Chapter II: Part 2

"If it _is_ the old boy," rejoined his master, with a chuckle, "bring him out. I should like to see what kind of an animal he is."

But Whitney's evident terror and distress soon brought him to the rescue, and the bear was made to release her prey.

Before Whitney had served his full time with the butcher, his master cashiered him for idleness. After some little intervening time he became landlord of a small inn at Cheshunt. He was ever, says the author of _The Jacobite Robber_, a passionate admirer of good eating and drinking, especially at other people's expense. The inn, says our author, was the "Bell" or the "White Bear," he would not be sure which. If the "Bell," it was a sign he should presently make a noise over all England; if the "White Bear," a token that the landlord was of as savage a nature as any wild beast.

As a matter of fact, it appears to have been the "George"; but what significance may be extracted from that I do not know.

The inn did not pay its way on legitimate trading, and the people of Cheshunt wondered how Whitney could keep the pot boiling. Yet they need not have wondered, while they could see and hear, three or four times a week, a knot of roaring gentlemen, who sang, drank, swore, and revelled, the landlord himself joining in, until it seemed as if the place were thronged with old Lucifer and his club-footed emissaries. These guests were, in fact, highwaymen, as any one might have perceived, from their extravagant living and the unseasonable hours they kept.

At first Whitney had no hand in his customers' doings. As the quaint author of the tract already referred to says:

"It seems the conscientious Mr. Whitney, for all he was a well-wisher to the mathematicks and a friend to the tribe, did not at first care to expose his own dear person on the road; not that any one can justly tax him at the same time with cowardice, or want of valour (for had he been as plentifully stock'd with grace as he was with valour, he had never taken that employment upon him); but he prudently considered with himself that at present he ran no Risque of hanging for harbouring such people, and besides made a comfortable penny of them: Whereas, should he trade for himself, and scour the Highways to the Tune of _Dammee, Stand and Deliver_, he must certainly at one time or another make a Pilgrimage to _Tybourn_, and swinging in a Rope he had a Mortal Aversion to, because his Prophetical Grand-Mother had formerly told him it was a dry sort of a death.

"But at last an Old Experienced Brother of the Pad won him over to his Party, for, finding our Inn-keeper to be notably stored with all those ingredients and qualifications that are requisite to fit a Man for such a Vocation, he was resolved to leave no method unattempted till he had made an absolute conquest of him. In order to effect this, he represents to him the meanness and servile condition of his present calling, how he was obliged to stand cap in hand to every pitiful Rascal that came to spend Six-pence in his house; that with all his care and diligence he only got a little poor contemptible Pittance, scarce sufficient to pay his Brewer and Baker, but on the other hand, if he would be adopted into their society, he would find Money come flowing in like a Spring Tide upon him; he would live delicately, eat and drink of the Best, and in short, get more in an hour than now he did by Nicking, and Frothing and wrong Reckonings for a whole Twelve Month together. That, as for the Gallows, a Man of Courage and Bravery ought never to be afraid of it, and, should the worst come to the worst, better Gentleman by far than himself had made a Journey to the other World in their Shoes and Stockings."

Thus admonished, Whitney stripped off the inn-keeper's apron, sold off his inn, and took to the road, where he distinguished himself among the foremost highway gentry of his time. As his biographer is fain to acknowledge, he proved to have "inherited all the Courage, Boldness, and Dexterity of the famous Claude Du Vall and the Golden Farmer, and the rest of his other noble Predecessors of the Pad."

This admiring authority then proceeds to give us an account of Whitney's first action, and tells how "he encountered a Jolly Red-fac'd Son of the Church bravely Mounted, with a large Canonical Rose in his Ecclesiastical Hat and his Gown fluttering in the Wind. He looked as if he had been hung round with Bladders. Him, within two miles of St. Albans, he accosts after this manner, 'Reverend Sir, the Gentlemen of your Coat having, in all conscience, enough preached up the edifying Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance, and now I am fully resolved to try the experiment, whether you Believe your own Doctrine, and whether you are able to Practise it. Therefore, worthy sir, in the name of the above-mentioned Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance, make no opposition, I beseech you, but deliver up the filthy Lucre you carry about you.'

"Now you must know that this rosy-gilled Levite had the wicked sum of six-score and ten guineas clos'd up in the waistband of his breeches, designed as a present to a worthy gentleman that lately helped him to a fat living (for you must not call it Symony for all the world, but christen it by the name of Gratitude, and so forth) but Captain Whitney, who, it seems, did not understand any of these softening distinctions, soon eased him of his Mammon, but not without a great deal of expostulation on the Levite's part, and, what was more barbarous, stript him of his spick-and-span new sacerdotal habit, sent his Horse home before him, to prepare his family, and having bound him to his good behaviour, left him all alone to his contemplations in an adjoining wood."

He then met a poor clergyman in threadbare gown, riding a sorry Rosinante, whose poor ribs in a starved body looked like the bars of a bird-cage. What would the typical outlaw, from the days of Robin Hood, onwards, have done in such a rencounter? Why, he would have given the poor divine the new robe and some money; and this Whitney did; handing him four or five bags of the best, saying: "Here is that will buy you a dozen or so of clean bands!" "Thus," says the biographer, "our brave Captain dispensed charities with one hand and plundered with the other."

