Turpin never rode that famous Ride to York upon Black Bess: another and an earlier than he by some sixty years—the bold and daring Nevison—performed that ride, as we have already shown; and the chivalry, the courtesy, and consideration, generally so much in evidence in the plays and the stories, are by no means found in the many contemporary reports of his doings.

Richard Turpin was born on September 21st, 1705, at the village of Hempstead, in Essex. There are those who find a fanciful appropriateness in the fact, that a man, whose wife was to become a "hempen widow," should have been born at a place so significantly named. Those who are curious enough to seek it, may duly find the record of the future highwayman's baptism in the parish register, and will find the baptism of an elder sister, Maria, recorded nearly three years and a half earlier, April 28th, 1702.

The Reverend William Sworder, vicar of Hempstead, who performed the baptism, and thereafter made an entry of it in his register, was evidently proud of his acquaintance with the language of the ancients, and less pleased with his native tongue, for his entries are generally in Latin: and thus we find the infant Dick and his parents figuring, "Richardus, filius Johannis et Mariae Turpin."

John Turpin at that time kept the inn that even now, somewhat altered perhaps in detail, looks across the road to the circle of pollard trees known as "Turpin's Ring," and thence up to the steep church-path. It was then, it appears, known as the "Bell," but at times is referred to as the "Royal Oak," and is now certainly the "Crown." Such are the difficulties that beset the path of the historian. Nor has this mere nomenclature of the ancestral roof-tree been the only difficulty. Were there not seven cities that claimed to be the birthplace of Homer? In like manner at least one other place, Thaxted, is said to have been Turpin's native home; but with the register as witness we can flatly disprove this, and give the honour of producing the famous person to Hempstead.

The youthful Turpin was apprenticed to a butcher in Whitechapel, and soon afterwards set up in business for himself at Waltham Abbey, at the same time marrying at East Ham a girl named Hester Palmer, whose father is said to have kept the "Rose and Crown" inn at Bull Beggar's Hole, Clay Hill, Enfield.

As a butcher, he introduced a novel method of business by which, except for the absurd and obstinate old-fashioned prejudices that stood in his way, he might soon have made a handsome competence. This method was simply that of taking your cattle wherever they might best be found, without the tiresome and expensive formality of buying and paying for them. It might conceivably have succeeded, too, except that he worked on too Napoleonic a scale, and stole a herd. It was a herd belonging to one "Farmer Giles," of Plaistow, and unfortunately it was traced to his door, and he had to fly. More restrained accounts, on the other hand, tell us it was only two oxen that were taken.

The Plaistow-Waltham Abbey affair rendered Turpin's situation extremely perilous, and he retired north-east in the Rodings district, generally called in those times "the Hundreds of Essex"—to "Suson," say old accounts, by which Seward-stone is meant.

But although a comparatively safe retreat, it was exceedingly dull, and nothing offered, either in the way of the excitements he now thirsted for, or by way of making a living. He was reduced to the at once mean and dangerous occupation of robbing the smugglers who then infested this, and indeed almost every other, country district. It was mean, because they, very like himself, warred with law and order; and dangerous, because although he might only attack solitary "freetraders," there was that strong fellow-feeling among smugglers that made them most ferociously resent interference with their kind. Turpin probably ran greater risks in meddling with them than he encountered at any other period in his career.

Sometimes he would rob them without any beating about the bush: at others he would make pretence of being a "riding-officer," i.e. a mounted Revenue officer, and would seize their goods "in the King's name."

But that line of business could not last long. Writers on Turpin generally say he wearied of it: but the truth is, he was afraid of the smugglers' vengeance, which, history tells us, could take fearful forms, scarcely credible in a Christian country, did we not know, by the irrefragible evidence of courts of justice, and by the terrible murders by smugglers in Hampshire, duly expiated in 1749, to what lengths those desperate men could go.

He turned again, therefore, to the neighbourhood of Waltham, and, with a few chosen spirits, haunted Epping Forest. There they established themselves chiefly as deer-stealers, and soon formed an excellent illicit connection with unscrupulous dealers in game in London, to whom they consigned many a cartload of venison, which generally travelled up to town covered over with an innocent-looking layer of cabbages, potatoes, or turnips.

