he said that, in their own interests, strong measures would be necessary. Trade would never flourish, and therefore men would not be induced to follow a respectable trade until ships could sail the seas without fear of pirates, and honest merchants carry their property up and down the king’s highway without fear of highwaymen. Here we came in sight of a man on horseback, and we all kept silence for an anxious space, till we discovered, by his great wig and black coat, that it was nothing but a country surgeon riding out to see a patient. Then the merchant went on to say that since the gallows did not terrify these evil-doers, he, for one, was for trying how they would like the French wheel.
At this there was a terrible outcry: the clergyman, especially, asking if he wished to introduce French barbarities.
“Such things,” he said solemnly, “are the natural accompaniment of Popery. Pray, sir, remember Smithfield.”
“Sir,” said the merchant, “I hope I am as good a Protestant as my neighbours. I call that, however, not barbarity but justice and mercy which punishes the guilty and deters the weak. As for barbarities, are we Protestants better than our neighbours? Is it not barbarous to flog our soldiers and sailors for insubordination; to flog our rogues at the cart-tail; to lash the backs of women in Bridewell; to cut and scourge the pickpockets so long as the alderman chooses to hold up the hammer? Do we not hack the limbs of our traitors, and stick them up on Temple Bar? Truly the world would come to a pretty pass if we were to ask our cut-throats what punishment would hurt them least.”
“I like not the breaking of legs on wheels,” cried Mrs. Gambit. “But to call the flogging of Bridewell hussies barbarous! Fie, sir! You might as well call bull-baiting barbarous.”
No one wanted to encourage highway-robbers, yet none but this merchant from foreign parts would allow than an Englishman, however wicked, should cruelly have his limbs broken and crushed by a rod of iron.
“As for the gentlemen of the road,” said Mrs. Gambit, “I, for one, fear them not. They may take the butter and eggs in my basket, but they won’t find my money, for that is in my shoe.”
“Nor mine,” said I, taking courage and thinking to show my cleverness; “for it is all sewn safe inside my petticoats.”
“Hush, silly women!” cried the merchant. “You know not but there is a highwayman sitting in disguise on the coach beside you. I beg pardon, sir,” he turned to the clergyman beside me—“no offence, sir—though I have heard of a thief who robbed a coach after travelling in it dressed as a gentleman of your cloth.”
“None, sir, none,” replied his reverence. “Yet am I not a highwayman, I do assure you for your comfort. Nor have I any money in my pocket or my shoe. I am but a simple clergyman, going to look at a benefice which hath been graciously bestowed upon me.”
“That, sir,” said the merchant, “is satisfactory, and I hope that no other ears have heard what these ladies have disclosed. Shoes? petticoats? Oh, the things that I have seen and heard!”
The clergyman then told us that he had a wife and six daughters, and that the preferment (two hundred pounds a year!) would make a man of him, who had as yet been little better than a slave with sixty pounds for all his income. The Christian year, he told us, was a long Lent for him, save that sometimes, as at Christmas and Eastertide, he was able to taste meat given to him. Yet he looked fat and hearty.
“My drink,” he said, “is from the spring, which costs nothing; and my bread is but oatmeal-porridge, potatoes, or barley-meal.”
Then he pressed my hand in his, said I resembled his wife in her younger days, and declared that he already felt to me like a father.
There sat next to the merchant a young gentleman of about seventeen or eighteen, brave in scarlet, for he had just received a commission as ensign in a regiment of the line, and was on his way to join his colours, as he told us with pride. Directly highway robbers were mentioned he assumed, being a young man with rosy and blushing cheek, fitter for a game of cricket on the green than for war’s alarms, a fierce and warlike mien, and assured us that we ladies should not want protection while he was on the coach. And he made a great show of loosening his sword in the scabbard to ensure its quick and ready use, should the occasion rise. The merchant received these professions of courage with undisguised contempt; the clergyman smiled; Mrs. Gambit nodded her head and laughed, as if he was a boy whose talk meant nothing. I neither laughed at him nor scowled at him. In fact I was thinking, girl-like, what a handsome boy he was, and hoping that he would some day become a great general. As the country seems at the present juncture sadly in want of great generals, I fear he has been killed in action.
When we stopped for dinner, at one o’clock—I remember that I never before saw so prodigious a piece of roast beef upon the table—our host must needs spoil all enjoyment of the meal by asking us, just as we were sat down, sharp-set by the air, if we had met or seen anything of a certain “Black Will,” who seemed to be very well known by all. The very name caused our poor merchant to push back his plate untasted, and the young officer to rise from the table and hasten to assure himself that his sword was loose in the scabbard.
“Because,” said the landlord, “it is right for you to know that Black Will is reported in this neighbourhood with all his crew: a bloody lot, gentlemen. I hope you have no valuables to speak of upon you. However, perhaps they will not meet you on the road. They murdered a man last year, a young gentleman like you, sir,” nodding to the ensign, “because he offered resistance and drew his sword. What is a little toothpick like that, compared with a quarterstaff in the hands of a sturdy rogue? So they beat his brains out for him. Then they gagged and used most unmercifully, kicking him till he was senseless, an honest gentleman like yourself, sir”—he nodded to our merchant—“who gave them the trouble of taking off his boots, where, for greater safety, as the poor wretch thought, he had bestowed his money——”
“God bless my soul!” cried the merchant, changing colour, so that I for one felt quite certain that his was there too, and that his courage was down in his boots as well, to keep the money company. “Bless my soul! hanging, mere hanging, is too good for such villains.”
“It is indeed,” replied the landlord, shaking his head. “There was a young lady, too”—I started, because he looked at me—“who had her money sewn in a bag inside her frock.” I blushed red, knowing where mine was. “They made her take it off and dance a minuet with one of them in her petticoats. But indeed there is no end to their wickedness. Come, gentlemen, let me carve faster; spare not the beef; don’t let Black Will spoil your appetites. Cut and come again. He may be twenty miles away. A noble sirloin, upon my word! To be sure, he may be waiting on the hill there in the wood.”
“A glass of brandy, landlord,” cried the merchant, who surely was a dreadful coward. “Tell me, would he be alone?”
“Not likely.” The landlord, I thought, took a pleasure in making us uneasy. “He would have two or three with him. Perhaps six. With pistols. Do take some more beef. And blunderbusses. Ah! a desperate wicked gang.”
In such cheerful discourse we took our dinner, and then, with trepidation, mounted to our places and drove away.
We got up the hill safely, and met no Black Will. During the next stage we all kept an anxious look up and down the road. The coach seemed to crawl, and the way was rough. The sight of a man on horseback made our hearts beat; if we saw two, we gave ourselves up for lost. But I was pleased all the time to mark the gallant and resolute behaviour of the boy, who, with his hand upon the hilt of his sword, sat pale but determined; and when he caught my eye, smiled with the courage of one who would defend us to the death, as I am sure he would, like the gallant young knight he was.
