A penny papah flowah in his coat, la-di-da;
In his mouth a penny pick, in his hand a penny stick,
And a penny in his pocket, la-di-da, la-di-da,
And a penny in his pocket, la-di-da!
The contents of Beau Medlicott's pockets were pitiful enough to draw tears of rage from any self-respecting highwayman: consisting only of two half-crowns; and one of them was a brass counterfeit!
Ogden very rightly gave that cheap toff a good thrashing.
Reynolds does not appear in the stories just narrated; but in addition to another ally, Bradshaw by name, said to have been a grandson of that Serjeant Bradshaw who was one of the regicides, he now appears lurking in the woods on Shooter's Hill, one night in 1714, for whatever fortune might be pleased to send them. It was poor sport that evening, for only a servant-girl, one Cecilia Fowley, came along the road, carrying her box; but these low-down footpads despised nothing, and were ready to rob any one.
It was not worth the while of the three, they thought, to rush out of their lurking-place for the sake of one servant-girl, and so they deputed Bradshaw for the job. He accordingly sprang into the road, seized the box, and broke it into fragments. It contained the girl's clothes, "and fifteen shillings, being all her wages for three months' service." (Servants were cheap then, it seems.)
Turning over these things, Bradshaw turned out a hammer, which the girl seized, and suddenly dealt him a blow with it upon the temple, followed by another with the claw of the hammer upon his neck, which tore his throat open. He fell down in the road, and died there.
At that moment, up came a gentleman, to whom the girl narrated the circumstances. He searched the dead man's pockets, and found in them a large sum of money and a whistle. Putting the whistle to his mouth, he blew upon it—a rash enough thing to do—and thereupon Ogden and Reynolds leapt out from the wayside coverts. Finding, however, that something disastrous had happened, and that it was a stranger who had whistled them, they fled.