turnpike, Thurtell picked up a companion,
at a little past five o'clock.

About twenty minutes before seven, Thomas
Wilson, one of the mounted horse-police, on his
way towards London, at the top of Harp Hill,
near Edgeware, met two gentlemen in drab
great-coats, driving a grey horse with a white
face furiously, and on the wrong side of the
road. When they came near him, he shouted,
"Bow-street patrol," and asked them why they
drove at such a rate. One of them answered,
"Good night, patrol," and drove on.

A quarter of an hour later, Thurtell and
his friend stopped at the White Lion,
Edgeware; giving their horse a feed, and
themselves some grog. Clarke, the landlord, who
knew Thurtell well, was driving home with his
wife in a taxed cart from King's Langley, and
met the gig near the ninth milestone. Thurtell
was shouting at the time, "Yaep, yaep," to a
stage-coach with lights, which was in the middle
of the road, and he had to pass it on the wrong
side. Clarke recognised his voice. There was
a bag in the front of the gig.

The landlord had scarcely reached his house
before he heard some one calling in the road, and
found another horse and gig which he knew as
belonging to Probert, a spirit merchant, of
infamous character and a fraudulent bankrupt,
who lived at the cottage to which Thurtell
and his friend were bound. Probert and Hunt
were in it. While they were drinking a glass
of brandy-and-water, Clarke said to them as he
stood by the gig:

"This matter of Thurtell, I think, will turn
out a bad business;"â??alluding to a charge
against Thurtell and his brother Thomas for
defrauding the County Fire Office of one
thousand nine hundred pounds by burning down a
silk warehouse, to avoid which charge they were
then in hiding at the Coach and Horses, in
Conduit-street.

"Oh no," said Hunt; "it's all nonsense.
Here, look at this."

He then took out a newspaper and a letter
from Thomas Thurtell, and gave them to the
publican to read. While Clarke was reading,
Hunt jumped out of the gig, came into the bar,
and he and Probert took another glass of brandy-
and-water. They then drove off.

About eight o'clock, Mrs. Smith, a farmer's
wife and child, and Elizabeth Osborne, a
labourer's wife, their nurse, were driving home
in a donkey-chaise (the farmer himself walking)
down a lane which leads from Batler's Green
to the high road between High Cross and
Radlet. The moon had not yet risen, and
the country people were chattering pleasantly
about the drive and the visit they had just
made, when Elizabeth Osborne suddenly cried
out:

"God bless me, that's a gun gone off, is it
not?'

Mr. Smith said, "Yes; stop the chaise!"

They all listened. To their horror, there came
through the darkness across the field from Gill's
Hill-lane deep groans, as if some one had met
with an accident. The good-natured farmer said:

"I will run across and see; it is somewhere
near Philip my brother's turnip-field gate."

"Pray don't," said the alarmed wife. "Don't
go; perhaps they will shoot you."

"Pooh!" said the farmer; "if anyone has
shot a person, he is gone before now."

Just then, as they still listened, they heard
several voices and a gig or cart move, and Mrs.
Osborne said to the farmer's wife:

"Thank God, there is some one coming to
his assistance, for I can hear talking. The man
is not dead. His groans get further off. I
think he is walking."

The gig, or cart, as they thought, then seemed
to go on towards Gill's Hill. They still stopped
listening, but heard no more groans; as they
drove on, Mrs. Smith said:

"It is a very odd thing a gun going off."
Her husband, dismissing the affair from his easy-
going mind, remarked:

"I dare say it is some of those Gill's Hill
people. They're sky-larking to frighten people."

The moon was just rising when the party got
to Mr. Smith's at a little past eight, brightening
peacefully over the trees and hedgerows, yellow
and thinned by autumn.

About a quarter before eight, James Addis,
the (boy) groom at Mr. Probert's cottage, hearing
the wheels of a gig, ran out. thinking it was his
master, but found that it was only something
that had driven by very fast towards Batler's
Green. About the same time, James Freeman,
a labourer, living near Probert's, going to Gill's
Hill-lane to meet his wife and bring her home,
saw two gentlemen in a gig beyond Probert's.
The moon was not then up, but it was starlight.
At an elbow of the lane, one of the gentlemen,
in a light, long great-coat (probably Thurtell),
got out, and Freeman spoke to him about his
horse being so distressed. He was fumbling
in his breast-pocket, but he made no answer.

Near nine o'clock there came a sharp ring
at the Gill's Hill Cottage, and Addis, going out,
found Mr. John Thurtell there alone, standing at
his horse's head, which was turned towards
London. He told Addis to take the horse and gig in,
but to touch nothing, while he went to meet Mr.
Probert. While Addis was rubbing the horse
down, Thurtell returned, and asked if he had
attended to the horse. There was a carpet-
bag in the gig, and a gun stuck in the folds
of the leather apron. In about three-quarters
of an hour Probert and Hunt arrived, with
Thurtell hanging on behind.

Mrs. Probert and her sister, Miss Noyes,
came down-stairs to welcome the visitors. Mr.
Hunt, being a stranger, was formally
introduced to the ladies. Probert having brought
a loin of pork from London, some of the chops
were cooked for supper. While these were
getting ready, Probert told the ladies that they
were going out to Mr. Nicholl's, a neighbouring
farmer and road-surveyor, to get leave for a day's
shooting. They returned about eleven to supper,
Hunt and Probert eating heartily, but Thurtell,
when the chops cut red and underdone, seemed
to have lost his appetite, and said that he felt
unwell. After supper, when the spirits and water