One day, patrolling Bagshot Heath, he met a gentleman, and desired his purse and watch.

"Sir," said the gentleman, "'tis well you spoke first, for I was just going to say the same thing to you."

"Why then," quoth Whitney, "are you a gentleman-thief?"

"Yes," replied the stranger, "but I have had very bad success to-day, for I have been riding up and down all this morning, without meeting with any prize."

Whitney, upon hearing this doleful tale, wished him better luck, and took his leave.

That night, Whitney and this strange traveller chanced to stay at the same inn, but Whitney had so changed his dress in the meanwhile, and altered his manner, that he was not recognised. He heard his acquaintance of that morning telling another guest how smartly he had outwitted a highwayman that day, and had saved a hundred pounds by his ready wit; and this revelation of how easily he had been hoodwinked made him determined, if it were at all possible, to take his revenge on the morrow. Meanwhile, he listened to the conversation.

The guest, who had been told of the adventure, replied that he also had a considerable sum upon him, and that he would like, if it were agreeable, to travel next day in company with so ready-witted a traveller.

Accordingly, the next morning they set forth together, and Whitney followed, a quarter of an hour later. He soon overtook them, and then, wheeling suddenly about, demanded their purses.

"We were going to say the same to you, sir," replied the ready-witted one.

"Were you so?" asked our hero; "and are you of my profession, then?"

"Yes," they both chorused.

"If you are," said Whitney, "I suppose you remember the old proverb, 'Two of a trade can never agree'; so you must not expect any favour on that score. But to be plain, gentlemen, the trick will do no longer: I know you very well, and must have your hundred pounds, sir; and your 'considerable sum,' sir," turning to the other; "let it be what it will, or I shall make bold to send a brace of bullets through each of your heads. You, Mr. Highwayman, should have kept your secret a little longer, and not have boasted so soon of having outwitted a thief. There is now nothing for you to do but to deliver or die!"

These terrible words threw them into a sad state of consternation. They were unwilling enough to lose their money, but even more unwilling to forfeit their lives; therefore, of two evils they promptly chose the least, and resigned their wealth.

Whitney then met on Hounslow Heath, one Mr. Hull, a notorious usurer, who lived in the Strand. He could hardly have chosen a wretch more in love with money, and therefore less willing to part with it. When the dreadful words, "Stand and deliver!" were spoken, he trembled like a paralytic and began arguing that he was a very poor man, had a large family of children, and would be utterly ruined if the highwayman were so hard-hearted as to take his money. Besides, it was a most illegal, also dangerous, action, to steal; to say nothing of the moral obliquity of those who did so.

"You dog in a doublet," exclaimed the now angered Whitney, "do you pretend to preach morality to an honester man than yourself. You make a prey of all mankind, and grind to death with eight and ten per cent. This once, however, sir, I shall oblige you to lend me what you have, without bond, consequently without interest: so make no more words."

The usurer thereupon reluctantly produced eighteen guineas, and handed them over with an ill grace, scowling darkly at the highwayman, and telling him he hoped one day to have the pleasure of seeing him riding up Holborn Hill, backwards.

It was a foolish thing to remind a gentleman of the road that he would probably some day be an occupant of the cart, travelling to Tyburn. Whitney had already turned to go when these words fell upon his ear; but he now turned back, thoroughly enraged.

"Now, you old rogue," said he, "let me see what a figure a man makes when he rides backwards, and let me have the pleasure, at least, of beholding you first in that posture."

With that, he pulled Hull off his horse, and then setting him on the animal's back again, face to tail, tied his legs together, and then gave the horse two or three cuts, so that it cantered smartly away and never stopped until Hounslow was reached; where the people, who knew the money-lender well and liked him little, had a hearty laugh at his expense before they untied him.

Whitney always affected to appear generous and noble. Meeting one day with a gentleman named Long, on Newmarket Heath, and having robbed him of a hundred pounds in silver, which he found in the traveller's portmanteau, tied up in a great bag, the gentleman told him he had a great way yet to go, and, as he was unknown upon the road, was likely to suffer great inconvenience and hardship, if he had not at least some small sum. Would he not give him back a trifle, to meet his travelling expenses?

Whitney opened the bag of silver, and held it out at arm's length towards him, saying: "Here, take what you have occasion for."

Mr. Long then put in his hand, and took out a handful, as much as he could hold; to which Whitney made no sort of objection, but only said, with a laugh: "I thought you would have had more conscience."

Smith tells a long story of how Whitney and his band one day met a well-known preacher, a Mr. Wawen, lecturer at Greenwich Church, and, easing him of his purse, made him preach a sermon on the subject of thieving. A very similar story is told of Sir Gosselin (?Joscelin) Denville and his outlaws, who in the reign of Edward the Second did surprising things all over England, not least among them the waylaying and robbing of a Dominican monk, Bernard Sympson by name, in a wood between Henley-on-Thames and Marlow, and afterwards compelling him to preach a sermon to like effect. Captain Dudley is said to have done the same; and indeed, whether it were the slitting of a weasand ("_couper gorge, par ma foy_," as Pistol might say), the taking of a purse, or the kissing a pretty woman, the highwaymen of old were all-round experts. But that they should have so insatiable a taste for "firstly, secondly, and thirdly, and then finally, dear brethren," I will not believe. Some ancient traditional highway robber once did so much, no doubt, and the freak has been duly fathered on others of later generations: just as the antique jests at the expense of College dons at Oxford and Cambridge are furbished up anew to fit the present age.

