CHAPTER XIV
THE ROADS OUT OF LONDON (continued)
Could the gay highwaymen who, a hundred years ago, were gathered to their fathers at the end of a rope, down Tyburn way, revisit Finchley, the poor fellows would sadly need a guide. Where, alas! is Finchley Common, that wide-spreading expanse of evil omen on which those jovial spirits were so thoroughly at home? Finchley Common, has long since been divided up between the squatters who grabbed the public land when Justice winked the other eye, as Justice had a trick of doing years ago, when the process of enclosing commons was in full swing. There still exists a large oak-tree by the road at a place called Brown's Wells, opposite the "Green Man," and in the trunk of this last survival of the "good old times" there have been found, from time to time, quite a number of pistol bullets; the said bullets supposed to have been fired at the trunk to frighten the highwaymen who might chance to be hiding behind it, under cover of the night. The tree itself has long borne the name of "Turpin's Oak," no less celebrated a person than the redoubtable Dick himself having once frequented it. Turpin, of course, is the greatest of all the rascals who made the name of the Great North Road a name of dread. Before him, however, Jack Sheppard figured here; but not, it is sad to relate, in an heroic manner. In fact, that nimble-fingered youth who was no highwayman—merely a pickpocket and housebreaker—after escaping from the "Stone Jug" (by which piece of classic slang you are to understand Newgate is meant) had the humiliation to be apprehended on Finchley Common, disguised in drink and a butcher's blue smock. That was the worst of those roystering blades. The drink was the undoing of them all. If only they had been Good Templars, or sported the blue ribbon, it is quite certain that they had not been cut off untimely; and might, with reasonable luck, have even retired with a modest competence in early years.
One of the most savagely dramatic encounters on Finchley Common was that which was enacted on July 11th, 1699, with "Captain" Edmund Tooll, alias Tooley, prominent on one side, and an unfortunate gentleman, Mr. Robert Leader, on the other. Mr. Leader was travelling from London across this waste, in company with his servant, when he was set upon by Tooll and some companions (one of whom afterwards turned King's evidence). They stripped Mr. Leader and his man, and, knocking the unlucky gentleman down, brutally stamped on his face and stomach, until, fearing he was to be killed, he begged pitifully for his life to be spared. He then attempted to run away, and the blood-thirsty Tooll shot him in the back, and wounded him so seriously that he died on the following day. When Tooll was at length arrested, at the "Blue Ball," in Jermyn Street, he was wearing some of the murdered man's clothes. He violently resisted, fired upon the officers, and, shortening a sword he held, attempted to stab one of them. He retained this spirit even in the dock, for when his resistance of arrest was mentioned, he said he was only sorry he had not stabbed the officer to the heart. He was executed, impenitent to the last, on February 2nd, 1700, and afterwards hanged in chains on Finchley Common.
It was in 1724 that Jack Sheppard was arrested by Bow Street runners on the Common, and the fact somewhat staggers one's belief in the wild lawlessness of that place. One might just as soon expect to hear of the Chief Commissioner of Police being kidnapped from Scotland Yard. And yet it is quite certain Finchley was no safe place for a good young man with five pounds in his pocket and a mere walking-stick in his hand, whether he proposed to cross it by night or day. Even sixty-six years later this evil reputation existed; for, in 1790, the Earl of Minto, travelling to London, wrote to his wife that, instead of pushing on to town at night, he would defer his entry until morning, "for I shall not trust my throat on Finchley Common in the dark." Think of it! And Dick Turpin had been duly executed fifty years before!
Between 1700 and 1800, in fact, this was a parlous place, and not one of the better-known highwaymen but had tried his hand at "touching the mails" as they went across this waste; or patrolled the darkest side of the road, ready to spring upon the solitary traveller. Indeed, the childlike simplicity of the lonely travellers of those days is absolutely contemptible, considering the well-known dangers of the roads. For instance, on the night of August 28th, 1720, a horseman might have been observed in the act of crossing Finchley Common. He had fifteen guineas in his pocket, and ambled along as though he had been in Pall Mall, instead of on perhaps the most dangerous road in England. At a respectable distance behind him came his servant, and, just in front of him, midway of this howling wilderness, stood three figures. "There is an eye that notes our coming," says the poet, and three pairs of eyes had perceived this wayfarer. They belonged to an enterprising individual named Spiggott and to two other ruffians whose names have not been handed down to posterity. The weirdly named Spiggott was apparently above disguising himself; his companions, however, might have taken the parts of stage brigands, for one of them had the cape of his coat buttoned over his chin, and the other wore a slouched hat over his eyes. In addition to this, he kept the ends of his long wig in his mouth—which seems rather a comic-opera touch than serious business. It was, however, a favourite and effectual way with highwaymen of disguising themselves. It is to be hoped, rather than expected, that the traveller with the guineas saw the humour of it.
In the twinkling of an eye one brigand had seized his horse and made him dismount, while the others covered him with their pistols. The servant also was secured, the guineas transferred with the dexterity of a practised conjurer, the horses turned loose, and then the three rode away, leaving the traveller and his servant to get on as best they could. Spiggott, in 1720, eventually paid the penalty of his rashness in not disguising himself in accordance with the canons of his high-toby craft, as taught on the stage, and in novels of the eighteenth century, in which crape-masks are essential. When he was caught, with some others, in an attempt on the Wendover waggon at Tyburn, he was identified by the Finchley traveller. The end of him was the end of all his kind, but it was not accomplished without considerable trouble. He, with another prisoner named Thomas Phillips, was in due form, and on several counts, indicted for highway robbery. Both refused to plead, and stood silent in the dock. There was in those times a fearful penalty for refusing to plead to an indictment: the penalty known to legal jurisprudence as peine forte et dure, which was, rendered into ordinary English, "pressing to death." The space at Newgate long known as the Press Yard took its name from being the place where this savage penalty was inflicted.