A Book of Scoundrels | Page 5

method, and he appealed in vain for sympathy or indulgence. The
ruffian, for instance, of whom it is grimly recorded that he added a
tie-wig to his booty, neither deserved nor received the smallest
consideration. Delivered to justice, he speedily met the death his
vulgarity merited, and the road was taught the salutary lesson that wigs
were as sacred as trinkets hallowed by association.
With the eighteenth century the highway fell upon decline. No doubt in
its silver age, the century's beginning, many a brilliant deed was done.
Something of the old policy survived, and men of spirit still went upon
the pad. But the breadth of the ancient style was speedily forgotten; and
by the time the First George climbed to the throne, robbery was already
a sordid trade. Neither side was conscious of its noble obligation. The
vulgar audacity of a bullying thief was suitably answered by the
ungracious, involuntary submission of the terrified traveller. From end
to end of England you might hear the cry of `Stand and deliver.' Yet
how changed the accent! The beauty of gesture, the deference of

carriage, the ready response to a legitimate demand--all the qualities of
a dignified art were lost for ever. As its professors increased in number,
the note of aristocracy, once dominant, was silenced. The meanest
rogue, who could hire a horse, might cut a contemptible figure on
Bagshot Heath, and feel no shame at robbing a poor man. Once--in that
Augustan age, whose brightest ornament was Captain Hind--it was
something of a distinction to be decently plundered. A century later
there was none so humble but he might be asked to empty his pocket.
In brief, the blight of democracy was upon what should have remained
a refined, secluded art; and nowise is the decay better illustrated than in
the appreciation of bunglers, whose exploits were scarce worth a
record.
James Maclaine, for instance, was the hero of his age. In a history of
cowards he would deserve the first place, and the `Gentleman
Highwayman,' as he was pompously styled, enjoyed a triumph denied
to many a victorious general. Lord Mountford led half White's to do
him honour on the day of his arrest. On the first Sunday, which he
spent in Newgate, three thousand jostled for entrance to his cell, and
the poor devil fainted three times at the heat caused by the throng of his
admirers. So long as his fate hung in the balance, Walpole could not
take up his pen without a compliment to the man, who claimed to have
robbed him near Hyde Park. Yet a more pitiful rascal never showed the
white feather. Not once was he known to take a purse with his own
hand, the summit of his achievement being to hold the horses' heads
while his accomplice spoke with the passengers. A poltroon before his
arrest, in Court he whimpered and whinnied for mercy; he was carried
to the cart pallid and trembling, and not even his preposterous finery
availed to hearten him at the gallows. Taxed with his timidity, he
attempted to excuse himself on the inadmissible plea of moral rectitude.
`I have as much personal courage in an honourable cause,' he
exclaimed in a passage of false dignity, `as any man in Britain; but as I
knew I was committing acts of injustice, so I went to them half loth and
half consenting; and in that sense I own I am a coward indeed.'
The disingenuousness of this proclamation is as remarkable as its
hypocrisy. Well might he brag of his courage in an honourable cause,
when he knew that he could never be put to the test. But what palliation
shall you find for a rogue with so little pride in his art, that he exercised

it `half loth, half consenting'? It is not in this recreant spirit that
masterpieces are achieved, and Maclaine had better have stayed in the
far Highland parish, which bred him, than have attempted to cut a
figure in the larger world of London. His famous encounter with
Walpole should have covered him with disgrace, for it was ignoble at
every point; and the art was so little understood, that it merely added a
leaf to his crown of glory. Now, though Walpole was far too well-bred
to oppose the demand of an armed stranger, Maclaine, in defiance of
his craft, discharged his pistol at an innocent head. True, he wrote a
letter of apology, and insisted that, had the one pistol- shot proved fatal,
he had another in reserve for himself. But not even Walpole would
have believed him, had not an amiable faith given him an opportunity
for the answering quip: `Can I do less than say I will be hanged if he
is?'
As Maclaine was a coward and