" he exclaimed. "A plague on you, to make a man wait

on you all the morning! Come, deliver what you have, and be curst, and

then go to Hell for orders."

The traveller declared he had nothing about him, but that, the

highwayman remarked, was nonsense.

Then, searching the unresisting young gentleman's pockets and taking

a gold watch and about one hundred guineas, he gave him three parting

strokes on the back, and, telling him in future "not to give his mind

to telling lies when an honest gentleman required a small boon of him,"

cantered away.

One day, having paid his landlord £80, he carefully disguised himself,

and in a solitary situation met him with the command to "stand and

deliver!"

"Come, Mr. Gravity from Head to Foot, but from neither Head nor Foot to

the Heart," said he, "deliver what you have, in a trice."

The "old, grave gentleman" heaved a deep sigh, to the hazard of losing

several buttons off his waistcoat. "All I have is two shillings. You

would not take that from a poor man."

"Pooh!" rejoined the "Golden Farmer," "I have not the faith to believe

you, for you seem by your manner and habit to be a man of better

circumstances than you pretend; therefore, open your budget, or else I

shall fall foul about your house."

"Dear sir," wailed the old gentleman, "you can't be so barbarous as to

rob an old man. What! have you no pity, religion, or compassion in you?

Have you no conscience? You can have no respect for your own body and

soul, which must certainly be in a miserable case, if you follow these

unlawful courses."

"D——n you," rejoined Davis, "don't talk of age or barbarity to me, for

I show neither pity nor compassion to any. What! talk of conscience

to me! I have no more of that dull commodity than you have; nor do I

allow my soul and body to be governed by religion, but by interest;

therefore, deliver what you have, before this pistol makes you repent

your obstinacy."

There was no help for it, and the rent found its way back from landlord

to tenant.

Again the "Golden Farmer" is found in a new setting; this time upon the

Oxford Road. The particularly evil character of this road was enlarged

upon in 1671 by Richard Brockenden, writing to Sir Richard Paston, and

describing what he called "a new set of highwaymen," who robbed every

night, unlike the old hands, who evidently rested frequently from

their labours to enjoy the fruits of their shy industry, and must have

resembled Sir W. S. Gilbert's lawless but light-hearted gang, who sang:

We spend our nights on damp straw and squalid hay

When trade is not particularly brisk;

But now and then we take a little holiday,

And spend our honest earnings in a frisk.

The infamous "new set," who robbed every night, cannot command our

sympathy; they were too pushful. William Davis, however, belonged to no

set. He was complete in himself; and if he too robbed without ceasing,

he had those eighteen children of his to support. It was near the

London end of the Oxford Road that the following adventure took place:

at none other than the village of Hillingdon, near Uxbridge.

It seems, then, that the "Golden Farmer," dressed in appropriately

rustic style, overtook near Gerrard's Cross a certain Squire Broughton,

a barrister of the Middle Temple, and entered into conversation with

him. When he learned the profession of this chance acquaintance, he

pretended to be on his way to London to advise with a solicitor,

and, expressing himself as fortunate in meeting one learned in the

law, asked him if he could recommend counsel. Broughton, scenting

business, bespoke for himself, and the "Golden Farmer," spinning a

cock-and-a-bull story of some neighbour's cattle breaking into his

fields and doing a vast amount of mischief, sought his opinion.

"It is very actionable," said the lawyer, "being Damage Fesant."

"Damage Fesant?" asked the highwayman. "What's that, pray, sir?"

The lawyer, with much show of learning, duly expounded the matter;

and so, as evening drew in, they came to the "Red Lion," Hillingdon,

discussing the Law of Trespass, the extent to which the farmer was

probably damnified, and the pros and cons of the whole bogus affair.

Passing a very pleasant night at the "Red Lion," they set out together

the next morning, still talking law.

"If I may be so bold as to ask you, sir," said the Golden Farmer, "what

is that you call Trover and Conversion?"

