Of the other names in the long and distinguished roll of road-agents who figure on Finchley Common at some time or another in their meteoric careers, it is not possible here to say much. There were the resourceful and courageous Captain Hind, the whimsically named "Old Mob," burly Tom Cox, Neddy Wicks, and Claude Du Vall. They have, most of them, their separate niches in these pages.
Room, however, by your leave, for those thoroughly business-like men, Messrs. Everett and Williams, who entered into a duly drawn and properly attested deed of partnership, by which it was agreed that they should work together on Finchley Common and elsewhere, and divide the profits of their labours into equal shares. Their industry prospered, and the common fund soon reached the very respectable total of £2,000. But when required to render accounts, and to pay over half this amount, Mr. Williams, treasurer of this precious firm, refused. The old proverb of "Honour among thieves" was therefore proved a fallacy. Everett thereupon brought an action at law against his defaulting partner, and a verdict for £20 was actually obtained, and appealed against by the defendant. The court then very properly found the whole matter scandalous, bad in law, and contrary to public policy. Everett was sentenced to pay costs, and the lawyers engaged on either side were fined £50 each for their part in this discreditable affair.
The way through Uxbridge and High Wycombe to Oxford is largely illustrated elsewhere in these pages, in the biographies of "Old Mob," and of Withers, in which Uxbridge and the neighbourhood of Hillingdon figure largely. Having once passed Hillingdon, travellers were comparatively unmolested until they came to Shotover Hill, near Oxford.
Shotover Hill was the scene of the barber's encounter with a knight of the road. The barber, travelling afoot with a sum of money, had been foolish enough to explain, in the parlour of an inn, how he had cunningly hidden his store among the implements of his trade he was carrying with him. Arrived on the hill-top, he was accosted by the figure of a road-agent who had, "from information received," a very accurate knowledge of how much money the barber was carrying, and where he carried it.
"Wer—what do you wer—want?" asked the trembling barber.
"Only a sher—shave," rejoined the knight of the road, mocking the man's frightened speech; "so out with your shaving-pot and razor, and fall to't!" And he sat himself down on the grassy bank.
With fumbling hands the barber undid his bag, and brought forth the shaving tackle, whereupon the highwayman, stretching his legs as though by accident, managed to upset the pot. Over it went, and smashed upon a stone, displaying that store of golden guineas.
"Ho, ho, my friend!" said the highwayman. "You're not so poor as you thought. 'Tis treasure-trove, indeed, and of right belongs to the King. God bless him! But since His Majesty has small need of a matter of twenty guineas, and I a very pressing one, I'll e'en pouch them myself!" And, so doing, and vaulting into the saddle, he was gone.
Along this same route, in the woodland road between West Wycombe and Stokenchurch, Jack Shrimpton, the highwayman, met a barrister who greatly admired the horse Shrimpton was riding, and offered him £30 for it. Needless to say, the coin promptly changed hands, but the horse did not.