The Reverend Mr. Wawen responded as well as he could manage to Whitney's invitation, and, whether it be genuine or a sheer invention of Alexander Smith's, it is certainly ingenious, and much better reading than that said to have been preached by the Dominican monk, some three hundred and fifty years earlier.

"Gentlemen," began the lecturer from Greenwich church, "my text is THEFT; which, not to be divided into sentences or syllables, being but one word, which itself is only a monosyllable, necessity therefore obliges me to divide it into letters, which I find to be these five, T. H. E. F. T., Theft. Now T, my beloved, is Theological; H is Historical; E is Exegetical; F is Figurative; and T is Tropological.

"Now the theological part of my text is in two portions, firstly, in this world, and secondly, in the world to come. In this world, the effects it works are T, tribulation; H, hatred; E, envy; F, fear; and T, torment. For what greater tribulation can befall a man than to be debarred from sweet liberty, by a close confinement in a nasty prison, which must needs be a perfect representation of the Iron Age, since nothing is heard there but the jingling of shackles, bolts, grates, and keys; these last, my beloved, as large as that put up for a weathercock on St. Peter's steeple in Cornhill.

"However, I must own that you highwaymen may be a sort of Christians whilst under this tribulation, because ye are a kind of martyrs, and suffer really for the truth. Again, ye have the hatred of all honest people, as well as the envy of gaolers if you go under their jurisdiction without money in your pockets. I am sure all of your profession are very sensible that a gaoler expects, not only to distil money out of your irregularities, but also to grow fat by your curses; wherefore his ears are stopped to the cries of others, as God's are to his, and good reason too; for, lay the life of a man in one scale, and his fees in the other, he would lose the first to obtain the second.

"Next, ye are always in as much fear of being apprehended as poor tradesmen in debt are of the Serjeant, who goes muffled like a thief too, and always carries the marks of one, for he steals upon a man cowardly, plucks him by the throat, and makes him stand till he fleeces him. Only the thief is more valiant and the honester man of the two.

"And then, when ye are apprehended, nothing but torment ensues; for when ye are once clapt up in gaol, as I have hinted before, you soon come under the hangman's clutches, and he hangs you up, like so many dogs, for using those scaring words, 'Stand and deliver!'

"The effect which theft works in the world to come is eternal, and there is no helping it. I shall therefore proceed to the historical part of my text, which will prove, from ancient history, that the art of Theft is of some antiquity, inasmuch as that Paris stole Helen, Theseus stole Ariadne, and Jason stole Medea. However, antiquity ought to be no plea for vice, since laws, both Divine and human, forbid base actions, especially theft. For history again informs us that Sciron was thrown headlong into the sea for thieving: Cacus was killed by Hercules: Sisyphus was cut in pieces; Brunellus was hanged for stealing the ring of Angelicus; and the Emperor Frederick the Third condemned all thieves to the galleys.

"The Exegetical part of my text is a sort of commentary on what was first said, when I set forth that your transgressions were a breach of both divine and humane ordinances, which are utterly repugnant to all manner of theft; wherefore, if ye are resolved to pursue these courses still, note, my respect is such to you, although you have robbed me, that if you can but keep yourselves from being ever taken, I'll engage to keep you always from being hanged.

"The figurative part of my text is still to be set forth. Though I call you 'gentlemen,' yet in my heart I think ye to be all rogues; but I mollify my spleen by a _Charientismus_, which is a figure or form of speech mitigating hard matters with pleasant words. Thus, a certain man being apprehended, and brought before Alexander the Great, King of Macedon, for railing against him, and being demanded by Alexander why he and his company had so done, he made answer: 'Had not the wine been all drunk, we had spoken much worse.' Whereby he signified that those words proceeded rather from wine than malice, by which free and pleasant confession he assuaged Alexander's great displeasure, and obtained remission.

"But now, coming to the Tropological part of my text, which signifies drawing a word from its proper and genuine signification to another sense, as, in calling you most famous thieves; I desire your most serious attention, and that you will embrace this exhortation of St. Paul the apostle. 'Let him that stole, steal no more.' Or else the letters of my text point towards a tragical conclusion; for T, 'take care;' H, 'hanging;' E, 'ends not'; F, 'felony;' T, 'at Tyburn.'"

The parson having ended his sermon, which some of Whitney's gang took down in shorthand, they were so well pleased with what he had preached, that they were contented to pay him tithes; so, counting over the money they had taken from him, and finding it to be just ten pounds, they gave him ten shillings for his pains, and then rode away to seek whom they might next devour.

