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.

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."