The name of Thomas Simpson arouses no emotions of love or hate, of fear or of admiration. He is just "Thomas Simpson," plebeian, undistinguished amid the other hundreds of Thomas Simpsons who have worn a commonplace name throughout a commonplace career, and so ended; the world appreciably no better for their existence, and certainly not noticeably worse. There have been perhaps thousands of Thomas Simpsons, but there has been only one "Old Mob." The Thomas Simpson, who rose to fame with that picturesque nickname, was born at Romsey, in the New Forest, in the first half of the seventeenth century. We are told little of his early life, and merely learn that he continued to live at Romsey as his only home, "until he had five children and some grandchildren." His education, we further learn, without surprise—for it was the seventeenth century, you know—"appears to have been greatly neglected." It was impudence, however, more than anything, more even than courage, that ever made the successful highwayman: the 'ologies were useless on the hard high road, under stars, when a carriage worth robbing drew nigh; nor even would the elementary three R's help a man any the better to thrust a pistol through a window and cry "Stand!"

Old Mob had little education and less manners. Your Du Valls and Captain Hinds might bring the manners of society and the refinements of the ball-room into the keen air of the highway; for him there was but the rasping tongue of command and the contact of the cold muzzle of his pistol with your nose. He ranged the south and west of England very freely, and is found on one occasion in the Eastern Counties.

Accounts of his career generally open with his encountering a certain Sir Bartholomew Shower, between Honiton and Exeter. The road in the neighbourhood of Honiton Clyst is still little frequented, and at that time must have been singularly lonely. Old Mob called upon the knight to "stand and deliver," and Sir Bartholomew delivered accordingly, and with a pleasing readiness because he had the merest trifle on him, and thought to have thus escaped easily. But Old Mob was disappointed, and proportionably wroth: "My demands, sir, are very large and pressing," he said, "and therefore you must instantly draw a bill for one hundred and fifty pounds and remain in the next field for security till I have received the money."

The knight vainly protested that there was no one in Exeter who had so large a sum by him, but Old Mob would take no denial and led him a long distance away from the road, tied him to a tree, and compelled him to draw a bill for the amount on a goldsmith in the city. Then he rode into Exeter, duly cashed it and, returning, released his prisoner. "Sir," his biographer reports him as saying, "I am come with a habeas corpus to remove you out of your present captivity"; which he did, leaving him to walk home the distance of three miles.

This last remark attributed to Old Mob, the uneducated, is no doubt a biographical frill, inserted to fitly round off the incident. What should he know of habeas corpus? This was a vice of which the biographer of the knights of the road could by no means rid themselves.

It was upon the road between Newmarket and London that Old Mob halted the carriage of no less a personage than Louise de la KÉrouaille, the notorious Frenchwoman, favourite of Charles the Second, whom that monarch had created Duchess of Portsmouth.

"Do you know who I am, fellow?" demanded that haughty lady, indignant at being stopped by so mean-looking an object.

Now, for such as the Duchess of Portsmouth and her kind to ask such a question of a highwayman was singularly rash. Captain Alexander Smith and "Captain" Charles Johnson, in their folio volumes of the Lives of the Highwaymen, published in 1719 and 1742, respectively, describe Old Mob's reply, either in his own words, or excogitated out of their own inner consciousness, according to their own ideas of probability; but these present pages are in octavo volumes and this is the twentieth century, and for one of these reasons, or both—as you please—it is really not possible to reprint the vigorous reply of Old Mob to the Duchess's request. He not only told her who she was, but also, in the sheerest unornamental language, what she was, as well. Among other things: "You are maintained at the public expense. I know that all the courtiers depend upon your smiles, and that even the King is your slave. But what of all that? A gentleman-collector upon the road is a greater man, and more absolute than His Majesty is at Court. You may now say, madam, that a single highwayman has exercised his authority where Charles the Second of England has often begged a favour."

Her grace continued to gaze upon him with a lofty air, and told him he was a very insolent fellow: that she would give him nothing, and that he should certainly suffer for his insolence. "Touch me if you dare!" she exclaimed.