"Why," said the lawyer, "that is easily explained. It is an action

against one who has found any property, and, refusing to deliver on

demand, converts it to his own use."

They were now on Hillingdon Heath, a lonely place, not yet lined with

mean houses and paltry shops, and still to wait a matter of two hundred

years before Mr. Whiteley's factory and stable-yards were built beside

the road.

"Very well," said the Golden Farmer, "and if I should find any money

about you, and converted it to my own use, that would be merely

actionable?"

"That would be highway robbery," rejoined the man of law, "and would

require no less satisfaction than a man's life."

"A robbery!" exclaimed the highwayman. "Why, then, I must e'en commit

one for once; therefore deliver your money, or this pistol shall

prevent you reading Coke upon Littleton any more!"

"You must be joking!" exclaimed the lawyer, edging away.

But the Golden Farmer, presenting the pistol to his breast, advised

him to "down with the rhino, or he would get his mittimus by summary

process." The man of law still hesitated.

"Do you think," said he, "there is neither heaven nor hell?"

"Why," rejoined the highwayman, "thy impudence is surely very great to

talk of heaven or hell to me! D'ye think there's no other way to heaven

but through Westminster Hall? Come, come, down with your rhino this

minute, for I have other customers to mind than to wait on you all day!"

Thus adjured, the lawyer reluctantly handed over "thirty guineas and

eleven broad pieces of gold," besides some silver and a gold watch.

The "Red Lion," Hillingdon, is standing to this day, and the crowds who

frequent it in these times when the electric trams pass its door, may

feel a romantic thrill as they connect the house with this story.

Hillingdon Heath figures also in the next adventure.

"Well overtaken, brother tinker!" exclaimed the "Golden Farmer," as one

day he came up with an itinerant mender of pots and kettles; "methinks

you seem very devout, for your life is a continual pilgrimage, and in

humility you go about barefoot, thereby making necessity a virtue."

"Ay, master," replied the tinker, "needs must when the Devil drives,

and had you no more than I, you, too, might go without boots and shoes."

"That might be," quoth the "Golden Farmer"; "but as for yourself;

you, I suppose, march all over England with your bag and baggage?"

[Illustration: THE GOLDEN FARMER AND THE TINKER.]

"Yes," said the tinker, "I go a great deal of ground, but not so much

as you horsemen, and I take a great deal of pains for a livelihood."

"Yes," rejoined the highwayman, "I know thou art such a strong enemy to

idleness that, mending one hole, you make three."

"That's as you say," retorted the tinker; "however, sir, I wish you and

I were farther asunder, for i'faith I don't like your company, and have

a great suspicion of you."

"Have you so?" said the highwayman; "then it shall not be without a

cause: come, open your wallet forthwith, and deliver that parcel of

money that's in it."

The unhappy tinker begged he would not rob him. If he did, he said, he

must needs be forced to beg his way home, over a hundred miles.

But the "Golden Farmer" had no mercy. "D——n you," said he, "I don't

care if you have to beg your way _two_ hundred miles, for, if a tinker

escape Tyburn and Banbury, it is his fate to die a beggar."

So saying he made off with the tinker's money and wallet too.

At last the "Golden Farmer" met his long-deferred doom, and in his

own district. The Exeter Road, in the neighbourhood of Bagshot, had

long been haunted by a highwayman, who robbed impartially the early

coaches of that age, or the travelling chariots of the great. This

highwayman had his peculiarities. Others might risk stealing notes

and jewellery, but he refused all trinkets, and took coin only. The

strange thing is that no one in Bagshot or round about seems to have

exercised the simple art of putting two and two together and making

a total sum of four; or, in other and less metaphorical phrase, of

deducing the "Golden Farmer," who paid only in gold from the unnamed,

masked highwayman who took only gold. The two were, of course, one, and

so much was discovered one night when, the highwayman having as usual

stopped and plundered a coach, a traveller who had secreted a pistol

shot him in the back as he was making off.