But the prices they obtained for these supplies did not, in their opinion, pay them sufficiently for the work they did, or the risks they ran, and they then determined to throw in their lot with a notorious band of housebreakers and miscellaneous evil-doers, dreaded in Essex and in the eastern suburbs of London as "Gregory's Gang." The earliest of their exploits in this new class of venture was the robbing of Mr. Strype, who kept a chandler's shop at Watford, a district hitherto unaffected by them. They cleared the house of everything of any value, without offering Mr. Strype any violence (which was thought to be very good of them) and so disappeared; to reappear always unexpectedly in widely-sundered districts.

Nothing came amiss to them. In one night they robbed both Chingford and Barking churches, but found little worth their while; and then, in a manner most baffling to the authorities of those times, would for a time disband themselves and work separately, or some of them would lie entirely by for a while. An odd one or two would even be taken and hanged, which rendered it more than ever desirable for their surviving brethren to make themselves scarce for a time. But want of money was not long in bringing such generally spendthrift and improvident rogues back again to the calling they had chosen. Several among them were already too well and too unfavourably known as deer-stealers to the verderers of Epping Forest for their reappearance in those glades to be safe, but Turpin, among others, ventured. Mr. Mason, one of the chief of these verderers, rangers, or keepers, was especially active in putting down this poaching, and the gang vowed they would repay him for it. But more immediate schemes claimed their attention. First among these was a plan for robbing a farmhouse at Rippleside, near Barking. There would seem to have been eight or nine of them on this occasion. After their manner, they knocked at the door at night, and when, properly afraid of strangers coming after dark, the people refused to open, they rushed forward in a body and broke the door in. Having bound the farmer, his wife, his son-in-law, and the servant-maid, they ransacked the house, and stole £700.

"This will do!" exclaimed Turpin, captaining the band; adding regretfully, "if it were always so!"

The attack then made by the gang upon the house of Mr. Mason, the vigilant keeper of Epping Forest, was probably determined upon in the first instance from a desire rather to be revenged upon him for interfering with their earlier deer-stealing operations, than from the idea of plunder. Turpin was not present on this occasion, for although he had intended to take part in the act of vengeance, he was at the time in London, squandering his share of the Rippleside robbery, and in too advanced a state of intoxication to meet his accomplices as he had arranged to do.

Rust, Rose, and Fielder were the three concerned in the affair, and it clearly shows the spirit in which they entered upon it, when it is said that, before starting, they bound themselves by oath not to leave anything in the house undamaged. An oath would not necessarily be of any sacred quality of irrevocability with scoundrels of this or any other type, but when the compact fitted in with their own earnest inclinations, there was no difficulty in adhering to it.

Fielder gained admission to the house by scaling the garden wall and breaking in at the back door, then admitting the other two by the front entrance. Mason was upstairs, sitting with his aged father in his bedroom, when the three suddenly burst in upon them, and, seizing them, bound them hand and foot. They asked the old man if he knew them: he said he did not, and they then carried him downstairs and laid him, helplessly tied up, under the kitchen dresser. Mason, the keeper, had a sack forced over his head and tied round his waist; his little daughter, terrified at what she heard, slipping hurriedly out of bed and out of doors, and hiding in a pigstye.

The revengeful three then entered upon the work of wanton destruction upon which they had come. They first demolished a heavy fourpost bedstead, and then, each armed with a post, systematically visited every room in the house and battered everything to pieces. Carpets, curtains, bedclothing, and linen, and everything that could not be broken, were cut to shreds. Money had not been expected, but in smashing a china punch-bowl that stood somewhat out of the way, on a high shelf, down fell a shower of a hundred and twenty-two guineas, with which they went off, doubly satisfied with revenge and this unlooked-for plunder. They hastened up to London and joined Turpin at the Bun-House in the Rope Fields, and shared their booty fairly with him, although he had not been present to earn his portion—an unusual support of that generally misleading proverb, "There is honour among thieves."

From 1732 and onwards a solitary inn, on the then desolate, remote, and often flooded Hackney Marshes was greatly frequented by Turpin on his way to and from Epping and London. This inn, the "White House" by name, then kept by one Beresford, was the resort of sportsmen interested in cock-fighting. Turpin was known there as a private gentleman. The house was demolished and entirely rebuilt in 1900; but another at Tyler's Ferry, Temple Mills, also a white-faced house, remains, and claims a similar association.

