Part 14

"Being by such means as these extremely reduced in his circumstances, without money, without friends, and without character, he could think of no better method of supplying his wants, and freeing himself from a servile dependency, than by turning Collector on the Highway. This he imagined would not only take off that badge of slavery, the livery he had always worn with regret, but would set him on a level with gentlemen, a figure he was ever ambitious of making."

His first steps were attended with some difficulty, for he laboured under the disadvantage, at the moment of coming to this decision, of having no money in his pockets; and to commence highwayman, as to begin any other business or profession, it was necessary to have a small capital, for preliminary expenses. But a little ingenuity showed him the way. Pistols and a horse were the tools of his trade, and pistols, of course, first. A servant of his acquaintance knew a person who had a brace of pistols to sell, and Page took them, "to show a friend on approval." He then hired a horse for deferred payment, and with the pistols went out and immediately and successfully robbed the Highgate coach. Thus, with the £4 he in this manner obtained, he paid for the pistols and settled with the livery-stable keeper for his horse-hire. In another day or two he had touched the wayfaring public for a sum sufficient to purchase a horse of his own; and thus commenced his twelve-years' spell of highway adventure, in which, although he had many exciting experiences, he was arrested only once before the final escapade that brought him to the gallows.

An early freak of his was the robbing of his former master, Captain Jasper, on Hounslow Heath. The Captain was crossing the ill-omened place with a lady in a post-chaise, when Page rode up, bade the postilion stop, and ordered the Captain to deliver.

"That may be, sir," retorted the Captain angrily, "but not yet," and, pulling out a pistol, fired at him. His aim was not good, but he hit somebody: none other, indeed, than his own postilion, who was struck in the back, "and wounded very much."

Then said Page, "Consider, sir, what a rash action you have been guilty of. You have killed this poor fellow, which I would not have done for the world. And now, sir, I repeat my orders, and if you refuse any longer to comply, I will actually fire upon you."

[Illustration: WILLIAM PAGE.]

The Captain then snapped his second pistol at him, but it missed fire. Page then swore he would shoot the lady; intending to do nothing of the kind, but only to alarm the Captain the more. But in Captain Jasper our highwayman had met sterner stuff than common, and the gallant soldier, the better to protect her, forthwith sat himself in her lap. On Page continuing to declare he would shoot him, the Captain leapt out of the chaise at him, and at that moment Page fired, but with intention to miss, and the shot passed harmlessly by. Again the Captain pulled the trigger of his pistol, and again it missed fire.

Then Page declared his ultimatum: "You must now surrender, or I absolutely will shoot you." Whereupon the Captain, having done all he possibly could, delivered up his gold watch and ten or eleven guineas. Page then demanded his sword, but he quite rightly, as a soldier, demurred to such a humiliation.

"You may see by my cockade I am an officer, and I would sooner part with my life and soul than with my sword," he bravely declared.

Page generously acknowledged his spirit. "I think myself," he said, "thou art the bravest fellow that ever crossed these plains, but thou art an obstinate fellow; and so, go about your business."

He introduced some interesting novelties into the well-worn business. The chief of these was the distinctly bright idea of driving from London in a phaeton with a pair of horses and at some lonely spot disguising himself with a wig and another suit of clothes. Then, saddling one of the horses and leaving the phaeton, he would carefully emerge upon the high road and hold up coaches, post-chaises, or solitary equestrians. This accomplished, he returned to his phaeton, harnessed the horse again, resumed his former attire, and drove back to town, like the gentleman of fashion and leisure he pretended to be. One day, pursuing this highly successful programme, he was nearly undone by the action of some countryfolk who, finding an abandoned phaeton and one horse strangely left in a coppice, went off with it. The simple people, making along the road with this singular treasure-trove, were themselves followed by some unlucky travellers whom Page had just robbed, and violently denounced as confederates. Page was fully equal to the occasion. Nearly stripping himself, and casting his clothes down a convenient well, he returned to London in that plight and declared himself to have been treated like the man in the Scriptures, who "fell among thieves"; although it does not appear that the traveller in question had a carriage. His phaeton had been stolen, and himself robbed and left almost naked.

This precious story was fully believed, and the country people themselves stood in some considerable danger. They were flung into prison and would no doubt have been convicted had Page appeared against them. This he, for obvious reasons, refused to do, and they found themselves at liberty once more, resolved to leave any other derelict carriages they might chance to see severely alone.

