of the Trinity, who had devoted their lives to
the redeeming of captives; and in the church a
simple tablet still exists to her memory, recording
only the fact of her burial and the names of
her children.

From the earliest records, Hounslow Heath
was a notorious ride for highwaymen. Whether
it was on this heath that Claude Duval, really
made the knight's lady dance a coranto, and
then charged the husband a hundred pounds
for it, may be uncertain; but it is certain that
Captain Hind, who tried to stop Cromwell,
and who did rob Bradshaw and Harrison, infested
this wild common. The gallant captain
was eventually hung at Worcester, and his
head was set up, as a scarecrow to gentlemen of
his kidney, over the bridge gate. Hind fought
for the king at Worcester, and when the hue
and cry was hot after him, artfully and daringly
came to London, called himself Brown, changed
his wig, dyed his face, and took lodgings at a
barber's opposite St. Dunstan's Church; but
the worthless barber betrayed the gallant rogue,
who swung for it.

There was seldom great daring in the robberies
of the highwaymen. They were but poor
humbugs. They had houses of intelligence; they
had ostlers, drivers of waggons and packhorses,
innkeepers, barmaids, turnpike men, and carriers,
in their pay. They did not attack
armed travellers if they could help it, and
when they did so they generally did it by
surprise or by force of numbers. They obtained
heavy purses and rich boxes of plate,
but they had to cast money away by handfuls
to their spies and to the constables who tolerated
them or aided their escapes. Wild drinking
and gambling were the desperate reactions
from their dangers and their days of starvation
and short commons. Then came the gallops,
the short cuts, the flying of gates and brooks,
the fording of rivers, to get by moonlight to
Hounslow: with every bridle path, and field,
and hedge of which district every highwayman
was familiar. Then they dashed up to some
coach and exchanged shots, or they rammed
their pistols through the glass windows, and
frightened the ladies into fits, and the men into
submission. The watch was drawn from the
boot, the jewels from under the cushions; they
tossed the spoil into their deep pannier pockets,
cursed, threatened, and dashed off. Then eventually
they were leaped on in some brandy shop
parlour, or were torn down in a savage hue and
cry, or were felled by some despairing man, or
were betrayed by some jealous mistress. Next
came the hard jury and the steel-faced judge,
the dim stone room, the staring faces of quid-
nuncs and heartless men of fashion, the last
revel with the turnkey and perhaps the chaplain
(for those were odd times), then the unriveting
of the fetters, the presentation of the nosegay,
the bellman's mechanical verses, and the
grim ride backward up Holborn-hill to Tyburn.

In the reign of William and Mary, Hounslow
trembled at the name of Whitney, who, like
his successor, Turpin, began life as a butcher.
He then kept an inn in Hertfordshire. The
best story told of him is that he plundered a
gentleman named Long of a hundred pounds in
silver. The traveller represented that he had
far to go, and did not know where to get money
on the road. Whitney at once opened the bag
and handed it to him. Long could not resist
the opportunity, and drew out a brimming handful.
Whitney did not remonstrate, but only
said with a smile, as he rode off: "I thought
you would have had more conscience, sir."
Whitney was at last trapped in a house in Milford-
lane, and died in his shoes at a place
called Porter's Block, near Smithfield. He was
only thirty-four; highwaymen seldom attained
old age.

Some heroes get their fame very undeservedly.
This is especially the case with Mr. Richard
Turpin, who was but a mean and cruel sort of
thief, let alone a murderer. He was an Essex
butcher, who turned housebreaker, and he and
his gang had a cave in Epping Forest, where
they and their horses lay in ambuscade. The
street ballad writer of 1739 wrote:

       On Hounslow Heath, as I rode o'er,
       I spied a lawyer riding before.
       " Kind, sir," said I, " arn't you afraid
       Of Turpin, that mischievous blade?"
              O rare Turpin, hero! rare Turpin, O!

       Says Turpin, " He'll ne'er find me out;
       I've hid my money in my boot."
       " Oh," says the lawyer, " there's none can find
       My gold, for it's stitched in my cape behind."
              O, rare Turpin, &c.

       As they rode down by the Powder Mill,
       Turpin commands them to stand still.
       Said he, " Your cape I must cut off,
       For my mare she wants a saddle cloth."

       This caused the lawyer much to fret,
       To think he was so fairly bet;
       And Turpin robbed him of his store,
       Because he knew he'd lie for more.

It is a curious trait of the times that Turpin
was allowed to hold half an hour's conversation
with the hangman before he took his leap from
the ladder.

John Hawkins, one of the wretches that
fed the Hounslow crows in 1722, was the
greatest robber of mail coaches on record. He
stole the bags of five mail coaches in one morning,
of two the next day, and of one the next.
His gang of thieves were even so audacious
as to stop coaches in Chancery-lane and Lincoln's
Inn-fields. They used to go and dine at
the Three Pigeons at Brentford; then ride on
about six in the evening to the Post House at
Hounslow, or to Colnbrook, where they would
inquire at what hour the mails were due.

It was by no means uncommon for ruined
gamblers and bankrupt tradesmen to take a
moonlit ride to the heath to retrieve their
shattered fortunes, and in 1750, it is on record
that William Parson, the wild son of a baronet,
and who had been brought up at Eton, and
had been in both the navy and army, committed
a robbery on the fatal heath, after his
return from transportation, and was hung there
in chains to scare the night riders.

But travellers had their artifices as well as
highwaymen. Men of audacity, when stopped,