On January 11th, 1735, Turpin and five of his companions, Ned Rust, George Gregory, Fielder, Rose, and Wheeler, went boldly to the house of a Mr. Saunders, a rich farmer at Charlton, Kent, between seven and eight o'clock in the evening, and, having knocked at the door, asked if Mr. Saunders were at home. When they learned that he was within, they rushed immediately into the house and found the farmer, with his wife and some friends, playing at cards. They told the company they would not be injured if they remained quiet, and then proceeded to ransack the house. First seizing a trifle in the way of a silver snuff-box that lay on the card-table, they left a part of their gang to stand guard over the party, while the rest took Mr. Saunders and forced him to act the part of guide, to discover the whereabouts of his valuables. They broke open some escritoires and cupboards, and stole about £100, exclusive of a quantity of plate. Meanwhile, the maid-servant had retreated into her room upstairs and bolted the door, and was calling "Thieves!" at the top of her voice, out of window. But the marauders presently found their way upstairs, broke open the door and secured and silenced her: not, apparently, doing her any considerable injury: and then at leisure thoroughly searched every corner of the house, and gleaned everything of a portable nature that was worth taking. There was no hurry. They discovered some relics of the late Christmas festivities in the larder, in the shape of mince-pies, and sat down impudently, with the master of the house and his friends, to partake of them. One of the gang, by careful foraging, had found a bottle of brandy, and broached it at the table, hospitably offering some to Mr. Saunders and his friends, and assuring them, with a quaint humour, that they were as welcome as could be to it. Mrs. Saunders did not, however, see the humour of it, and was fainting from terror; and so they mixed her some brandy-and-water, to revive her.

At length, having taken everything possible, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves, they made off, declaring that if any of the family gave the least alarm within two hours, or if they dared to advertise the marks on the stolen plate, they would infallibly return at some future period, and murder them.

It was afterwards ascertained that they then retired to a public-house in Woolwich, near by, where the robbery had been planned, and soon afterwards crossed the river and resorted to an empty house in Ratcliffe Highway, where they deposited the plunder until they had found a purchaser ready to buy without asking any inconvenient questions.

A week later, the same gang visited the house of a Mr. Sheldon, near Croydon church. They arrived at about seven o'clock in the evening, and, finding the coachman in the stable, immediately gagged and bound him. Then, leaving the stable, they encountered Mr. Sheldon himself, in the yard, come to hear what the unaccustomed sounds of scuffling and struggling in the stable could mean. The unfortunate Mr. Sheldon was then compelled to act as guide over his own house, and to show the gang where all his valuables resided. Jewels, plate, and other valuable articles were removed, together with a sum of eleven guineas; but at the last moment, they returned two guineas, and apologised more or less handsomely for their conduct. They then had the effrontery to repair to the "Half Moon" tavern, close at hand, and to each take a glass of spirits there, and to change one of the guineas of which they had robbed Mr. Sheldon.

The manners of the gang would thus appear to be mending, but their unwonted politeness did not last long, as we shall presently see.

In giving some account of the doings of Turpin, either singly or in association with others, it is desirable, as far as possible, to tell his story largely by the aid, and in the exact words, of the newspapers of the time. Only in this manner is it likely that a charge of exaggeration can be avoided. Where all have boldly enlarged upon the popular theme and have as richly brocaded it as their imaginations permit, to revert to plain facts becomes a healthy exercise.

The London Evening Post of February 6th, 1735, is the original authority for the next two incidents; two of the foremost in all popular accounts of Turpin's life. So much extravagant nonsense has been written, and is still being written, and will yet continue to be written about Dick Turpin, that any original documents about him are particularly valuable. They help to show us what we must discredit and what we may safely retain. Indeed, without such newspaper paragraphs, the conscientious writer, faced with the flood of indubitably spurious Turpin "literature," might in his impatience with its extravagance, refuse to credit any portion of it. But the newspapers of that day serve amply to show that in this case, truth is equally as strange as fiction. Not stranger, as the proverb would have us believe, but certainly as strange.

