An unpleasant adventure of this sort happened just here, beside a vanished landmark once known to wayfarers as the “Procession Oak,” to John Evelyn, the diarist, on May 23rd, 1652.
Leaving his wife to take the waters at Tunbridge Wells, he set out on horseback for London. In his “Diary” we learn what befell him on the way:
“The weather being hot, and having sent my man on before me, I rode negligently under favour of the shade till within three miles of Bromley. At a place call’d the Procession Oake, two cut-throates started out, and striking with long staves at the horse and taking hold of the reines, threw me downe, took my sword, and haled me into a deepe thickett some quarter of a mile from the highway, where they might securely rob me, as they soone did. What they got of money was not considerable, but they took two rings, the one an emerald with diamonds, the other an onyx, and a pair of bouckles set with rubies and diamonds, which were of value, and, after all, bound my hands behind me, and my feete, having before pull’d off my bootes; they then set me up against an oake, with most bloudy threats to cutt my throat if I offer’d to crie out or make any noise, for they should be within hearing, I not being the person they looked for. I told them, if they had not basely surpriz’d me, they should not have had so easy a prize, and that it would teach me never to ride neere an hedge, since had I been in the mid-way they durst not have adventur’d on me; at which they cock’d their pistols, and told me they had long guns too, and were fourteen companions. I begg’d for my onyx, and told them it being engraven with my armes would betray them, but nothing prevail’d. My horse’s bridle they slipt, and search’d the saddle, which they pull’d off, but let the horse graze, and then, turning againe, bridled him and tied him to a tree, yet so as he might graze, and thus left me bound. My horse was perhaps not taken because he was mark’d and cropt on both eares, and well known on that roade.
“Left in this manner, grievously was I tormented with flies, ants, and the sunn, nor was my anxiety little how I should get loose in that solitary place, where I could neither heare nor see any creature but my poore horse and a few sheepe stragling in the copse. After neere two houres attempting, I got my hands to turn palm to palm, having been tied back to back, and then it was long before I could slip the cord over my wrists to my thumb, which at last I did, and then soone unbound my feete, and saddling my horse and roaming awhile about, I at last perceiv’d dust to rise, and soone after heard the rattling of a cart, towards which I made, and by the help of two country men I got back into the high way.
“I rode to Coll. Blount’s, a greate justiciarie of the times, who sent out hue and cry immediately. The next morning, sore as my wrists and armes were, I went to London and got 500 tickets printed and dispers’d by an officer of Goldsmiths Hall, and within two daies had tidings of all I had lost, except my sword, which had a silver hilt, and some trifles. The rogues had pawn’d one of my rings for a trifle to a goldsmith’s servant, before the tickets had come to the shop, by which meanes they scap’d; the other ring was bought by a victualler, who brought it to a goldsmith, but be, having seen the ticket, seiz’d the man. I afterwards discharg’d him, on his protestation of innocence. Thus,” he concludes, “did God deliver me from these villains, and not onely so, but restor’d what they tooke, as twice before He had graciously don, both at sea and land ... for which, and many, many signal preservations, I am extreamely oblig’d to give thanks to God my Saviour.”
This incident of impudent highway robbery in midday sufficiently illustrates the general insecurity of the times and the risks that travellers ran.
But let it not be thought that all highwaymen were brutal and lacking in bowels of compassion. We know, from the stirring annals of Hounslow Heath, that a Duval could act a courtly part when a lady was in the case; and here records tell of a very perfect, gentle knight of the road, who could be polite and considerate even to one of his own sex. But hear what the London newspapers of 1773 said: “Last night Mr. Delves, whalebone merchant, being taken ill at Hayes in Kent, and coming to town in a postchaise, was stopped by a highwayman, who robbed him of his money; but finding him greatly indisposed and not able to help himself, civilly wrapped him up warm, wished him better health and a good evening, gave the postboy a shilling, and ordered him to drive gently on.” We do not find that he returned the money. He doubtless thought it enough to rob with civility and to wish the invalid well again.
XII
Beyond this, one comes in a mile to the casual, disjointed, and scattered collection of houses called Farnborough, once a spruce and busy “thoroughfare” hamlet in the days of coaching: now a rather seedy place of resident market-gardeners and tramping hop-pickers. The old “George and Dragon” inn, that in the Queen Annean sort faces you on approach and, as it were, plants its considerable bulk half-way into the road, as though to dare your passing, has been furbished up in the public-house kind, and without difficulty stops the passage of most. It has a portico with pillars painted and grained to resemble real marble; but the veins are too preposterous, and the much more real compo underneath peeps out, like the obvious advertisement in a badly written puff.
If I were an amateur of ugly houses—which the Lord forbid—I would turn to the right-hand here and make for Downe, which is two miles distant. For there, by the pond of that pretty village, stands the hideous mansion in which Darwin lived, and where, in 1882, he died of a chill caught in prowling at night on the lawn with a dark lantern, studying earthworms. A carpenter near by preserves the coffin, with inscription all complete, in which the great naturalist was to have been laid (but for some reason was not), and strangely morbid people, with gruesome ideas of sight-seeing, go numerously to see it.