THE MASTER THIEF OF ENGLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5567, 16 May 1896, Page 2

THE MASTER THIEF OF ENGLAND.

t&ssmiUan's Xagazine.)

James Hind, the fearless Captain of the Highway, was born at Chipping Norton in 1618. 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.. Not only was his courage conspicuoiis, 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 had set out betimes for London. As lie neared the town gate, an old beldame begged ' an alms oi* him, ' and though Hind, not liking her ill-favoured visage, would have spurred forward, the beldame's glittering eye held his horse motionless. " Good woman," cried Hind, flinging 1 her a crowu, "lam in haste ; pray let me pass." " Sir," answered the witch, "three days I have awaited your coming. Would you have me lose my labour now?" Thus, with Hind's assent, the Sphinx delivered her message. "Captain Hind," said she, '"your life is beset with constant danger, and since, from your birth, I have wished you well, my " poor skill has devised a perfect safeguard." With that she gave him a S7nall box, containing what might have been a sundial or compass. ' " Watch this star," quoth she ; "and when you know not your road, follow its guidance. So shall you be preserved from every peril for the space of three years; Thereafter, if you still have faith in my devotion, seek me again, and I will, renew the virtue of the charm." Hind took the box joyfully, but when he turned to murmur a word of gratitude, the witch struck his nag's fla-nks with a white wand, the horse leaped vehemently forward, and Hind saw his benefactress no more. Henceforth, however, a warning voice spoke to him as plainly as did the demon to Socrates, and had he but obeyed the beldame's admonition, he might have escaped a violent death. For he passed the iast day of the third year at the siege of Youghall, where he was wounded, and whence he presently regained England, to his own undoing.

: So long as he kept to the road, his life was one long comedy. His wit and address were inexhaustible, and fortune never found him at a loss. He would avert suspicion with the tune of a psalm, as when, habited .as a pious shepherd, he broke a traveller's Lead ■with his croolc, and deprived him of his horse. An early adventure was to force a pot-valiant parson; who had drank a cup too much at a wedding, into a rarely farcical situation. Hind, having robbed two gentlemen's servants of a round sum,, went ambling along the road until he encountered a parson. " Sir," said he, "I am closely pursued by robbers. You, I dare . swear, will not stand by and see me plundered." Before the parson could protest, he thrust a pistol into his hand, and bade him fire it at the first comer, while he rode off to raise the county. Meanwhile, the rifled travellers came up with the parson, who straightway mistaking them for thieves, fired without effect, and then, riding forward, flung the pistol in the face of the nearest. Thus the parson of the parish was dragged before the magistrate, while Hind, before his dupe could furnish an explanation, had placed many a mile between himself and his adr versaries. So Hind rode the world up anfi down, redressing grievances like an Eastern monarch, and. rejoicing in the abasement I of the evildoer.

As became a gentleman adventurer, Captain Hind was staunch in his loyalty to the murdered King. But he was not a Cavalier merely in sympathy, nor was he content to prove his loyalty by robbing Roiindheads. He, too, would strike a blow for his King; and he showed, first with the royal army in Scotland, and afterwards, at Worcester, what he dared in a righteouf cause. Indeed it was his part in the unhappy battle that cost him his life'; and there is a strange irony in the inflection that on the selfsame day when Sir Thomas Urqubart lost his precious manuscripts, the neck of .Tames Hind was made ripe for the halter. His capture wasdue to treachery. Towards 1 the end of 1651 he was lodged Avith one Denzys, a barber, over against St Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street. Maybe he had chosen his hidingplace for its neighbourhood to Moll Cutpurse's own sanctuary. But a pack of traitors discovered him, and haling him before the Speaker of the. House of Commons, got him committed forthwith to Newgate. At. first he was charged with theft and murder, and was actually condemned for killing George Syinpson at Enole, in Berkshire. But the day after his sentence, an Act of | Oblivion was pafesed, and Hind was put upon trial for treason. . During his examination he behaved with the utmost gaiety, I boastfully enlarging upon hi a Berv ices to

the Zing's cause. "These, are filthy jingling spurs," said he as he left the bar pointing to the irons about his legs, "but IJiopeto exchange them ere long." His good humour remained with him to the end. He jested in prison, as he jested on the road, and it was with a light heart that he mounted the scaffold built for him at Worcester. His was the fate reserved for traitors; he was hanged, drawn and quartered, and though his head was privily stolen and buried on the day of execution, his quarters were displayed upon the town walls, until time and the birds destroyed them utterly.