CHAPTER VII
THE HIGHWAYMEN OF WILTSHIRE AND SALISBURY PLAIN—MR. JOSEPH READER'S ADVENTURE—THE CHERHILL GANG—"CLIBBORN'S POST"—MURDER OF MR. MELLISH—CLOSE OF THE HIGHWAYMAN ERA
Many of the stories in these pages are concerned with the doings of highwaymen in the districts near London, but the neighbourhood of almost every town was infested in degree, and there are few local histories, and fewer of the older newspaper files, that do not afford curious reading in the highway robbery sort, intermingled with advertisements offering rewards for the apprehension of horse- and sheep-stealers and fugitive husbands who have left their wives and families chargeable upon the parish. The neighbourhoods of Devizes and Salisbury seem to have been exceptionally favoured with these miscellaneous rascals, no doubt because those two places stood at either extreme of what long remained the wild and desolate region including Salisbury Plain, where, although the great roads to Bath and Exeter brought a considerable traffic, the houses were few and far between. It was an ideal district for evil-doers, and there are a very considerable literature and a very startling series of incidents in this sort, connected with it. [1]
A curious incident is that told on an old broadsheet printed in 1712, and sold at the usual broadsheet price of one penny, of the hanging of a highwayman by one of the travellers he attacked. On Saturday, February 2nd, in that year, a Mr. Nat. Seager, a maltster, took horse from Shaftesbury for Blandford, to buy corn in Blandford market. He had only gone two miles and had descended into the plain from the hill-top town, when "he was attack'd by a Highway-Man and a pistol clap'd to his Breast, with the Word of Command 'God D—n you, you old Dog, alight and deliver.'"
Mr. Seager, very much terrified, dismounted, or perhaps, rather, tumbled off his horse, and threw the man £3 in silver; but the highwayman was not content with this. "It was not all," he said; and, rapping out another oath, he drew a broadsword and gave Mr. Seager a cut on the shoulder. Whereupon Mr. Seager produced twenty-four guineas more, with which the highwayman rode off contented, leaving the unfortunate maltster bleeding on the ground.
In a little while there came along the road another traveller, Mr. Joseph Reader, miller, of Shaftesbury, whistling upon his way, according to his habit.
"What is the matter?" he asked, surprised to see his friend and neighbour lying there, all gory.
Seager told him.
"Master," said Reader, "lend me your horse, and I will endeavour to overtake the rogue, if you will describe him to me."
"He has a great blue coat, and a sorrel horse," replied Seager: and with that, Reader mounted and hastened the way he had gone.