But keep your hands out of his breeches pocket,
says a well-known couplet; but here we have the strange spectacle of courtesy disarming the resentment caused by the turning out of those pockets! Hind was not yet the holder of a commission, but he was evidently already captain of himself.
Those were successful years, in which Hind scoured the roads with Allen's band. They robbed by wholesale, but never did the gentlemanly Hind omit the courteous formula of raising his hat on requesting a delivery. Your tax-gatherer and rate-collector of modern times do not do so much, in the presentation of their "Demand Notes."
Not only did Allen's gang pervade the country upon horseback: they conducted operations in lordly style, travelling often in carriages, or setting forth, some equipped as noblemen and others as their servants, all the better to conduct their campaign of robbery. Allen, of course, like most highwaymen of that time, was of Royalist sympathies. He conceived the magnificent idea of waylaying the travelling coach of no less a personage than His Highness, the Lord Protector of the Realm, Oliver Cromwell himself, on the way from Huntingdon. Unfortunately, the coach was guarded by seven servants, unusually full of fight, and so the attack not merely failed, but several of the highwaymen were captured, among them their leader, Allen, who, a short time later, suffered at Tyburn for his error of judgment. Hind was fortunate enough to escape, by dint of a good horse and excellent horsemanship.
ALLEN AND HIND ATTACK OLIVER CROMWELL'S CARRIAGE.
We are told, however, that Hind's horse was killed by the exhausting efforts of this escape. Having no money to purchase another (how on earth did the highwaymen manage to dissipate all the money they stole?), he was under the necessity of trying his fortune on foot until he should find means to procure another. It was not long before he espied a horse tied to a hedge, with a saddle on, and a brace of pistols in the holsters.
"This is my horse," cried Hind to the owner, whom he observed on the other side of the hedge, and forthwith he vaulted into the saddle.
"The horse is mine, you rascal!" roared the owner, making a dash for it.