He then met Lord L—— shortly afterwards, near London, and robbed him single-handed. Knowing that his lordship moved in close attendance upon the King, William the Third, and perhaps being keenly conscious that the many serious robberies committed by himself and his men were drawing the net uncomfortably close around them, he made an offer to compound with the authorities. He said if the King would give him an indemnity for past offences, he would bring in thirty of his gang, for military service in Flanders. So saying, he whistled, and, quite in the Roderick Dhu style, twenty or thirty mounted bandits at once appeared.

Whitney, having thus given proofs of his words, continued that, if the King refused his offer, His Majesty might send a troop of Dutchmen to apprehend him and his, but they would find it a hard task to take any, and that he and his men would stand on their defence, and bid them defiance.

There is little or nothing of the "Jacobite Robber" in the stories told of Whitney; but it seems to have been fully recognised that he was a somewhat belated adherent of James the Second. He gathered around him a gang that varied in numbers according to circumstances, but was occasionally about thirty strong. These he was enabled by his superior courage and resource to captain; and with the imposing mounted force they presented, he laid many important and wealthy personages under contribution near London. It was doubtless his gang that stopped and robbed the great Duke of Marlborough of five hundred guineas near London Colney, on the night of August 23rd, 1692, and as a Jacobite, Whitney would be particularly pleased at the doing of it. It is almost equally certain that the numerous other rich hauls about that time on the St. Albans road were the handiwork of Whitney's party. On December 6th, 1692, there was a pitched battle between Whitney's force and a troop of dragoon patrols, near Barnet. One dragoon was killed, and several wounded, and Whitney is most circumstantially said to have then been captured; but as an even more circumstantial account tells us, with a wealth of detail, how he was finally captured in Bishopsgate Street, on December 31st, this cannot be altogether correct.

Was it, we wonder, his professed Jacobite views that made many travellers so good-humoured with him as they are said to have been when he lightened their pockets? A fellowship in political views does not in our own days necessarily make a stranger free of our purse. Whitney, for example, meeting Sir Richard B—— between Stafford and Newport, accosted him with a "How now? whither away?"

"To London," replied the knight; whereupon Whitney troubled him for £4.

Then, much to our surprise, we read of Sir Richard, who appears to have known Whitney very well by sight, saying, "Captain, I'll give you a breakfast, with a fowl or two." It would have come more naturally to read that he offered to give him in charge!

Whitney politely declined, but said he would drink to the knight's health then and there; and, halting a passing waggon, broached a cask out of it on the spot.

In spite of a conflict of testimony, it seems to be clearly established that Whitney was finally captured on December 31st, 1692. He appears to have at some earlier time been taken, after a desperate fight with a "bagonet," and lodged in Newgate, whence he broke out with a four-pound weight on each leg. On this last occasion he made a determined resistance at the door of the house in which he was beset, fighting for over an hour with the officers and the mob. Most of his gang were afterwards captured; including a livery-stable keeper, a goldsmith, and a man-milliner.

Whitney appears to have been a man of medium height, to have had a scarred face, and to have lost one thumb: sliced off, probably, in one of his encounters with the patrols.

He endeavoured to purchase his liberty by "offering to discover his accomplices, and those that give notice where and when money is conveyed on the road in coaches and waggons." This offer was not accepted, and the order went forth that he was to be hanged at the Maypole in the Strand. Then he shifted his ground to include more startling secrets that he was ready to divulge, "if he may have his pardon." Jacobite plots were the commonplaces of that day. King James was not greatly liked by even the most ardent Jacobite, but King William was detested, and even those who had placed William on the throne did so merely as a political expedient. Thus the personally unpopular King was for ever harassed with plots hatched to assassinate him; and when Whitney hinted, not obscurely, that he could tell terrible tales if he would, it was thought advisable to have the highwayman out in a sedan-chair and to take him to Kensington, under escort, that he might be examined, touching these plots. But it was soon discovered that he really knew nothing and that his idle "confessions" and "revelations" had no basis in fact.

He was not content to remain in Newgate in worn and shabby clothes.

"He had his taylor," says Luttrell, "make him a rich embroidered suit, with perug and hat, worth £100; but the keeper refused to let him wear them, because they would disguise him from being known."

That somewhat obscure phrase seems to mean that Whitney intended, under cover of his fine new suit, to make a dash for liberty.

His execution was finally fixed for February 1st, 1693, at Porter's Block, Smithfield. He made a very proper and a singularly restrained and well-chosen speech at the fatal spot:

"I have been a very great offender, both against God and my country, by transgressing all laws, human and divine. I believe there is not one here present but has often heard my name before my confinement, and have seen a large catalogue of my crimes, which have been made public since. Why should I then pretend to vindicate a life stained with deeds of violence? The sentence passed on me is just, and I can see the footsteps of Providence, which I had before profanely laughed at, in my apprehension and conviction. I hope the sense which I have of these things has enabled me to make my peace with Heaven, the only thing that is now of any concern to me. Join in your prayers with me, my dear countrymen, that God will not forsake me in my last moments."

"He seem to dye very penitent," says the original chronicler of these things: "and was an hour and a halfe in the cart before being turned off."

TWM SHON CATTI

A singular character, half mythical, and his exploits almost wholly so, is Twm Shon Catti; a prankish creature whom, nevertheless, the people of Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire will not willingly let die.