Thus we read in the London Evening Post: "On Saturday Night last, about Seven o'Clock, five Rogues enter'd the House of the Widow Shelley, at Loughton in Essex, having Pistols etc., and threaten'd to murder the old Lady, if she did not tell them where her Money lay, which she obstinately refusing for some Time, they threaten'd to lay her across the Fire if she did not instantly tell them, which she would not do; but her Son being in the Room, and threaten'd to be murder'd, cry'd out, he would tell them if they would not murder his Mother, and did; whereupon they went up Stairs and took near £100, a Silver Tankard, and other Plate, and all Manner of Household Goods; they afterwards went into the Cellar, and drank several Bottles of Ale and Wine, and broil'd some Meat, eat the Relicts of a Fillet of Veal, etc. While they were doing this, two of their Gang went into Mr. Turkle's, a Farmer's, who rents one End of the Widow's House, and robb'd him of above £20 and then they all went off, taking two of the Farmer's Horses to carry off their Luggage; the Horses were found on Sunday Morning in Old Street; they staid (the Rogues, not the horses) about three Hours in the House."

The startling paragraph already quoted is followed immediately by another report, a good deal more startling: "On Tuesday Night," it says, very circumstantially, "about Eight o'Clock, five Villains"—it will be noticed that by this time the "Rogues" of the earlier narration have become "Villains," and their conduct, by natural consequence, infinitely more heinous—"came to the House of Mr. Lawrence, a Farmer at Edgewarebury, near Edgeware, in Middlesex, but the Door being bolted, they could not get in, so they went to the Boy who was in the Sheep-house, and compell'd him to call the Maid, who open'd the Door; upon which they rush'd in, bound the Master, Maid, and one Man-Servant, and swore they would murder all the Family, if they did not discover their Money, etc.; they trod the bedding under foot, in case there should be money hidden in it, and took about £10 in Money, Linnen etc., all they could lay their Hands on, broke the old Man's Head, dragg'd him about the House, emptied a kettle of water from the fire over him, which had fortunately only just been placed on it, and ravish'd the Maid, Dorothy Street, using her in a most barbarous Manner, and then went off, leaving the Family bound, lock'd the Door, and took the key away with them: The Son, who came Home soon after they were gone, call'd the Boy to take his Horse, but could make nobody hear, but at last the old Man call'd out, and told him Rogues had been there" (surely, he meant "Villains"), "as they were all bound, and that the Rogues said they would go rob his Brother; whereupon he rode and alarm'd the Town, went to his Brother's, but they had not been there; they pursued them to the Turnpike, and found they had been gone through for London about an Hour. They were all arm'd with Pistols, and one had a Handkerchief all over his Face."

Neither of these accounts mentions the name of Turpin, but these outrages were immediately ascribed to a gang of which he was a member.

The same evening journal of February 11th has a later account: "Mr. Lawrence, the Farmer at Edgeware-Bury, who was robb'd last Week (as we mention'd) lies so ill, of the Bruises etc., he receiv'd, that its question'd whether he'll recover: the Rogues, after he had told them where his Money was, not finding so much as they expected, let his Breeches down, and set him bare—on the Fire, several times; which burnt him prodigiously."

There seems, by this account, to have been much in common between this gang and those "chauffeurs" described by Vidocq in his Memoirs; bands of robbers who pervaded the country districts of France, and adopted the like methods of persuasion with people who could not otherwise be made to disclose the whereabouts of their hoards.

This ferocious attack upon the farm at Edgewarebury was the first of a series in which the gang appeared on horseback. They had already done so well that they felt they could no longer deny themselves the luxury of being fully-furnished highwaymen. But they did not purchase; they merely hired; and imagination pictures some of them as very insufficient cavaliers, holding on by their horses' necks. For it is not given to a footpad, graduating in the higher branch of his profession, instantly to command an easy seat in the saddle; and the scene at the "Old Leaping Bar" inn, High Holborn, whence they set out to ride to the "Ninepin and Bowl" at Edgeware, must have been amusing in the extreme.

Six of Turpin's gang assembled next on the 7th of February at the "White Bear" inn, Drury Lane, and planned to rob the house of a Mr. Francis, a farmer in the then rural fields of Marylebone. Arriving at the farm about dusk, they first saw a man in a cowshed and seized and bound him, declaring they would shoot him if he should dare to make any attempt to break loose, or to cry out. In the stable they found another man, whom they served in the like manner. Scarcely had they done this when they met Mr. Francis at his own garden gate, returning home. Three of the gang laid their hands upon his shoulders and stopped him; and the farmer, thinking it to be a freak of some silly young fellows, out for the evening, was not at all alarmed. "Methinks you are mighty funny, gentlemen," he said good-humouredly; upon which, showing him their pistols in a threatening manner, he saw his mistake.