Page, in course of time, married a girl of his native town. She could not long remain ignorant of his means of livelihood, and earnestly begged him to leave the road and take to honest work. Few, however, quitted the highway except for the "three-legged mare" at Tyburn, and the one- or two-legged mares of other places; and he held on his way. Now and again he would disappear for a time, after some particularly audacious exploit, to reappear when the excitement it had caused was over. On one of these occasions he shipped to Barbados and Antigua, stayed there for seven or eight months, and then returned to England, desperately in want of money. The line of least resistance indicated the road once more.

His first exploit after this reappearance was the robbing of one Mr. Cuffe, north of Barnet. The traveller, being driven along the road alone and unarmed in a post-chaise, had no choice but to surrender his purse, and held it out from the window at arm's length. But Page's horse, not being used to this kind of business, shied violently, and Page thereupon ordered the postilion to dismount and hand it him, which he did, and he then gracefully and at leisure retired.

On his return to town, leading this high-mettled horse down Highgate Hill, Page was followed by three men on horseback, who, having heard of this robbery down the road, suspected he might be the man. They immediately planned how they were to take him, and then, one of them riding quietly up, said, "Sir, I have often walked my horse up Highgate Hill, but never down; but since you do, I will also, and bear you company."

Page readily agreed, without the least suspicion of any design against him, and so they entered into a very friendly conversation. After walking in this manner some little distance, the gentleman finding a fit opportunity, keeping a little behind, suddenly laid hold of his arms and pinioned them so tightly behind him that he was not able to stir; seeing which, the other two, then on the opposite side of the road, crossed over and secured him beyond any possibility of escape. They found in his pockets four loaded pistols, a powder-horn, and some bullets, a crape mask, and a curious and ingenious map himself had drawn, showing all the main roads and cross roads for twenty miles round London.

They then took him before a Justice of the Peace at Highgate, who put many searching questions, without gaining any information. He was, however, committed to Clerkenwell Bridewell, and was afterwards examined by none other than Henry Fielding, magistrate and novelist. Sent from the Old Bailey to stand his trial at Hertford Assizes, he was acquitted for lack of exact evidence, although every one was fully satisfied of his guilt, for, however strange the times, they were not so strange that honest gentlemen carried such a compromising collection of things about with them on the roads.

His narrow escape did not disturb him, and he was soon again on his lawless prowls. On Hounslow Heath he robbed a Captain of one of the Guards regiments, and was pursued into Hounslow town by that officer, shouting "Highwayman!" after him. No one took any notice. Page got clear away, and afterwards boasted of having, the following night at a theatre in London, sat next the officer, who did not recognise him.

An interlude followed in the activities of our high-spirited highwayman. He and an old acquaintance struck up a more intimate friendship over the tables of billiard-rooms in London, and there they entered into an alliance, with the object of rooking frequenters of those places. But their returns were small and precarious, and did not even remotely compare with the rich harvest to be gathered on the road, to which he accordingly returned.

It was Page's ill-fortune to meet with several plucky travellers, who, like Captain Jasper, would not tamely submit to be robbed, and resisted by force of arms. Among them was Lord Downe, whose post-chaise he, with a companion, one day stopped at Barnet. Presenting his pistol, he issued the customary orders, but, to his surprise, Lord Downe himself drew a pistol, and discharged it with such excellent aim, that Page was shot in the body, and bled very copiously. His companion's horse, alarmed at the shot, grew restive, and thus his friend was for a while unable to come to his aid. Page, however, again advanced to the attack; but my lord was ready with another pistol, and so the highwaymen thought it best to make off. They hurried to London, and Page sought a doctor, who found the wound so dangerous, that he refused to treat him without consultation. The other doctor, immediately on arriving, recognised Page, and asked him how he came by the wound; to which Page replied, that he had received it in a duel he had just fought.

"I will extract the ball," replied the doctor; "but," he added significantly, "I do not wish to see your face again, for I believe you fought that duel near Barnet."

Shortly after his recovery from this untoward incident, he and one ally, Darwell, by name, an old schoolfellow, waiting upon chance on Shooter's Hill, met two post-chaises, in one of which was a "supercargo" belonging to the East India Company, and in the other a person, who is simply described as a "gentleman."

Page's accomplice opened the encounter by firing a pistol, to which the supercargo replied in like manner; but with a better aim, for the bullet tore away a portion of his coat, under the armpit. A second shot from the highwayman was also ineffective. Then Page rode up and attacked the other chaise. A desperate fusillade followed; but the only damage done was that Page's horse was slightly wounded. At last, the post-chaise travellers having expended all their ammunition, the two highwaymen compelled them to alight, and the postilions to dismount; and then, having bound the hands of all of them with rope, they ordered these unfortunate persons, on peril of their lives, to remain on that spot for one hour. They then returned to the chaises, removed the travelling trunks, and, carrying them off on horseback, hid them securely.