Twm, it need hardly be said, was a Welshman. His name, duly translated from Cymraeg into English, means "Tom John Kate," _i.e._ "Tom, the son of Kate." Who was his other parent remains a matter of uncertainty, but he is thought to have been a local magnate, Sir John Wynne of Gwydir. Kate, his mother, was a country girl, of Tregaron, and Twm himself was born apparently about the third quarter of the seventeenth century; that is to say, if the half sprite and half human being of the legends can be said to belong to any easily-ascertained span of years. Some of his exploits certainly seem to belong to a later period.

But however that may be, he is yet the hero of a very wide countryside, in which any peasant is still able to give a very fair biography of him to the passing stranger, and is also quite competent to show him Twm's cave, in Dinas Hill, or "Llidiard-y-Ffin," overlooking the river Towy, near Ystrad Ffin. Composed in equal parts of Will-o'-Wisp, Dick Turpin (the idealised Turpin of legend, not the cowardly brute of cold-drawn fact), and Robin Hood, his career is one of marvels. Horse-thief, highwayman at one time and out-witter of highwaymen at another, special providence to the deserving, and scourge of the wicked, he always comes successfully out of encounters and difficulties. If for that peculiarity alone, he might reasonably be held mythical.

Starting in life as a farmer's boy, he afterwards found a place in the service of the local lord of the manor, in which his Puck-like pranks were first developed. As the secret of his birth was more or less an open one, these escapades were not often visited with the punishment another would almost certainly have incurred; and, besides, he was generally looked upon as a "natural": as one, that is to say, who is not more than half-witted. Thus, when he would steal the parson's horse in Llandovery and sell it to a squire some twenty miles off, he proved the truth of that old law which says one man may with impunity steal a horse, while another may not safely even look over the fence.

It all depends upon the man. In Twm's case, such an exploit was not the criminal business that would have brought an ordinary man to the gallows, but merely an escapade serving, like Prince Hal and Poins' fooling of Falstaff with the men in buckram, as "argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever."

At the rather uncertain period in which Twm flourished there also flourished a highwayman in the locality, who, from his daring and savage disposition, was known as "Dio the Devil." This terrific person had carried off the young and beautiful wife of Sir John Devereux, lord of Ystrad Ffin, and Twm was successful in rescuing her. The obvious reward for this service was, bearing Twm's almost gentle origin in mind, to receive him in his house on equal terms: or, as some accounts have it, he entered the service of Sir John as jester. But whether he went as such, or not, he certainly acted the part very thoroughly, and kept the establishment always well entertained.

Twm was a perfect centaur of a horseman, and Sir John Devereux was almost as good in the saddle. Twm's custom was to back himself in heavy wagers to perform extraordinary feats of horsemanship, and then proceed, by hair-raising doings, to win the bets. Not only the physical, but the mental agility of these things took strangers at an utterly dumbfoundered disadvantage; but the most astonishing of all was the one now to be related. An English guest who was staying with Sir John happened also to be a remarkable horseman, and had the advantage his Welsh host had not, of owning a thoroughbred. The talk ran high one day on the subject of horses and equitation, and the whimsical Twm promptly wagered twenty pounds he would put his horse to a jump where the Englishman dare not follow. Conversant with the not very fine specimens of horses to be found in his host's stable, the Englishman with contempt accepted the bet, quite easy in his mind that he must win.

A "numerous and distinguished company," as a modern chronicler of fashionable doings might say, assembled on the mountain-side on the appointed day, to see the challenger take this as yet unknown leap, and the stranger follow if he dared. They knew their Twm well enough to be quite convinced he had some mad project in view, to discomfit the Englishman; and what Welshman was there who would not have travelled far, and at much discomfort, to witness the humiliation of the "Saxon."

Twm was last upon the to-be-contested field, and a great shout of laughter went up as he was seen riding along upon a wretched horse, in the last stage of decrepitude. The Englishman did not quite know whether to feel insulted or amused, but Twm, once arrived on the scene, did not linger. Quickly he took a thick cloth and bound it over the head of his horse; and then, bidding the Englishman follow him, put his mount at a rift in the mountain-side some hundreds of feet deep. Over leapt the horse, and was in another half a minute lying dead, shattered in its fall on the rocks below.

Even those of his countrymen who knew the resourcefulness of their hero, and had backed him heavily, now lost heart; but in another minute up rose the head and shoulders of Twm above the edge, and he presently leapt among them unhurt, to receive his winnings from the astounded Englishman. He had adroitly slipped from the horse's back at the moment of his taking off, and leapt into the bushes that grew out of the face of the cliff. The horse itself merely met its end in a different manner from that already ordained for it that day, when it was to have been slaughtered, as being past work.