No harm, they said, should come to him if he would but give his daughter a note by one of them, authorising her to pay bearer a hundred pounds in cash.

Mr. Francis declared he could not do so; he had not anything like that amount in the house; upon which they ran him violently into the stable and tied him up also. Then, knocking at the door of the house, and Miss Francis opening it, they pushed into the passage and secured her as well. The foremost men were particularly rude and violent, but Turpin, who came in at the rear, appears to have remonstrated with them about this gross usage, and to have stopped it: only assuring her that it would be best she remained quiet, and that if she made any resistance she would be treated even worse.

A maid-servant, hearing this, cried out, "Lord, Mrs. Sarah! what have you done?"

One of the gang then struck the maid, and another hit Miss Francis, and swore they would be murdered if they did not hold their peace.

Mrs. Francis, hearing the disturbance from an inner room, called out, "What's the matter?" on which Fielder ran forward, and crying "D——n you, I'll stop your mouth presently!" broke her head with the handle of a whip he carried, and then tied her to a chair.

Miss Francis and the maid were tied to the kitchen-dresser, and Gregory was deputed to watch them, with a pistol in his hand, lest they should cry out for assistance or try to struggle free while the others were raiding the house.

A not very considerable reward met their unhallowed industry; including a silver tankard, a gold watch and chain, a silver medal of Charles the First, a number of minor silver articles, and four or five gold rings. A find of thirty-seven guineas was more to the point, and a brace of pistols was not to be despised. They were even so particular about details, in the hour-and-a-half search they made, that they took away with them such inconsiderable items as a wig, six handkerchiefs, four shirts, a velvet hat, and some pairs of stockings. A frugal and meticulous gang, this!

As a result of these bold attacks in the suburbs of London, a great feeling of indignation and insecurity arose, and a reward of £100 was at once offered for the apprehension of the gang, or of any members of it. Information having come to some of the Westminster peace-officers that these confederates were accustomed to meet in an alehouse situated in a low alley in Westminster, the place was beset, and Turpin, Fielder, Rose, and Wheeler were found there. After a short fight with cutlasses, the last three were secured. No one appears to have been seriously hurt in this affray, except the usual harmless, innocent person, present by mere chance; in this case, a certain Bob Berry, who received a dangerous cut on the arm, below the elbow. Turpin dexterously escaped out of window, and, obtaining a horse (not the celebrated "Black Bess," who never existed outside the imagination of Harrison Ainsworth and the pages of his Rookwood), rode away to fresh fields and pastures new. Fielder and Rose were tried and found guilty, chiefly on the testimony of Wheeler, who turned King's evidence. They were hanged at Tyburn, and afterwards gibbeted.

The Gentleman's Magazine refers shortly to the execution, and includes a certain, or an altogether uncertain, Saunders: "Monday, March 10th, the following malefactors, attended by a guard of fifty soldiers, were executed at Tyburn, appearing bold and undaunted; viz. Rose, Saunders, and Fielder, the Country Robbers." It is significant of the horrors of that era that ten others were hanged in company with them, for various crimes.

The gang was thus broken up, but rogues have, as it were, a magnetic attraction for one another, and Turpin was not long alone. It must have been a dull business waiting solitary on suitable, i.e. dark or foggy, nights in lonely situations for unsuspecting wayfarers; an experience calculated to get on the nerves, and so it is scarcely remarkable that many highwaymen elected to hunt in couples; although in the long run it was safer to work alone and unknown. No fear then of treachery on the part of a trusted comrade, always ready to "make a discovery," as the technical phrase ran, to save his own neck from the rope, a little while longer.

But Turpin seems to have sought, and found, one companion for a little while, for he duly appears in an account of how two gentlemen were robbed about eight o'clock on the evening of July 10th, between Wandsworth and Barnes commons, "by two Highwaymen, suppos'd to be Turpin the Butcher, and Rowden the Pewterer, the remaining two of Gregory's Gang, who robb'd them of their Money and dismounted them; made them pull off their Horse's Bridles, then turning them loose, they rode off towards Roehampton, where a Gentleman was robb'd (as suppos'd by the same Highwaymen), of a Watch and £4 in Money."