Then they hastened back to London. The next morning, in two chaises, they returned to the spot, and in security brought back the trunks, which contained, not only a large amount of money, but a mass of important documents belonging to the East India Company.

A reward of forty guineas was offered, by advertisement in the newspapers of the time, for the return of the documents, "and no questions asked." The advertisers themselves, by so doing, risked a fine of £50 for compounding a felony; but, in any case, the reward was never claimed, although Page carefully returned the papers anonymously.

The fact which at last cut the knot of William Page's existence was the robbing of Captain Farrington in 1757, on Blackheath. Among other things the Captain was compelled to render to this Cæsar of the roads was a gold repeater watch. Hotly pursued, Page gave the hue-and-cry a long chase for it, and finally, arriving at Richmond, had himself and his exhausted horse ferried across to Twickenham.

Soon after, finding the south of England ringing uncomfortably with the fame of his doings, he took ship for Scotland, but landed at Scarborough, where, at the fashionable spa, he gambled heavily and strutted awhile as a man of considerable fortune. But he must have been at last really alarmed and prepared to consider turning over a new leaf, for he went north to see his former master, the Earl of Glencairn, who, he thought, would be able to recommend him to employment in the plantations. The Earl, however, received him coldly, and he came south again, to resume his chosen profession, in company with Darwell, whom he had by constant alternate threats and persuasions seduced from the reformed life he was leading and the respectable situation he held, to take up again this hazardous calling.

Together they scoured the road to Tonbridge, Darwell forming, as it were, a rearguard. Page was pursued beyond Sevenoaks by five mounted men armed with pistols, and a blunderbuss, who dashed past Darwell, and after a struggle seized his leader, who presently escaped again. In their return, disappointed, they made a prisoner of Darwell, who, suspecting something of the kind would happen, had already thrown away his pistols. In spite of his indignant protestations that he was a private gentleman, and would not endure such an outrage, he was searched and a part of Captain Farrington's watch was found upon him, with the maker's name and most of the distinguishing marks more or less carefully obliterated. Questioned closely, he declared he had picked it up upon the road. As for the highwayman they had just now nearly captured, he knew nothing of him: had never set eyes on him before.

But, in spite of these denials, Darwell was taken off in custody and examined before a magistrate, who so plied him with questions, threats of what would happen to him if he continued obstinate, and promises of clemency if he would make discovery of his companion, that he at last turned King's evidence. During the interval, he was lodged in Maidstone gaol.

A fortnight later, Page was arrested in one of their old haunts in London, the "Golden Lion," near Grosvenor Square. He was at first taken to Newgate, but afterwards remitted to Maidstone, and tried there for the robbery of Captain Farrington. Convicted and sentenced to death, he was hanged on Penenden Heath, April 6th, 1758.

ISAAC DARKIN, _ALIAS_ DUMAS

Isaac Darkin was the son of a cork-cutter in Eastcheap, and was born about 1740; too late to appear in the stirring pages of Alexander Smith or Charles Johnson, in which he would have made, we may be sure, an admired figure. All those who knew him, on the road or in the domestic circle, agreed that he was a handsome fellow; and travellers, in particular, noticed his taking ways. These were first displayed in 1758, when he robbed Captain Cockburn near Chelmsford. No less taking, in their own especial way, were the police of the neighbourhood in that time, for they speedily apprehended Isaac, and lodged him in Springfield gaol. He was duly arraigned at the next assizes, and no fewer than eight indictments were then preferred against him. He pleaded guilty to the robbing of Captain Cockburn, but not guilty on the other counts; and was, after a patient trial, found guilty on the first and acquitted on the others. He was then sentenced to death, but was eventually respited on account of his youth, and finally pardoned on condition that he enlisted in the 48th Regiment of foot, then serving in the West Indies, at Antigua. Drafted with others aboard a ship lying in the lower reaches of the Thames, presently to set sail for that distant shore, he effected his escape, almost at the moment of up-anchor, by dint of bribing the captain of a merchant vessel lying alongside, to whom he promised so much as a hundred pounds to help him out. He was smuggled aboard the merchantman, and so cunningly disguised that when a search-party, suspecting his whereabouts, boarded the ship, and searched it, even to the hold, they did not recognise him in a particularly rough and dirty sailor who was swearing nautical oaths among the ship's company on deck. So the transport-vessel sailed without him, and he, assuming the name of Dumas, rioted all through the West of England, robbing wealthy travellers and gaily spending his takings on what he loved best: fine clothes and fine ladies. He was so attentive to business that he speedily made a name for himself, the name of a daring votary of the high toby. This reputation rendered it politic on his part to enlist in the Navy, so that in case of being arrested for highway robbery, he could prove himself to have a respectable occupation, that would help to discredit the charge of being a highwayman.