His friend and patron, Sir John Devereux, perceiving how well able Twm was to take care of himself, and being under the necessity of despatching a considerable amount of money in gold to London, and obliged at the same time to remain at home, he entrusted him with the commission. He would have given Twm an escort of one or two servants, but that worthy, shrewdly remarking that it would be as much worth their while as that of a highwayman to rob him, declined all company, and, in the oldest clothes he could find, set out alone on a shaggy Welsh pony. He had gone two-thirds of his journey without adventure, and put up one night, contentedly enough, at what is described as the "Hop Pole," a "lonely inn on the bleak downs near Marlborough"—although there really seems never to have been a house of that name near: perhaps "Shepherd's Shore," or the "Waggon and Horses" at Beckhampton would serve better. When he retired for the night, and was lying still and wakeful, he overheard the landlady and a strange man discussing him. The landlady was saying she did not suppose a traveller like our Twm, "dressed like a scarecrow and mounted on a piece of animated carrion, for which the rooks cawed as he rode along," was worth robbing.

"I don't know so much about that," he heard the other—obviously a highwayman—reply. "Very often these miserable-looking people you see on the roads disguise their wealth in this way, and are in reality carrying a great deal of money about with them: sometimes half a year's rent of a considerable estate. This fellow seems to be one of that kind. We shall see to-morrow."

Twm remembered having seen a plaguey ill-looking fellow in the house, and lay long awake, wondering what he should be at, and pleased that, anyhow, he was not to be interfered with that night. But he felt sure of being followed as soon as ever he left the house, and bethought him, there and then, of an ingenious plan. Before their very eyes next morning, he rummaged in the peak of his saddle, as if to arrange it more comfortably, and in so doing managed to disclose some gold to their covetous gaze. Then he was soon off; not travelling very fast, as may be supposed, on his laden pony. So soon as he was out of sight of the inn, he hopped off and transferred the money from the saddle to his pockets. Then he resumed his way.

Presently, as he had expected, he heard the highwayman thundering along in his rear. When the pursuer came well in sight, Twm hurriedly dismounted again, and, unloosening the saddle, flung it as far as he was able into a pond that spread by the wayside. Dismounting himself, the highwayman, leaving Twm for the moment, plunged knee-deep into the pond for the treasure, as he supposed, and Twm leapt nimbly on his thoroughbred horse: no highwayman of tradition ever riding a horse that was not thoroughbred, whatever the sorry jades the real ones had often to bestride.

When Twm cantered happily into Marlborough on the highwayman's steed, and told his story, the townspeople, who it appears had suffered much from the knights of the road, welcomed him as a hero, and entertained him at the Town Hall. If he had not been in a hurry, they might perhaps have presented him with the freedom of the borough. Perhaps they did so on his return. He sold his horse for a good round sum, for he thought it dangerous to ride up to London on so fine a mount. Therefore, armed with one pistol, he resumed the journey on foot, and to my mind it seems either a testimony to the honesty or the lack of enterprise among the burgesses of Marlborough, that some one or other of them did not follow him into the secluded glades of Savernake Forest, through which his road lay, and do for him.

But he neared London without other encounters, until he came upon Hounslow Heath. Here the tale of the confiding highwayman and the apparently stupid countryman, often told, but always fresh, had its origin. Twm was duly pulled up on the Heath by a robber, who appears to have been none other than Tom Dorbel, famous in his day. Dorbel was bristling with an armoury of pistols. Our ingenious Twm, affecting to be seized with the abject terror of a country lout, earnestly begged the ruffian, before he robbed him, to put half-a-dozen bullets through his coat, so that his master might easily see how good a fight he had made of it, before yielding his treasure. He took off his coat for the purpose, and the highwayman very obligingly complied with this very reasonable request.

Twm capered about like the idiot he pretended to be. "That wass ferry coot of you—yess, inteet," he said; "and if you wass put another look you, through my hat, it wass pe petter still, whateffer."

The highwayman, wondering what special kind of lunatic he had happened upon, fired his last pistol through the hat as desired, when "Now," said Twm, himself producing a pistol, "it iss my turn. Out with your coin, or I will put a pig hole through your pody." And Twm not only saved his master's coin, but robbed the highwayman as well.

JOHN WITHERS AND WILLIAM EDWARDS

John Withers, one of the most ferocious of those highwaymen who did not scruple to add murder to their crimes, was born in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, at Lichfield. He was the son of a butcher, in so small a way of business that his father could not find employment for him; and so, in order to get a start in life, he set off for London. Arrived there, he was drawn by his natural bent into the company of criminals, and, throwing in his lot with them, was soon arrested and found guilty on charges of larceny, with violence. He escaped punishment by accepting the offer, generally made at that time, of enlisting in the army, and was sent out to the Flanders expedition. Here, perhaps, we see an explanation of the well-known expression, "Our armies swore terribly in Flanders." If it was composed largely of reprieved criminals, there can be no doubt that its language could not have been choice, nor its conduct exemplary. "My blackguards," the Duke of Wellington styled his men, who fought so well and endured so greatly in the Peninsula; for even so lately as that period the rank-and-file were composed of the offscourings of society; but they must have been well-mannered gentlemen, compared with the soldiers of a century earlier.

Sacrilege presently engaged the attention of Withers in Flanders. Entering a church in Ghent during high mass, and observing the people placing money in a box that stood in front of a figure of the Virgin, he awaited a favourable opportunity, picked the lock, and filled his pockets with the contents. "Unfortunately," says his sympathetic biographer, "in haste to carry off his plunder, some of the money fell upon the pavement, ringing out sharply in the stillness of the church; so that he was detected in the act."