Old maps of this district hint, not obscurely, that this was no mere isolated, chance danger in the neighbourhood; for the eye, roaming along those charts, towards Richmond, notes "Thieves' Corner" boldly marked at what is now the junction of the Sheen Road and Queen's Road, where the "Black Horse" of old, a very shy and questionable kind of brick-built, white-washed alehouse, stood until it was pulled down about the year 1902 and rebuilt in the flashy modern style. Adjoining, was, and still is, for that matter, "Pest House Common": cheerful name! while Rocque's map of 1745, not marking that inimical corner, transfers the affected area to the stretch of highway between Marshgate and Manor Road and Richmond Town, and styles it "Thieves' Harbour." On the opposite side, in sharp contrast, is marked "Paradise Row." Rocque also styles the common, "Pestilent Common." Altogether, in fact, a pestilent neighbourhood.

How well-named was "Thieves' Corner" we may perhaps judge from a brief and matter-of-fact account (as though it were but an ordinary occurrence, demanding little notice) of a Reverend Mr. Amey, "a country clergyman who lodges at the 'Star' inn, in the Strand," being robbed two nights earlier than the foregoing robbery "two miles this side of Richmond in Surrey, of his Silver Watch, four Guineas, and some Silver, by two Highwaymen, well-mounted and well-dress'd. The Rogues turn'd his Horse loose and went off towards Richmond."

Again, this time in the Grub Street Journal of July 24th, 1735, we find a trace of the busy Dick, in the following: "Monday, Mr. Omar, of Southwark, meeting between Barnes-Common and Wandsworth, Turpin the butcher, with another person, clapt spurs to his horse, but they coming up with him, oblig'd him to dismount, and Turpin suspecting that he knew him, would have shot him, but was prevented by the other, who pull'd the pistol out of his hand."

On Sunday, August 16th, Turpin and Rowden the Pewterer seem to have been particularly busy and to have had a good day; for it is recorded by the same authority that they robbed several gentlemen on horseback and in coaches. The district they favoured on this occasion was the Portsmouth Road between Putney and Kingston Hill.

In another fortnight's time or so, having made these parts of Surrey too hot to hold them longer, and being apparently unwilling to transfer their activities beyond ten or twelve miles' radius from London, they opened a most aggressive campaign in suburban Kent. "We hear," says the Grub Street Journal of October 16th, "that for about six weeks past, Blackheath has been so infested by two highwaymen (suppos'd to be Rowden and Turpin) that 'tis dangerous for travellers to pass. On Thursday Turpin and Rowden had the insolence to ride through the City at noonday, and in Watling Street they were known by two or three porters, who had not the courage to attack them; they were indifferently mounted, and went towards the bridge; so 'tis thought are gone the Tonbridge road."

It was while patrolling the road towards Cambridge (on Stamford Hill, according to some historians) that Turpin first met Tom King. Observing a well-dressed and well-mounted stranger riding slowly along, Turpin spurred up to him, presented a pistol, and demanded his money. The stranger merely laughed, which threw Turpin into a passion, and he threatened him with instant death if he did not comply. King—for it was he—laughed again, and said, "What! dog eat dog? Come, come, brother Turpin; if you don't know me I know you, and shall be glad of your company."

This was the beginning of an alliance. These brethren in iniquity soon struck up a bargain, and, immediately entering on business, committed so large a number of robberies that no landlord of any wayside inn of the least respectability cared to welcome them, for fear of being indicted for harbouring such guests. Thus situated, they fixed on a spot between the King's Oak and the Loughton road, in Epping Forest, where they made a cave, "large enough to receive them and their horses," says an old account. This was enclosed within a thicket of bushes and brambles, through which they could look, without themselves being observed. From this station they used to issue, and robbed such numbers of persons that at length the very pedlars who travelled the road carried firearms for their defence. At such times when they could not safely stir from this hiding-place, Turpin's wife was accustomed to secretly convey to them such articles of food and such other things as might be necessary to their comfort. When, at a later period, Turpin's cave was discovered, and he was reduced to skulking about the forest, it was found to be by no means a despicable retreat. It was dry, and carpeted with straw, hay, and dry leaves; and such articles as two clean shirts, two pairs of stockings, a piece of ham, a bottle of wine, and some feminine apparel, served to show that this was not altogether an anchorite's cell. Some old accounts go so far as to say that Turpin altogether occupied this cave for six years, but that is not credible.

