THE “GREEN MAN,” PUTNEY.
It becomes a little difficult to believe in the “Spaniards” being so early a place of popular resort; but, shaming the incredulous, there stands the old house, visibly old, undoubtedly large and designed for the conduct of a considerable business, and still comparatively lonely. It is also one of those very few houses, out of an incredibly large number, which really can make out a good claim to have been frequented by Dick Turpin. This spot was well within the “Turpin Country,” so to speak, as one speaks of literary landmarks; it was included in his “sphere of influence,” as they say in international politics; or simply (as a policeman might put it) was “on his beat.” Turpin has so taken hold of the imagination that you find legends of him in the most impossible places, but his real centre of activity, before he fled into Yorkshire, was Epping Forest, and a radius of twenty miles from Chingford just about covers his province.
It is only in modern times that the “Spaniards” has been anxious to claim Turpin. In that hero’s period, and when highwaymen still haunted dark roads and were hand-in-glove with many innkeepers, the “Spaniards” was no doubt just as anxious to disclaim any such association. Thus we do not find, in any memoirs of former landlords, “Turpin as I knew Him,” or anything of that kind. It is a pity, for we are in such a case reduced to accept legends, and Heaven and the inquirer into these things alone know what lies these legends tell. At the “Spaniards,” however, we accept the tradition that mine host, throughout a long series of years, had an excellent understanding with the whole fraternity of road-agents, and with Turpin in particular.
THE “SPANIARDS,” HAMPSTEAD HEATH.
It is not necessary to this general belief to place one’s faith in the truth of the stable attached to the house having been that of Black Bess, because we know that famous mare to have been entirely the figment of Harrison Ainsworth’s imagination; and the quaint old tower-like garden-house seen on the right hand of the accompanying picture of the inn is itself so picturesquely suggestive of headlong flights and pursuits that, whether Turpin did hide in it, or not, it is obviously demanded by all the canons of the picturesque that he should be made to do so—and accordingly he is. Thus we read: “This outhouse was a favourite resting-place for Turpin, and many a time on the late return of the marauder has it served as a bedroom. The underground passages that led to the inn itself have been filled up, years ago. Formerly, here Dick was safe enough. Were the two doors attacked by unpleasant visitors, he dived through the secret trap-door into the underground apartment, there to await the departure of the raging officers, or to betake himself to the inn, if that were clear of attack.”
Oh! those “secret passages” and “underground apartments”! Do we not meet them (in legend) everywhere? And have they not invariably been “filled up” long ago?
Forty-one years after Turpin had been hanged we find the “Spaniards” in touch with actual, unquestionable history. June, 1780, was the time of the “No Popery Riots” in London, when Newgate was fired by the mob, and half a million pounds’ worth of damage was done to business houses and private residences. The Earl of Mansfield’s town house, in Bloomsbury Square, was destroyed, and the mob, pleased with their handiwork there, determined to complete their revenge on the obnoxious judge by treating his country mansion at Caen Wood in the same manner.