He soon became a valued recruit, and was promoted to midshipman; and it is quite likely that if he had been sent on active service he would have distinguished himself in a more reputable career than that in which he was so soon to die. But his duties kept him for considerable periods in port, and he seems to have had ample leave from them; for we find him hovering near Bath and gaily robbing the wealthy real or imagined invalids going to, or returning from, the waters.

On the evening of June 22nd, 1760, he fell in with Lord Percival, travelling by post-chaise over Clarken Down, near Bath, and robbed him of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen guineas—my lord could not positively swear to the exact amount. He then made off in the gathering twilight, and galloped across country, to Salisbury Plain and the little village of Upavon, where he was arrested in a rustic alehouse, and sent thence to Salisbury gaol. At his trial he indignantly denied being a highwayman, or that he was an Englishman. He declared his name was Dumas, that he had lately come from Guadaloupe, where he had taken a part in the late military operations; and said that the so-styled "suspicious behaviour" and damaging admissions he was charged with, when arrested at the inn, were merely the perplexities of a foreigner, when suddenly confronted by hostile strangers.

This special pleading did not greatly deceive judge or jury, but the prosecution broke down upon a technical detail, and Darkin was acquitted; not, however, without an affecting address to the prisoner from the judge, Mr. Justice Willmott, who urged him to amend his ways, while there was yet time.

It is thus quite sufficiently evident that, although the Court was bound to acquit the prisoner, no one had the least doubt of his guilt. His narrow escape does not appear to have impressed Darkin, or "Dumas"; but he was anxious enough to be off, as we learn from a contemporary account of the proceedings, in which it is quaintly said: "He discovered great Impatience 'till he had got off his Fetters and was discharged, which was about five o'clock in the evening, when he immediately set out for London in a post-chaise."

The fair ladies of Salisbury sorrowed when he was gone. They had been constant in visiting him in prison, and had regarded him as a hero, and Lord Percival as a disagreeable hunks. The hero-worship he received is properly noted in the account of his life, trial, and execution, issued in haste from an Oxford press in 1761, shortly after the final scene had been enacted. In those pages we read: "During Mr. Dumas' imprisonment at Salisbury, we find his sufferings made a deep impression upon the tender Hearts of the Ladies, some of whom, having visited him in his Confinement, his obliging Manner, genteel Address, lively Disposition, and whole Deportment so struck them that his Fame soon became the Discourse of the Tea Table; and at the happy Termination of His Affair with my Lord Percival, produced between them the following Copy of Verses:

Joy to thee, lovely Thief! that thou Hast 'scaped the fatal string, Let Gallows groan with ugly Rogues, _Dumas_ must never swing.

Dost thou seek Money?—To thy Wants Our Purses we'll resign; Could we our Hearts to guineas coin Those guineas all were thine.

To Bath in safety let my lord His loaded Pockets carry; Thou ne'er again shall tempt the Road, Sweet youth! if thou wilt marry.

No more shall niggard travellers Avoid thee—We'll ensure them: To us thou shalt consign thy Balls And Pistol; we'll secure 'em.

Yet think not, when the Chains are off, Which now thy Legs bedeck, To fly: in Fetters softer far We'll chain thee by the Neck."

But in the short space of six weeks from his acquittal at Salisbury and his triumphal exit in a post-chaise for London, he was again arrested on a charge of highway robbery, this time for robbing a Mr. Gammon at Nettlebed, on the road to Oxford. Committed to trial at Newgate, he was transferred to Oxford gaol, and tried there on March 6th. He had up to now been phenomenally fortunate, but things at this crisis looked a great deal more serious. He acknowledged "he had experienced many narrow scrapes, but never such a d—d one as this," and he was presently found guilty and condemned to death, this time without any extenuating circumstances being found.

Isaac Darkin was what in our times would be called a "superior person." Slang he disdained to use, bad language was anathema to him; and if he did, indeed, condescend to describe a person of mean understanding as "a cake," or "a flat," that was the most he permitted himself. His delicacy was so great that he never mentioned a "robbery," a "robber," or a "highwayman," but spoke instead of persons who had been "injured," or of "the injured parties." And as he was so nice in his language, so he was particular in his dress and deportment. As an eulogist of him said, not without a little criticism: "He was possessed of too great a share of pride for his circumstances in life, and retained more of it to the last than was becoming in a person in his unhappy situation. He had a taste for elegance in every respect; was remarkably fond of silk stockings, and neat in his linen; had his hair dressed in the most fashionable manner every morning; his polished fetters were supported round his waist by a sword-belt, and tied up at his knees with ribbon."