Steps were instantly taken to acquaint Miss Parsons with the statements Wilson was making about her, and she thought it prudent to change her lodgings, and to hire an ex-pugilist to follow and protect her wherever she went. But there was no danger from the moment Wilson had made that very stupid and incautious remark for the conspirators got frightened and separated, though not before Parsons had savagely attacked Wilson for his indiscretion. The result of the attack was the disfigurement of the footman's face for the rest of his life.
Although he was now always short of ready money, Parsons took good care to see that his wardrobe was in first-rate condition. He never dressed shabbily, always appearing as a man of fashion. London, however, was not so remunerative as it had been: his character was too well known, and the set he mixed in was too poor to be worth the robbing. He, therefore, decided on a sort of provincial tour, and he went down to Bath with the intention of finding a vain and silly girl with money, who would be attracted by his appearance and his titled relations.
The baronet's son speedily found a victim in the daughter of a well-to-do doctor. He represented himself to be a bachelor—of course, the truth was that his wife was still alive—anxious to marry and settle down in quiet luxury, as befitted his birth. The girl readily responded to his honeyed words, and in her father's house the engagement took place, and was approved of by the doctor, who had heard of Sir William Parsons, Bart., of Nottingham.
Parsons began to borrow. In hundreds at first and then in thousands, and very soon the girl's private fortune of three thousand pounds, which she had inherited from her mother, had been lent to Parsons, and lost by him in the gaming-houses.
Her father advanced more, and when he had drained the family dry Parsons announced that he was called away to see his father to arrange for his marriage, and he took his departure from Bath with the cordial good wishes of the doctor and his daughter, who were destined neither to see him nor their money again.
From Bath he went to Clifton. It was then a small village where a few of the wealthy Bristol merchants had country-houses. He arrived in the early summer, and speedily got an introduction to a rich shipowner who had two daughters. Parsons discovered that the two girls were wildly jealous of each other, and he thereupon made each one the object of his attentions without letting either know that she had a rival. There was plenty of money in the family, but on the first occasion Parsons delicately hinted that a loan of two hundred pounds would be acceptable the hard-headed old merchant only advised him to write to his father, offering to bear the expense of the communication.
This was not what Parsons wanted, and he determined to use the girls to extract the money from their father, whom he termed "the old miser." Accordingly, he took the elder girl out for a walk, and boldly explained that he was temporarily without means owing to a family lawsuit, and he hinted that if she wished to marry him she must help to relieve his pecuniary embarrassment. The girl promised to do her best, and, confident that she would keep her promise not to divulge to her father or sister what he had said, he met the younger girl, and put his situation before her in similar terms.
A few days later he found that the two girls were actually vying with one another as to which of them could find the most money for her lover, unaware that they were both referring to the same individual.
By some extraordinary means they got over five thousand pounds for him, and Parsons supplemented it with a forged order purporting to be signed by the girl's father, ordering his manager to pay the bearer a thousand pounds. Parsons presented the order in person, received the money, packed his belongings, and the same night left for London. When the fraud was discovered the old man was for instant exposure, but on reflection, and persuaded by his daughters, he decided that the disgrace and ridicule that would follow for them when Parsons was arrested was too big a price to pay for revenge, and they never published the story of their foolishness and gullibility.
But Parsons' end was approaching. His good fortune could not last for ever, and he met his match in a country girl, who resented his advances after she had found him with another woman and refused to act as his accomplice in the passing of counterfeit banknotes. She denounced him in a temper, and he was arrested. It was characteristic of the fellow that when in prison awaiting trial he should rob a fellow-prisoner of his small stock of cash.