Nevison then, making him dismount, and taking his pistols, desired the countrymen to secure him, while he pursued the others. In the gathering twilight, as he galloped up, they, thinking it was their friend, drew rein.
"Jack," said one to him, "why did you stop to argue with that fellow?"
"No, gentlemen," said Nevison, "you are mistaken in your man; though, by token of his horse that I ride and his arms I carry, he hath sent me to you, to ransom his life. The ransom, sirs, is nothing less than your shares of the prize of the day, which if you presently surrender, you may go about your business. If not, I must have a little dispute with you, at sword and pistol."
One of them then let fly at him, but his aim missing, Nevison's bullet in reply took him in the right shoulder. He then called for quarter and came to a parley, which ended in the two surrendering not only their share of the two travellers' money, but a total amount of a hundred and fifty guineas. Nevison thereupon returned to the farmers and, handing them their money, went his way with the balance of one hundred and ten guineas.
This, it will at once be conceded, was by no means professional conduct; and was indeed, we may say, a serious breach of the highway law, by which thieves should at any rate stand by one another, shoulder to shoulder against the world.
Nevison, however, like a true philosopher and a false comrade, improved any occasion to his own advantage, without scruple. You figure him thus, rather of a saturnine humour, with an ugly grin on his face, instead of a frank smile; but probably you would be quite wrong in so doing. At any rate, the ladies appear to have loved him, for we learn that, "in all his pranks, he was very favourable to the female sex, who generally gave him the character of a civil, obliging robber." He was also charitable to the poor, and, being a true Royalist, he never attempted anything against those of that party.
After many adventures, our William, or John, as the case may be, one day secured no less a sum than £450 by a fortunate meeting on the road with a rich grazier who had just sold, and been paid for, some cattle. He resolved to let the road lie fallow, as it were, for a while, and to seek, in a temporary retirement in his native place, that repose which comes doubly welcome after a period of strenuous professional endeavour.
He was joyfully received by his father, who still was living in the old town of Pontefract, although some seven or eight years had passed since his son had levanted and disappeared utterly from the parental ken. He had long given up all hopes of seeing his boy again; and now he was returned, a young man of twenty-one years of age, and with a respectable sum of money; the savings of a frugal and industrious life in London, according to his own account.
Here is an idyllic picture: the highwayman returned home, soothing the declining days of his father, and living as quietly and soberly as though he had never emptied a pocket on the King's highway!
After the death of his father, he left the quiet existence at Pontefract, and opened the second part of his career upon the road. He now so far departed from his former practice as to become the moving spirit in a numerous band whose headquarters were long situated at Newark. They particularly affected Yorkshire, and inspired the drovers and graziers who used the Great North Road with dread.