One day, as Turpin and Tom King were spying up and down the road from their cave, through the screen of furze and bramble that hid them from passers-by, they saw a gentleman driving past whom King knew very well as a rich City merchant, of Broad Street. He was on his way to his country estate at Fairmead Bottom, in a carriage with his children. King made after him, and on the Loughton road called upon the coachman to stop. The merchant, however, was a man of spirit, and offered a resistance, supposing there to be only one highwayman; upon which, King called Turpin, by the name of "Jack," and bid him hold the horses' heads. They then proceeded to take his money, which he parted with, without any further trouble; but strongly demurred to parting with his watch, which he said was a family heirloom, the gift of his father. The altercation, although short, was accompanied by threats and menaces and frightened the children, who persuaded their father to give up the watch; and then an old mourning ring became an object of dispute. Its value was very small, but King insisted upon having it, when Turpin interposed and said they were not so ungentlemanly as to deprive a traveller of such a relic, and bade King desist. This concession prompted the merchant to ask whether they would not, as a favour, permit him to repurchase his watch from them; upon which King said: "Jack, he seems to be a good, honest fellow; shall we let him have the watch?"

"Aye," said Turpin; "do as you will."

The merchant, then inquiring the price, King replied, "Six guineas," adding, "we never sell one for more, even though it be worth six-and-thirty." Then the merchant promised not to discover them, and said he would leave the money at the "Sword Blade" coffee-house in Birchin Lane, and no questions asked.

The Country Journal for April 23rd, 1737, says that on Saturday, April 16th, as a gentleman of West Ham and others were travelling to Epping, "the famous Turpin and a New Companion of his came up and attack'd the Coach, in order to rob it; the Gentleman had a Carbine in the Coach, loaded with Slugs, and seeing them coming, got it ready, and presented it at Turpin, on stopping the Coach, but it flash'd in the Pan; upon which says Turpin 'G—d D—— you, you have miss'd me, but I won't you,' and shot into the Coach at him, but the Ball miss'd him, passing between Him and a Lady in the Coach; and then they rode off towards Ongar, and dined afterwards at Hare Street, and robbed in the Evening several Passengers on the Forest between Loughton and Romford, who knew him; he has not robb'd on that Road for some Time before."

It is possible that this adventure gave Turpin the idea of providing himself with a carbine and slugs in addition to his pistols, for, following the contemporary newspaper record of his movements, we learn from several London papers, notably the London Daily Post and the Daily Advertiser, that when a servant of Thompson, one of the under-keepers of Epping Forest, went in search of him and his retreat in those leafy recesses, with a higgler on Wednesday, May 4th, Turpin shot the man dead with a charge of slugs from a carbine. Detailed accounts set forth how Mr. Thompson's servant, animated with hopes of a hundred pounds reward, went out, armed with a gun, in company with the higgler, in search for Turpin. When they came near his hiding-place, the highwayman saw them, and, taking them for sportsmen, called out that there were no hares near that thicket.

"No," replied Mr. Thompson's man, "but I have found a Turpin!" and, presenting his gun, required him to surrender.

Turpin, replying to him in a friendly manner, and at the same time gradually retreating into the cave, slyly seized his carbine, and shot him in the stomach.

He then fled from the Forest, and was reported, by the London Daily Post of May 12th, to have been very nearly captured in the small hours of the morning of the 11th by three peace-officers, who, late the night before, received information that he proposed to sleep at a certain house near Wellclose Square. Three men accordingly beset the house, but they were observed by a woman on the look-out, and Turpin, hurriedly aroused, fled through the roof, and over the chimneypots of the adjoining houses.

It will be observed by these various newspaper paragraphs and scattered notices, that Turpin was always changing his associates, and it is obvious that the stories which would have us believe he and Tom King set up an exclusive partnership, are not to be implicitly believed. Turpin and the many of his kind, with whom he associated from time to time, no doubt, worked together or apart, or in alliance with others, just as changing circumstances from week to week dictated.

