feeling. He had hoped, he scarcely knew what.
from this little expedition; and now, everything
looked very blank, very dreary.

Mabel stole quietly into the garret, already
occupied by three tired little girls, and lying down
in her poor bed, cried herself to sleep in the
darkness.

OLD STORIES RE-TOLD.

A STRING OF HIGHWAYMEN.  I. DICK TURPIN.

MR. RICHARD TURPIN rode many miles from
the time he left the cradle till he reached the
gibbet, but he never rode from London to York,
nor, in fact, did any one ever accomplish that
extraordinary ride. The myth is, however,
founded on a real incident. In 1676, one Nicks,
a robber haunting the road between Chatham
and London to rob sailors returning to town
with their pay, and Kentish traders on their
way to London, plundered a traveller at four
o'clock in the morning on the slope of Gadshill,
the spot immortalised by Shakespeare, and for
ever associated with Falstaff's delightful
poltroonery. Being on a blood mare, a splendid
bay, Nicks determined to prove an alibi in case
of danger. He rode off straight to Gravesend;
there detained an hour for a boat, he prudently
baited his horse; then crossing the water,
he dashed across Essex, full tilt to Chelmsford,
rested half an hour, and gave his horse
some balls. Then he mounted and flashed
on to Bramborough, Bocking, and Wetherfield,
fast across the downs to Cambridge;
quick by by-roads and across country, he
slipped past Godmanchester and Huntingdon
to Fenny Stratford, where he baited the good
mare and took a quick half-hour's sleep.
Then once more along the north road
till the cathedral grew up over the horizon
larger—larger, and whiz—he darted through
York gate. In a moment he had led the jaded
mare into an inn stable, snapped up some
food, tossed off some generous life-giving
wine, and in a fresh dress—say green
velvet and gold lace—strolled out, gay and
calm, to the Bowling-green, then full of
company.  The lord mayor of the city happening to
be there, Nicks sauntered up to him, and asked
him the hour. "A quarter to eight." "Your
most obedient." When Nicks was apprehended
and tried for the Gadshill robbery, the
prosecutor swore to the man, the place, and the
hour; but Nicks brought the lord mayor of
York to prove an alibi, and the jury disbelieving
in Sir Boyle Roach's bird anywhere out of
Ireland, acquitted the resolute and sagacious
thief.

Nevertheless, Richard Turpin's career is not
uninteresting, as he was a tolerably fair type of
the highwaymen of George the Second's time,
although there was nothing especially gallant or
chivalrous about the rascal. His career shows
the sort of people from whom the highwaymen
obtained their recruits, the light in which society
regarded them, and the inevitable ride up
Holborn-hill to Tyburn-tree, to which two-thirds of
them came after a short career of alternate
beggary and riot.

Richard Turpin was the son of the landlord
of the Bell at Hempstead, in Essex, who bound
him apprentice to a Whitechapel butcher.
Having served his time, Turpin set up as a
butcher in Essex, on the economical principle
of stealing all the cattle he sold. Being at last
detected, he joined some smugglers in the
hundreds of Essex; but finding this mode of life too
precarious, the ex-butcher headed a gang of deer-
stealers which infested Epping Forest.  Deer-
stealing growing dangerous, Turpin and his men
took to burglary, beginning by getting four
hundred pounds from an old woman at Laughton,
under threat of roasting her on the grate. At
Rippleside, also, they broke into a house,
blindfolded the farmer and his family, and secured
eighty pounds each. "That'll do," said Turpin;
and getting bolder now, the gang (in Turpin's
absence) resolved to attack various persons who
had attempted to betray them. Four of them
broke into the house of Mason, a forest-keeper,
killed Mason, threw him under a dresser,
drove the women naked into the farm-yard,
broke everything in the house, and were lucky
enough to see a hundred and twenty guineas
stream from an old punch-bowl that they
wantonly smashed. Six of them next broke into
the house of Mr. Saunders, a rich farmer at
Charlton, in Kent. They bound the farmer's
friends, who were at cards, and then forced
Saunders to go with them and open all his
boxes, closets, and escritoires, till they had
obtained a hundred pounds in money and all the
plate. They drank a bottle of wine, ate some
mince-pies, and forced the fettered prisoners to
take some brandy. They then packed up the
booty, and made off, threatening to return and
murder all the family if they dared to move
outside the house for two hours, or if they
ventured to advertise the marks on the plate. This
robbery was planned at Woolwich. After effecting
it, the robbers crossed the water to an
empty house in Ratcliff-highway, and there
quietly divided their spoil. They now got so
daring and reckless that, as early as seven o'clock
one January evening in 1738, they forced their
way into the house of a Mr. Lawrence, at
Edgeware. They only obtained about thirty
pounds, but threatened to burn the farmer
alive if he did not discover where his money was
hid. A reward of fifty pounds for their
apprehension had no effect in alarming Turpin's gang;
for the next month they broke into the house
of Mr. Francis, a farmer, near Marylebone,
and stole thirty-seven pounds, some rings,
diamonds, and a silver tankard. The women were
bound and guarded by one of the band, while
Turpin and another, with loaded pistols, stood
over the men, who were tied up in the stable.

Kent, Essex, and Middlesex were now in
arms; for no one seemed safe, and the pottering
old constables, and the fussy and still more
imbecile county magistrates, were powerless. Mr.
Thompson, one of the king's park-keepers,