lived at Hounslow, that, on his ordering his
gardener to cut an avenue to open a view, the
perspective disclosed a gibbet with a thief on it,
and that several members of the Campbell
family having died with their shoes on, the
prospect revived such ominous and unpleasant
reminiscences that Lord Islay instantly ordered
the prospect to be closed again with a clump
of thick Scotch firs.

If any highwayman who galloped to the gallows
a century ago, could see Hounslow Heath
now, he would wonder where the four thousand
acres that covered fourteen parishes had
shrunk to. He would find only a few dozen
acres of grass field enclosed for the cavalry reviews
on one side of the road, and a few dozen
acres of rough furze and bramble on the other
for cavalry drill. Local historians say that the
heath was once an oak forest that spread its
green boughs from Staines to Brentford, and
there is an old tradition that the last wolf
killed, centuries ago now, was hunted down at
Perry Oaks, near Feltham Hill.

In Charles the First's time Hounslow contained
one hundred and twenty houses, chiefly
inns and ale-houses relying on travellers. It was
always indeed dependent on the coaches of the
great west road. Every third house is still an
inn or a beer shop. Ruined stables, faded signs
of the Marquis of Granby and other bygone
celebrities, still testify to the old prosperity of
the place, when the Comet used to come flashing
in, five minutes under the hour, from Piccadilly.

Let us sketch the Comet of the old days.
Tom Brown, the coachman, allows only fifty
seconds for changing horses—smart's the word
with him. Tom in the neat white hat, the
clean doeskin gloves, the well cut trousers and
dapper frock—we quote a contemporaneous
portrait is the pink of Jarvies. The coach is
a strong, well-built, canary-coloured drag: a
bull's head on the doors: a Saracen's head on
the hind boot. It carries fourteen passengers
and goes ten miles an hour, guaranteed pace.
There is a big bell-mouthed blunderbuss, ready
for the Turpin boys; there are two pistols in
the cases; there is a lamp on each side the
coach, and another gleams out under the footboard.
In fifty seconds three greys and a piebald
have replaced the three chesnuts and a
bay.

The ostler fastens the last buckle; the
coachman's foot is already on the roller bolt.

"How is Paddy's leg?" he asks, as he settles
down to his seat and shakes out the reins.

"Nearly right, sir," replies the horse-keeper,
twitching off the last cloth.

"Let 'em go, then," says the great artist,
"and take care of yourselves."

The spankers strike out and away they go,
over what coachmen used to call " the hospital
ground," from Hounslow to Staines. The coachman
generally sprang his cattle over this bit of
level, where there was no pebble bigger than a
nutmeg. They kept for it all the " box-kickers"
and stiff-mouthed old platers, whose backs
would not hold an ounce down hill or draw an
ounce up—queer tempered creatures, that were
over the pole one day and over the bars the
next. So they used to flash past the Scotch
firs where Mr. Steele was murdered, and the
pond where Mr. Mellish was killed, and by the
turn where Courthorpe Knatchbull beat off the
four scoundrels, and the place where Turpin,
according to Mr. Samuel Weller, let fly at the
bishop's too hasty coachman:
           And just put a couple of balls in his nob.
           And perwailed on him to stop.

The crow takes note, upon the wing, of a
pretty tradition of Hounslow which addresses
itself to the human heart. During those cruel
wars that brought the king's army and the
parliamentarians alternately to encamp on
Hounslow Heath, one Mr. George Trevelyan,
a cavalier gentleman of Nettlecomb, in Somesetshire,
and suspected of plotting against
Cromwell, was seized by puritan soldiers, and
sent close prisoner to the Tower. His captors,
took care, moreover, to burn and destroy all of
his property that they could, and, above all,
drove off with them from the stables and fields
of Nettlecomb and its neighbourhood, every
horse that would mount a dragoon, or drag a
cannon, or a baggage waggon. They left the
old house beggared, ransacked, and defaced,
and rode off singing their sullen psalms.
Heaven and earth was moved for Trevelyan's
release by his devoted wife; but Cromwell,
bent on breaking such stubborn spirits, would
not listen to any less ransom than two thousand
pounds. But where to get it? The faithful
steward racked his brains, and the poor wife
wrought and prayed ceaselessly in her great
need. Farms were sold, old oaks were felled, dear
heirlooms were beaten down for the goldsmith
and the Jews; above all, as the old record especially
notes, " the great Barley Mow" was taken
to market. The two thousand gold pieces were
at last spread by the delighted steward before the
eyes of the tearful wife. The difficulty now, was,
how to get the bags of gold safe up to London,
and escape the hungry highwaymen of Bagshot
and Hounslow, the rapacious constables of
hostile towns, and the stray snatchers in inn
yards? At last Heaven sent a thought to her
heart. She had heard of rough roads where
ladies had harnessed strong draught oxen to the
cumbrous family coaches, to drag them through
the sloughs and deep-rutted lanes to some great
dance or solemn assembly. The horses were
all gone for miles round. The thought was at
once turned to action. The great " gold" coach
was provisioned for the long journey, the faithful
steward, true as steel, accompanied the
loving wife; and they took twenty- eight days
doing the hundred and sixty miles. The dark
prison doors flew open. The loving wife
flew into the arms of her free husband.
But she sickened of small-pox at Hounslow
—the first halting place for the swift homeward
horses as it had been the last for the
slow oxen—and she died breathing the name
which had been the watchword of her great
devotion. She was buried at Hounslow, on
the site of the home of the old Brotherhood