Mr. Major immediately made his loss known at the "Green Man," to Mr. Bayes, the landlord, who at once said: "I daresay Turpin has done it, or one of that crew," and then advised him the best thing to do would be to get a number of handbills immediately printed, describing the horse, and offering a reward. It was characteristic of the thoroughpaced rascality of Turpin, that the very horse he had compelled Mr. Major to change with him was stolen. It was identified as one that had been missing from Plaistow marshes. And the saddle had been stolen too, and was afterwards claimed.

Although this was on Saturday night, the handbills were at once struck off and put into circulation, and by Monday morning information was brought to the "Green Man," that a horse answering the description of "White Stockings," had been left at the "Red Lion," in the Whitechapel Road. The innkeeper went to the house with some Bow Street runners, determined to wait there until some one called for the horse; and about eleven o'clock at night Matthew King came for it. When he was seized, he declared he had bought the animal; but a whip he held in his hand proved to be the identical one stolen by Turpin, and although a portion of the handle had been broken off, Mr. Major's name could still be read on it. An offer was made to Matthew King, that he would be released if he would disclose the actual robber, and he thereupon said it was a stout man in a white duffel coat, who was at that moment waiting in the street.

A movement was then made to capture the man in the duffel coat, who proved to be Tom King; but he resisted and fired at his would-be captors. The pistol merely flashed in the pan, and King then attempted to draw another; but it got twisted in his pocket, and Bayes' hands were being laid upon him, when he cried out to Turpin, who was waiting on horseback at a little distance, "Dick, shoot him, or we are taken, by God!"

Turpin was heavily armed. Nothing less than three brace of pistols contented him, in addition to a carbine slung across his back. He fired, and shot (the stories say) Tom King.

"Dick, you have shot me; make off," the wounded man is represented as saying, but is afterwards said to have cursed him for a coward, and to have informed the authorities that if they wanted him, he might most likely be found at a certain place on Hackney Marsh: indicating, no doubt, the "White House."

Turpin is indeed said to have at once made for that retreat and to have exclaimed, "What shall I do? where shall I go? d——n that Dick Bayes, I'll be the death of him, for I have lost the best fellow I ever had in my life. I shot poor King in endeavouring to kill that dog."

That is the accepted version, but it seems to be incorrect in several particulars. As before mentioned, Matthew King was the victim of that ill-considered aim. A somewhat different account is given in Turpin's alleged confessions to the hangman, printed in the, in most respects, reliable pamphlet narrating his life and trial, published in York in four editions in 1739. In those pages Turpin "said he was confederate with one King, who was executed in London some time since, and that once, being very near taken, he fired a pistol in the crowd, and by mistake, shot the said King in the thigh, who was coming to rescue him."

There is no doubt that a Tom King, a highwayman, was executed at Tyburn, in 1753, many years after the Tom King who was supposed to have been shot dead.

If Turpin had been really so terrified for his safety after the Whitechapel affair as represented, he must speedily have recovered himself, for he was busy all that month in his vocation. Comrades might die tragically, but his own pockets, always leaking like a colander, must be replenished. Really, however narrowly the career of this much-discussed highwayman is scanned, it seems hopeless to paint a consistent picture of him. He was, by the testimony of many witnesses, a cowardly fellow, not often with sufficient resolution to rob unaccompanied, and even on those occasions when he did play a lone hand, he wore a perfect armoury of weapons and attacked only the unarmed. One Gordon, lying at Newgate on a charge of highway robbery, told how he had once proposed to Turpin that himself and his brother, Turpin, and another should seize the money going down to pay the King's ships at Portsmouth. They were to stand in a very narrow pass and with swords and pistols attack the convoy. The scheme recalls the fine mid-seventeenth century exploits of "Mulled Sack" and his contemporaries, and if the enterprise had been undertaken, a splendid booty might have become theirs. But Turpin's courage failed him, and he backed out. Gordon said he was sure Turpin would be guilty of many cowardly actions, and die like a dog. His career, although a busy one, never touched great heights, and was commonly concerned with mean thefts and raids, but he must have been possessed of some nerve to continue actively robbing in the neighbourhood of London where he was so well known, after a hundred pounds was advertised to be waiting for any one who brought about his arrest. It is not merely a tradition that he so continued: we have the facts abundantly in the public prints of the time.