NEVISON: "SWIFT NICKS"
When Harrison Ainsworth wrote Rookwood, that fantastic romance of highway robbery and the impossible exploits of the Rookwood family, he did a singular injustice to a most distinguished seventeenth-century highwayman, John Nevison by name, and transferred the glory of his wonderful ride to York to Dick Turpin, who never owned a "Black Bess," and who never did anything of the kind. Turpin, by virtue of Ainsworth's glowing pages, has become a popular hero and stands full in the limelight, while the real gallant figure is only dimly seen in the cold shade of neglect.
John or "William" Nevison, by some accounts, was born at Pontefract, in 1639, of "honest and reasonably-estated parents." Sometimes we find him styled Nevison, at other times he is "alias Clerk" in the proclamations issued, offering rewards for his arrest. Occasionally, in the chap-books, we find John Nevison and William Nevison treated as two separate and distinct persons, no doubt because the recorded adventures of this truly eminent man were so widely distributed over the country, that it was difficult to believe them the doings of one person. But there seems to be no reasonable doubt that one and the same man was the hero of all these doings, as also of the famous Ride to York. Of course it is now by far too late to snatch from Turpin the false glory bestowed upon him. A hundred romances, a century of popular plays, have for ever in the popular mind identified him with the Ride to York, and with all manner of achievements and graces that were never his. Lies are brazen and immortal; truth is modest; and the Great Turpin Myth is too fully established to be thoroughly scotched.
But let us to the career of Nevison, as told in the pages of what few authorities exist. He seems to have been a precocious boy: precocious in things evil. Indeed we must needs regard him as a wunderkind in that sort, for between the ages of thirteen and fourteen, and when still at school, he is reported to have been the "ringleader in rudeness and debauchery." He stole a silver spoon from his father, who delegated the thrashing so richly deserved to the schoolmaster, who seems to have "laid on" in the thorough manner suggested to Macduff. A vivid picture presents itself to us, of William (or John) occupying a sleepless night, rubbing the parts and meditating revenge. As a result of his deliberations, he arose before peep of day and, cautiously taking his father's keys, stole to the domestic cashbox and helped himself to the ten pounds he found there. Then, taking a saddle and bridle from his father's stable, he hastened to the paddock where the schoolmaster had a horse out to graze. Saddling it, he made off for London, which he reached in four days. He dared not sell the horse, for by that means he might have been traced, so he killed the unfortunate animal when within one or two miles of London.
Buying a new suit of clothes and changing his name, he soon found employment with a brewer. In that situation he remained nearly three years, and then left suddenly for the Continent, incidentally with £200 belonging to the brewer. Holland was the country he honoured with his presence, and there he found a fellow-mind in the person of a young Dutch woman who, robbing her father of all the money and jewels she could lay hands upon, eloped with him. They were soon arrested, but Nevison broke prison, and with some difficulty, made his way into Flanders, and enlisted in the troops stationed there under command of the Duke of York. It is not to be supposed that such a restless temperament as his would allow him long to remain subject to restrictions and the word of command, and accordingly he deserted, made across to England, and, purchasing a horse and arms, and "resolving for the Road," blossomed out as a full-blown highwayman. As his original biographer prettily puts it, he embarked upon "a pleasant life at the hazard of his neck, rather than toil out a long remainder of unhappy days in want and poverty, which he was always averse to." Who, for that matter, is not? Let us sigh for the days that were, the days that are no more, when such adventures as the highwaymen sought were to be found on every highway. A short life, so long as it was a merry, was sufficient for these fine fellows, who desired nothing so little as a gnarled and crabbed age, and nothing so much as a life filled with excitement, wine, and the smiles of the fair. Those smiles were apt to be purchased, and generally purchased dear, but in that respect the highwaymen were never disposed to be critical.
Nevison's success, immediate and complete, proclaimed his fitness for the career himself had with due thought and deliberation chosen. At first he kept his own counsel and haunted the roads alone. Sometimes he went by the name of Johnson.
At this early stage he met one evening on the high road two farmers, who told him it was dangerous to go forward, themselves having only a few minutes before been robbed of forty pounds by three highwaymen, scarce more than half a mile off.
"Turn back with me," he said, "and show me the way they went, and, my life to a farthing if I do not make them return your money."