JAMES HIND,the Master Thief of England,the fearless Captain of the Highway,was born at Chipping Norton in 1618.His father,a simple saddler,had so poor an appreciation of his son's magnanimity,that he apprenticed him to a butcher;but Hind's destiny was to embrue his hands in other than the blood of oxen,and he had not long endured the restraint of this common craft when forty shillings,the gift of his mother,purchased him an escape,and carried him triumphant and ambitious to London.
Even in his negligent schooldays he had fastened upon a fitting career.A born adventurer,he sought only enterprise and command:if a commission in the army failed him,then he would risk his neck upon the road,levying his own tax and imposing his own conditions.To one of his dauntless resolution an opportunity need never have lacked;yet he owed his first preferment to a happy accident.Surprised one evening in a drunken brawl,he was hustled into the Poultry Counter,and there made acquaintance over a fresh bottle with Robert Allen,one of the chief rogues in the Park,and a ruffian,who had mastered every trick in the game of plunder.A dexterous clyfaker,an intrepid blade,Allen had also the keenest eye for untested talent,and he detected Hind's shining qualities after the first glass.No sooner had they paid the price of release,than Hind was admitted of his comrade's gang;he took the oath of fealty,and by way of winning his spurs was bid to hold up a traveller on Shooter's Hill.Granted his choice of a mount,he straightway took the finest in the stable,with that keen perception of horseflesh which never deserted him,and he confronted his first victim in the liveliest of humours.There was no falter in his voice,no hint of inexperience in his manner,when he shouted the battlecry:`Stand and deliver!'The horseman,fearful of his life,instantly surrendered a purse of ten sovereigns,as to the most practised assailant on the road.Whereupon Hind,with a flourish of ancient courtesy,gave him twenty shillings to bear his charges.`This,'said he,`is for handsale sake ';and thus they parted in mutual compliment and content.
Allen was overjoyed at his novice's prowess.`Did you not see,'he cried to his companions,`how he robbed him with a grace?'
And well did the trooper deserve his captain's compliment,for his art was perfect from the first.In bravery as in gallantry he knew no rival,and he plundered with so elegant a style,that only a churlish victim could resent the extortion.He would as soon have turned his back upon an enemy as demand a purse uncovered.For every man he had a quip,for every woman a compliment;nor did he ever conceal the truth that the means were for him as important as the end.Though he loved money,he still insisted that it should be yielded in freedom and good temper;and while he emptied more coaches than any man in England,he was never at a loss for admirers.
Under Allen he served a brilliant apprenticeship.Enrolled as a servant,he speedily sat at the master's right hand,and his nimble brains devised many a pretty campaign.For a while success dogged the horsehoofs of the gang;with wealth came immunity,and not one of the warriors had the misfortune to look out upon the world through a grate.They robbed with dignity,even with splendour.Now they would drive forth in a coach and four,carrying with them a whole armoury of offensive weapons;now they would take the road apparelled as noblemen,and attended at a discreet distance by their proper servants.But recklessness brought the inevitable disaster;and it was no less a personage than Oliver Cromwell who overcame the hitherto invincible Allen.A handful of the gang attacked Oliver on his way from Huntingdon,but the marauders were outmatched,and the most of them were forced to surrender.Allen,taken redhanded,swung at Tyburn;Hind,with his better mount and defter horsemanship,rode clear away.
The loss of his friend was a lesson in caution,and henceforth Hind resolved to follow his craft in solitude.He had embellished his native talent with all the instruction that others could impart,and he reflected that he who rode alone neither ran risk of discovery nor had any need to share his booty.Thus he began his easy,untrammelled career,making time and space of no account by his rapid,fearless journeys.Now he was prancing the moors of Yorkshire,now he was scouring the plain between Gloucester and Tewkesbury,but wherever he rode,he had a purse in his pocket and a jest on his tongue.To recall his prowess is to ride with him (in fancy)under the open sky along the fair,beaten road;to put up with him at the busy,white posthouse,to drink unnumbered pints of mulled sack with the roundbellied landlord,to exchange boastful stories over the hospitable fire,and to ride forth in the morning with the joyous uncertainty of travel upon you.Failure alone lay outside his experience,and he presently became at once the terror and the hero of England.
Not only was his courage conspicuous;luck also was his constant companion;and a happy bewitchment protected him for three years against the possibility of harm.He had been lying at Hatfield,at the George Inn,and set out in the early morning for London.