Taken before the venerable Cardinal, and examined, he was about to be taken off in custody; when, falling upon his knees, with uplifted hands he begged the Cardinal to listen to him. He then declared with ready lies, that, brought up as a heretic, and falling into evil ways that had brought him to want and misery, he had seen the folly of his life, and offered prayers before the effigy of the Virgin Mary. While he was thus praying, he continued, the figure pointed to the box, as if it were giving him leave to take what was necessary to supply his wants. In consequence of this singular interposition on his behalf, he concluded he had made up his mind to become a Roman Catholic, but at the moment of this decision he had been arrested.

This singular narrative was heard by the Cardinal with much surprise, and at the close of it he exclaimed, fervently, "A miracle indeed!" All who had heard it also shared the same opinion and "it being justly concluded that none had a better right to dispose of the money than the Virgin herself, to whom it was devoted," Withers was carried in solemn procession, as a convert singularly honoured, and placed before the high altar while an Ave Maria was sung.

It is not, it may be added, necessary to believe this precious story in its entirety. Withers was, of course, as we shall see, capable of worse than this, and the probability is that the actual theft was committed by him; but we can hardly believe the Roman Catholic clergy quite such fools as they figure here.

At Antwerp, Withers made a second essay in sacrilege. There he stole a great silver crucifix. But he felt that there was really no career for him in these enterprises, and so, deserting from the army, he crossed to England, and took up the profession of highwayman.

It would be of little interest to follow Withers in all his highway doings, but the adventure of himself and two companions with an actor on the road is perhaps worth repeating. They espied one morning a gentleman walking alone and displaying all the gestures of passion, distraction, and fury to excess; casting his eyes to heaven, stretching forth his arms imploringly, or folding them moodily upon his breast. Near by was a pond.

"Make haste!" exclaimed Withers to his companions, "'tis even as we thought; the poor gentleman is just going to kill himself for love." Then, rushing towards him, two of them taking an arm each, Withers addressed him earnestly: "Pray, sir, consider what you do! what a sad thing it would be to drown yourself here. Be better advised and consider, before it is too late."

The actor was indignant. "What a plague is all this for?" he asked. "I am not going to hang, stab, or drown myself. I am not in love, but only a player, learning a part."

"A player, are you?" rejoined Withers. "If I had thought that, you should have drowned yourself, or hanged yourself indeed, before we had taken the pains to follow you up and down. But, to make amends for our trouble, the least you can do will be to give us what money you have."

So saying, they bound his hands and legs together, emptied his pockets of ten shillings, and took away a silver-hilted sword he carried.

It is, in this connection, curious to observe the animus displayed against the stage. It is met largely in the satire of the time, and not merely in the literature inspired by the Puritans, but even in those by no means puritanical books and plays in which the highwaymen figure as heroes. Thus, in the play, the _Prince of Priggs_, written around the career of Captain Hind, but not intended to be staged, we find the prologue chiefly concerned with a sneer at those "apes and parrots," silenced under the sour rule of the Commonwealth:

Since that the Apes and Parrots of the Stage,
Are silenc'd by the Clamours of the Age;
Like Conies forc'd to feed on bran and grass,
(The true Desciples of _Pithagoras_)
Whose Copper-Lace,[1] and Copper-Noses once
Made them to think themselves great _Prester-Johns_:
You'l (sure) have cause to praise, and thank that man,
Can make each thief a compleat _Roscian_:
Then much good doe't you (Sirs) fall to and eat,
You ne're had cheaper (perhaps) better meat.

[1] _i.e._ imitation gold-lace.

The last adventure of Withers was that in which he and a companion, William Edwards by name, near Beaconsfield beset a nobleman and his servant. Withers' horse was shot in the resistance they made, and, mounting behind his friend, they took to flight. But the horse with two riders was no match for the others, not so heavily burdened; and, being hard pressed along the road, the two fugitives dismounted and ran across country in the direction of London. Sleeping in the hedges overnight, the next morning they continued their flight. Meeting, one mile on the London side of Uxbridge, with a penny postman, they robbed him of eight shillings; and Withers, to prevent their being identified, drew a large butcher's knife he carried, and barbarously cut his throat. They then ripped up his body, filled his stomach with stones, and flung him into the little stream that here flows across the road. The burial registers of Hillingdon church bear witness to this and to another murder they appear to have committed at, or near, the same place; "1702, November 13. Will Harrison, Postman, murdered near the Great Bridge between Hillingdon and Uxbridge. November 28. Edward Symonds, Drover, murdered at the same time, and about the same place, and by the same hands."

Withers and Edwards were arrested the following January in Norfolk, for a highway robbery committed there, and were tried and executed at Thetford, April 16th, 1703.

PATRICK O'BRIAN

"Patrick O'Brian," says Captain Alexander Smith, "was a native of Ireland." Perhaps we might, without undue stress of mind, have guessed as much. It seems that his parents were very indigent natives of Loughrea, and so Patrick left his native land for England, and presently enlisted in the Coldstream Guards. But he was not a good soldier; or, at any rate, if good in that profession, infinitely better in the practice of all kinds of vice. He was resolved not to want money, if there were any to be obtained, no matter the means to it; but began cautiously by running into debt at public-houses and shops; and then followed up that first step by borrowing from every acquaintance, until that source was dried up.