"Madame," rejoined the highwayman, "that haughty French spirit will do you no good here. I am an English freebooter, and I insist upon it, as my native right, to seize all foreign commodities! Your money is indeed English, but it is forfeited, as being the fruit of English folly. All you possess is confiscated, as being bestowed upon one so worthless. I am King here, madame! I have use for money, as well as he. The public pay for his follies, and so they must for mine." And Old Mob thereupon gathered in two hundred pounds in gold, "a very rich necklace which her Royal paramour had lately given her," a gold watch, and two diamond rings.

You will observe an intolerable tendency in Old Mob to moral reflections: as though he were one who had missed his vocation, and would have been more legitimately employed in improving the occasion from the pulpit. And not only Old Mob held forth in this manner. His contemporaries—if we may believe Messrs. Smith and Johnson—did the like: in very unclerical fashion, it is true, for they sandwiched their preaching with the most horrible oaths and blasphemies: all duly printed at length by those authorities, without the decent veil of the blushing "——," or the discreet "*." It was a singularly mixed method; but the preachments are all of so singular a likeness that we may shrewdly suspect them to be the inventions of their biographers. The cursings and revilings we may take as being the highwayman's very own. They were instinctively employed to strike terror into the hearts of unfortunate wayfarers, just as in olden Chinese warfare the pig-tailed warriors came on with grimaces and with shields pictured with hideous masks.

"Old Mob" then met "Old Gadbury, the Astrologer," and stopping him and demanding his money, "the Starry Prophet began to plead Poverty, but this did not move him at all to Compassion."

"You lying Rogue," quoth he, "can you that possess all the Seven Planets of Free-hold, and let them out on Lease to the Stationers' Company, plead Poverty to me. No, no, you must not sham Poverty to me; come, come, your Money presently, or this Pistol, shall be worse to you than the raging Dog Star that threatens Death and Diseases to a Country."

And "Old Gadbury" had thereupon to make a speedy delivery.

The next most outstanding enterprise of Old Mob was the halting of Judge Jeffreys in his coach, some time later than that Judge's assize of blood in the West. The highwayman, setting suddenly upon the equipage, disabled the two servants who accompanied it, and then demanded his lordship's money.

"I am Sir George Jeffreys," quietly remarked the judge, with a world of meaning, as he severely eyed the pistol presented at him. That plain statement was designed to send a pang of apprehension through the aggressor; and, indeed, the lowering presence of the judge had made many a prisoner brought before him quail; but Old Mob, by the best accounts, does not appear to have been greatly impressed. He was ready as ever with his moral remarks.

Jeffreys reminding him that a Providence existed which governed the world, and that he might therefore expect to be duly punished for his iniquities, he held forth in his best pulpit style: "When justice has overtaken us both, I hope to stand as good a chance as your lordship, you, who have written your name in indelible characters of blood and deprived many thousands of their lives, for no other reason than their appearing in defence of their just rights and liberties. It is enough for you to preach morality upon the Bench, when no person can venture to contradict you; but your words can have no effect upon me. I know you too well not to perceive that they are only lavished upon me to save your ill-gotten wealth." Then, his eloquence in this vein being exhausted, thundering forth a volley of oaths, and presenting a pistol to his breast, he threatened the judge with instant death, unless he surrendered his money. Perceiving that his authority was of no consequence to him upon the road, Judge Jeffreys thereupon handed over the gold he had about him, amounting to fifty-six guineas.

To recount the many improbable stories told of Old Mob, singly, or in conjunction with his sometime ally, the "Golden Farmer," would be to tell many stupid tales, and to convict oneself of credulity. He was caught at last, and, being convicted on thirty-four out of thirty-six indictments, was duly hanged, with nine others, September 12th, 1691. He declared, on the scaffold, that "while he continued to Rob on the Highway, he pray'd at the same Time that God would forgive it, and that it eas'd his mind something." It was added that "though he had wounded several Persons, yet he affirm'd he never murder'd any; which, to be sure, was very forbearing and obliging of him."