and tied to a tree in a ditch. After a great
deal of struggling, the lads got loose from the
tree, but could not get from each other, so they
scrambled back to back to an inn at Langford,
and returning to the spot found the bags cut
open and the gelding loose.

In the mean time the two highwaymen had
ridden off from Harmonsworth-lane, and taken
the Bath and Bristol bags to Hounslow-heath.
Thence they rode through Kingston and
Wandsworth, and, going down a by-road,
searched the bags, and threw the refuse over
a hedge. At night, locked in a private room
at the Cock and Goose, in the Minories, the
thieves examined their spoil for the first time
minutely. They found the total to be three
twenty-pound notes, one twenty-five-pound note,
half of a fifty pound, and two halves of twenty-
five pounds each. Hawkins and Simpson
were tracked, on the Monday following, to a
midwife's house in Green Arbour-court, in the
Little Old Bailey, at about half-past eight at
night. The house was quite dark, and the old
woman was frightened; but the constables told
her to light a candle, as they had come to
search for stolen goods. The highwaymen, who
were in the loft above, hearing this, called out:

"We are the men you want, but——the
first that comes up is a dead man."

Mills, a constable, called out to them, "You
may shoot as soon as you will, for we are as
ready to shoot as you." Upon which the men
came down quietly and surrendered themselves.
When they were told that a comrade (Wilson)
had turned evidence, Hawkins said:

"Why, then, we are dead men; but we had
rather lose our lives than save them in such a
base and infamous manner as that villain Wilson
has saved his."

Simpson and Hawkins were tried at the Old
Bailey sessions, May, 1722. They both appeared
well dressed, in "fair tye-wigs and ruffles."
Simpson wore "a genteel suit of light cloth, and
Hawkins a silk nightgown (such as you see
the rake wearing in Hogarth's pictures)."
Hawkins was the son of a small farmer at Staines,
and had been butler to Sir Dennis Dutry,
who discharged him for pawning some plate.
One night, beggared at the gambling-house,
he scraped together some money, bought
a horse and a pair of pistols, and rode off to
Hounslow-heath. There he robbed the
passengers in a coach of eleven pounds, and
returning to the King's Head, at Temple Bar,
stayed there till it was all spent. Wilson, the
informer, had been clerk to a lawyer in Lincoln's
Inn. Simpson had been a publican at Lincoln,
afterwards footman to Lord Castlemain.
The favourite haunt of these men was a public-
house near London-wall. As the landlord kept
livery stables, his customers could get horses
at all hours. Hawkins and Simpson, during
their companionship, had stopped half the mails
out of London. In one morning they robbed the
Worcester, Gloucester, Cirencester, Bristol,
and Oxford coaches, and the next day the
Chichester and Ipswich. To use their own
words, "we were constant customers to the
Bury coach, and think we touched it ten times."
Their evening rides were generally between
Richmond, Hackney, Hampstead, and Bow.
Sometimes they went their rounds behind
Buckingham-wall. The insecurity of London
is remarkably shown by one or two facts in
the career of these men. On an August
evening in 1720, Simpson and Hawkins robbed a
coach in Chancery-lane, and another in Lincoln's
Inn-fields. In going off, to use their own
confession:

"We met with my Lord Westmoreland, who
had three footmen behind his coach. We had
some difficulty in robbing his lordship, for the
watch poured in upon us; but a pistol being
fired over their heads, they retired pretty fast,
and gave us an opportunity of escaping."

Hawkins behaved penitently in prison, and
shed tears at the sermon before his execution.
Simpson was calm, firm, and composed. On
their way to execution, they scarcely ever raised
their eyes from their books to regard the vast
crowd, nor would stop at St. Giles's for the
usual bowl. Hawkins died with great difficulty,
entreating the people to pray for him, but
Simpson was more composed. Their bodies were
carried to Hounslow-heath, and there hung in
irons.

LITTLE BLUE EYES.

WE were bored to death, Ted and I, and it
was at Overcourt. There was a circulating
library, to which no one subscribed, and which
consequently did not circulate; there was a
croquet-ground, with a total absence of hoops,
balls, and mallets; there were little boats
(possibly for rowing) with the bottoms out;
and there was a shop which sold worse cigars
than are to be found even at Boulogne.

Gentlemen, I appeal to you. Can I say
more? Still, being there for a week, and with
no money to take us elsewhere, there it was
necessary to remain. I trust I make this
reasonably clear?

It was our nightly custom, and our one
amusement, to walk up and down the only
promenade of the place (for whom it was made
has not yet been discovered: Ted thinks for
visitors), smoking ourselves "seedy." Ted,
who did not care to give in to adverse
circumstances, used to try what singing would do
towards enlivening us.

He composed a little song, really beautiful
in its simple truth and earnest fervour. Here
it is:

And now another day is done;
And when we see to-morrow's sun,
We'll know another day's begun,
Let's hope that, too, will soon be done.

There was not a girl in the place, or we
should have allowed her to make two
conquests thereby doing our little best to increase
her girlish vanity, and render her generally
insupportable at home. Such was the state of