The times of the highwaymen are, fortunately for the wayfarer, if unhappily for romance, long since past, and many of the once-notorious haunts of Sixteen-string Jack, Claude du Vall, Dick Turpin, and their less-famed companions have disappeared before the ravages of time and the much more destructive onslaughts of the builder. A hundred years ago it would have been difficult to name a lonely suburban inn that was not more or less favoured and frequented by the “Knights of the Road.” Nowadays the remaining examples are, for those interested in the old story of the roads, all too few.

Perhaps this queer little roadside inn, the “Old Magpies,” is the most romantic-looking among those that are left. For one thing, it possesses a thick and beetle-browed thatch which impends over the upper windows like bushy eyebrows, and gives those windows—the eyes of the house—just that lowering and suspicious look which heavy and bristling eyebrows confer upon a man.

But it is not only its romantic appearance that gives the “Old Magpies” an interest, for it is a well-ascertained fact that outside this house, so near to the once terrible Hounslow Heath, the brother of Mr. Mellish, M.P. for Grimsby, was murdered by highwaymen in April, 1798, when returning from a day’s hunting with the King’s hounds.

He had started with two others from the “Castle” Hotel, at Salt Hill, for London, after dinner, and the carriage in which the party was seated was passing near the “Old Magpies” at about half-past eight, when it was attacked by three footpads. One held the horses’ heads while the other two guarded the windows, firing a shot through, to terrify the occupants. They then demanded money. No one offered any resistance, purses and bank-notes being handed over as a matter of course. Then the travellers were allowed to go, a parting shot in the dark being fired into the carriage. It struck Mr. Mellish in the forehead. Coming to another inn near by, called the “Magpies,” the wounded man was taken upstairs and put to bed, while a surgeon was sent for.

He came from Hounslow, and was robbed on the way by the same gang. Additional medical assistance was called in, but this late victim of highway robbery died within forty-eight hours.

The assassins were never apprehended, although Bow Street sent its cleverest officers to track them down. Bow Street caught the smaller fry readily enough, who snatched handkerchiefs and such petty booty, and hanged them out of hand, while the more desperate villains generally escaped. This is not to say that the Bow Street Runners were not vigilant and zealous. Indeed, their zeal sometimes outran their discretion, as instanced in their bold capture of Sir Joseph Banks, who was collecting natural history specimens in the wilds. Sir Joseph, distinguished man of science though he was, and a gentleman, was singularly ill-favoured, and in this fact lies the chief sting of Peter Pindar’s witty verses on the subject—

“Sir Joseph, fav’rite of great Queens and Kings,
Whose wisdom weed- and insect-hunter sings;
And ladies fair applaud, with smile so dimpling;
Went forth one day amid the laughing fields
Where Nature such exhaustless treasure yields—A-simpling!
It happened on the self-same morn so bright
The nimble pupils of Sir Sampson Wright,
A-simpling too, for plants called Thieves, proceeded;
Of which the nation’s field should oft be weeded.”

They seize Sir Joseph.

“‘Sirs, what d’ye take me for?’ the Knight exclaimed—
‘A thief,’ replied the Runners, with a curse;
‘And now, sir, let us search you, and be damn’d’—
And then they searched his pockets, fobs, and purse,
But, ’stead of pistol dire, and death-like crape,
A pocket-handkerchief they cast their eye on,
Containing frogs and toads of various shape,
Dock, daisy, nettletop, and dandelion,
To entertain, with great propriety,
The members of his sage Society;
Yet would not alter they their strong belief
That this their pris’ner was a thief.

“‘Sirs, I’m no highwayman,’ exclaimed the Knight—
‘No—there,’ rejoined the Runners, ‘you are right—
A footpad only. Yes, we know your trade—
Yes, you’re a pretty babe of grace;
We want no proofs, old codger, but your face;
So come along with us, old blade.’
······
“Sir Joseph told them that a neighb’ring Squire
Should answer for it that he was no thief;
On which they plumply damn’d him for a liar,
And said such stories should not save his beef;
And, if they understood their trade,
His mittimus should soon be made;
And forty pounds be theirs, a pretty sum,
For sending such a rogue to Kingdom Come.”

To the Squire, however, they took that distinguished member of Society, who, of course, identified him at once, and bade them beg his pardon. This they did—according to “Peter Pindar”—with a resolution in future not to judge of people by their looks!

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