When all these means to existence were exhausted, O'Brian went upon the road. The first person whom he met was, strange to say, another unmitigated scoundrel: none other, in fact, than the Reverend William Clewer, vicar of Croydon, who here demands a little paragraph entirely to himself.

William Clewer, who was collated to the living of Croydon in 1660, was notorious, we are told, for his singular love of litigation, unparalleled extortions, and criminal and disgraceful conduct. His character became so bad, and his ways of life so notorious, that he was eventually ejected in 1684. He must have been, indeed, pre-eminently bad, to have been ejected in that easy-going age. Dispossessed of his living, on these substantial grounds, he at last died, in 1702, and was buried in St. Bride's, Fleet Street.

We are indebted to Smith for the account of the meeting of O'Brian and this shining light of the clerical profession:

"O'Brian, meeting with Dr. Clewer, who was try'd once and burnt in the hand at the Old Bailey for stealing a silver cup, coming along the road from Acton, he demanded his money; but the reverend doctor having not a farthing about him, O'Brian was for taking his gown. At this our divine was much dissatisfied; but, perceiving his enemy would plunder him, quoth he: 'Pray, sir, let me have a chance for my gown'; so, pulling a pack of cards out of his pocket, he further said: 'We'll have, if you please, one game of all-fours for it, and if you win it, take it and wear it.' This challenge was readily accepted by the footpad; but, being more cunning than his antagonist at slipping and palming the cards, he won the game, and the doctor went contentedly home without his canonicals."

On one memorable occasion, O'Brian happened, in his lurkings upon the road, to stop a man who proved to be an acrobat, and who, when Patrick bade him "stand and deliver!" instantly jumped over his head. The ignorant and superstitious Irishman thought he had chanced upon the devil himself, come to sport with him before his time, and while he was trembling and crossing himself, the acrobat, rolling along the road in a series of somersaults and cartwheels, got clear away.

These adventures appear to have been mere tentative experiments, for we learn that O'Brian then deserted from the army and commenced highwayman in earnest. He one day stopped the carriage of none other than Nell Gwynne and addressed her thus: "Madam, I am a gentleman. I have done a great many signal services to the fair sex, and have, in return, been all my life maintained by them. Now, as I know you to be a charitable woman, I make bold to ask you for a little money; though I never had the honour of serving you in particular. However, if any opportunity shall ever fall in my way, you may depend upon it I will not be ungrateful."

Nell, we are told, made this mercenary knight-errant a present of ten guineas.

It was the same with O'Brian as with every other wicked man, says Smith; he was eager to lead others into the evil path himself had chosen. In particular, he induced a young man named Wilt to become a highwayman; and Wilt was unfortunate enough to be apprehended in his first experiment and to be hanged for it.

O'Brian was also arrested, and hanged at Gloucester. After his body had swung the usual time, it was cut down and his friends were allowed to carry it off. When it was taken indoors, it was observed to move slightly, strange to say; upon which a surgeon was hurriedly called; and, what with being bled and his limbs being exercised, O'Brian was presently restored to life.

This marvellous recovery was kept a strict secret for a time, and it was hoped the experience would have a salutary effect, the more especially as his friends were willing to contribute towards his support in some retired employment. He agreed to reform his life, and, indeed, while the memory of the bitterness of death was fresh upon him, kept his promise; but as that dreadful impression wore off by degrees, he returned to his former ways. Abandoning an honest life, he procured a horse (Smith says he purchased one, but we may be allowed our doubts upon that matter) "and other necessaries": _i.e._ pistols, powder and ball, and sword, and again visited the road.

This was about one year after his execution and supposed death, and the travelling public of the districts he had principally affected had long grown tired of congratulating themselves upon his disappearance, and were quite accustomed to thinking of him as a memory. It was, therefore, a bad shock to the gentleman whom he had last robbed, and for plundering whom he had been, to all appearance, satisfactorily turned off, when he was the first person to be stopped by O'Brian in this second series of his adventures.

His consternation, we are told, and may readily believe, was great. "Wher—why?" he asked, with chattering teeth, "I ther—thought you had been hanged a twelvemonth ago."

"So I was," rejoined O'Brian, "and therefore you ought to imagine that what you see now is only my ghost. However, lest you should be so uncivil as to hang my ghost too, I think the best way is to secure you." So saying, he discharged a pistol through the gentleman's head, and, alighting from his horse, in a fury hewed the body to pieces with his hanger.

Later, he committed a fearful atrocity in Wiltshire, which, although fully detailed in contemporary literature, cannot be set forth here. He carried off at the same time no less a sum of money than £2,500; but was fortunately brought to justice after a further two years of miscellaneous plundering, chiefly through the evidence of an accomplice lying under sentence of death in Bedford gaol. He was taken at his lodgings in Little Suffolk Street, by the Haymarket, and then sent down to Salisbury, to be tried for his Wiltshire enormity. Once lodged in gaol there, he confessed a series of crimes, for which he was executed on April 30th, 1689, aged thirty-one.

JACK BIRD