Our old friend Pepys has something to say of what he did or what was done to him on Shooter’s Hill, under date of April 11, 1661; but it was, at any rate, not a happening of any great note, and moreover, Mr. Pepys’ prattle sometimes becomes tiresome, and so we will pass him by for once in a way. His fellow diarist, Evelyn, was here in 1699, for he writes, under August, “I drank the Shooter’s Hill waters.” A very much more important person, Queen Anne, to wit (who, alas! is dead), is also said to have partaken of the mineral spring which made Shooter’s Hill a minor spa long years ago. The spring is still here, and it is this which makes the summit of Shooter’s Hill so graciously green and refreshing. People no longer come to drink the waters, but he who thirsts by the wayside and sports the blue ribbon, may, an he please, instead of calling at the “Bull,” or the “Red Lion,” across the road, quench his thirst at a drinking-fountain, which is something between a lich-gate and a Swiss châlet, erected here in recent years.
HIGHWAYMEN
So long ago as 1767 a project was set afoot for building a town on the summit of Shooter’s Hill, but it came to nothing, which is not at all strange when one considers how constantly the dwellers there would have been obliged to run the gauntlet of the gentlemen whom Americans happily call “road-agents.” And here is a sample of what would happen now and again, taken, not from the romantic pages of “Don Juan,” nor from Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities,” but from the sober and truthful columns of a London paper, under date of 1773. “On Sunday night,” we read, “about ten o’clock, Colonel Craige and his servant were attacked near Shooter’s Hill by two highwaymen, well mounted, who, on the colonel’s declaring he would not be robbed, immediately fired and shot the servant’s horse in the shoulder. On this the footman discharged a pistol, and the assailants rode off with great precipitation.” That they rode off with nothing else shows how effectually the colonel and his servant, by firmly grasping the nettle danger, plucked the flower safety.
DON JUAN
It was by similarly bold conduct that Don Juan put to flight no fewer than four assailants on this very spot. Arrived thus far from Dover, he had alighted, and was meditatively pacing along the road behind his carriage when—— But there! It had best be read in Byron’s verse, and let no one cry out upon me for quoting “Don Juan,” and say the thing is nothing new, lest I, in turn, call fie upon him for an undue acquaintance with that “wicked” poem—
... Juan now was borne,
Just as the day began to wane and darken,
O’er the high hill which looks, with pride or scorn,
Toward the great city. Ye who have a spark in
Your veins of Cockney spirit, smile or mourn,
According as you take things well or ill;
Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter’s Hill!
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A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping
Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye
Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool’s head—and there is London Town!
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Don Juan had got out on Shooter’s Hill:
Sunset the time, the place the same declivity
Which looks along that vale of good and ill
Where London streets ferment in full activity;
While everything around was calm and still,
Except the creak of wheels, which on their pivot he
Heard; and that bee-like, bubbling, busy hum
Of cities, that boil over with their scum.
I say Don Juan, wrapt in contemplation,
Walk’d on behind his carriage, o’er the summit,
And lost in wonder of so great a nation,
Gave way to it, since he could not o’ercome it.
“And here,” he cried, “is Freedom’s chosen station;
Here peals the people’s voice, nor can entomb it
Racks, prisons, inquisitions; resurrection
Awaits it, each new meeting or election.
“Here are chaste wives, pure lives; here people pay
But what they please; and, if that things be dear,
’Tis only that they love to throw away
Their cash, to show how much they have a year.
Here laws are all inviolate; none lay
Traps for the traveller; every highway’s clear:
Here”—here he was interrupted by a knife,
With,—“Damn your eyes! Your money or your life!”
These freeborn sounds proceeded from four pads,
In ambush laid, who had perceived him loiter
Behind his carriage; and, like handy lads,
Had seized the lucky hour to reconnoitre,
In which the heedless gentleman who gads
Upon the road, unless he prove a fighter,
May find himself, within that isle of riches,
Exposed to lose his life as well as breeches.
Juan did not understand a word
Of English, save their shibboleth, “God damn!”
And even that he had so rarely heard,
He sometimes thought ’twas only their “Salaam,”
Or “God be with you!” and ’tis not absurd
To think so; for, half English as I am
(To my misfortune), never can I say
I heard them wish “God with you,” save that way.
But if he failed to understand their speech, he interpreted their actions accurately enough, and, drawing a pocket-pistol, shot the foremost in the stomach, who, writhing in agony on the ground, and unable to discriminate between Continental nationalities, called out that “the bloody Frenchman” had killed him. His three companions did not wait to discover that it was not a Frenchman, but a Spaniard. No, they promptly ran away, and left their fellow to die, which he presently did, and Don Juan, after an interview with the coroner, proceeded on his road in wonderment. “Perhaps,” he thought, “it is the country’s wont to welcome foreigners in this way.”
Shooter’s Hill is pictured excellently well in A Tale of Two Cities; the time, “a Friday night, late in November, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five,” the occasion the passing of the Dover Mail. The coachman was “laying on” to the horses like another Macduff, and the near leader of the tired team was shaking its head and everything upon it, as though denying that the coach could be got up the hill at all; while the passengers, having been turned out to walk up the road and ease the horses, splashed miserably in the slush. The time was “ten minutes, good, past eleven,” and the coachman had but just finished addressing the horses in such strange exclamations as “Tst! Yah! Get on with you! My blood!” and other picturesque, not to say lurid, phrases, when sounds were heard along the highway. Sounds of any sort on the road could not at this hour be aught than ominous, and so the passengers, who were just upon the point of re-entering the coach, shivered and wondered if their purses and watches were quite safe which were lying snugly perdu in their boots.
“Tst! Joe!” calls the coachman, from his box, warningly to the guard.
“What do you say, Tom?”