HARRY HALTER THE HIGHWAYMAN.

I've cast your Horoscope-your natal star

Is Ursa Major-a most hanging sign. OLD PLAY.

THE indefatigable author of the Scottish novels, and his innumerable imitators, have not only commemorated all the reevers, robbers, borderers, blackmailmen, brigands, rebels, outlaws, cut-throats, and other heroes of Scotland, but have begun to make incursions into England; while another set have landed upon the shores of Ireland, where they bid fair to reap an abundant harvest of riot and robbery. It is really scandalous, that the citizens of London should not have availed themselves of their rich records of rascality to immortalize some of their more celebrated felons; but, with the exception of the Newgate Calendar, an imperfect and obscure publication, I am not aware of any attempt to do proper justice to these characters, beyond the very simple process of hanging them. This desideratum in literature I purpose to supply, by a series of traditional or recorded tales, wherein, according to established usage, I shall introduce frequent dialogues, imitations of the old ballads, songs, and other poems, and have made such arrangements, that every one shall contain a crazy, doting semi-prophetic old crone, upon whose fatuous auguries the whole plot shall be forced to depend. I need not more fully develope my mode of treatment, since I enclose you, as a specimen, the tale of

HENRY HALTER THE HIGHWAYMAN.

In the whole populous range of Dyot-street, St. Giles's, and Seven Dials, it would have been impossible to find a more dashing youth, or one who at once illustrated and defied the dangers of his profession with a look of more resolute slang, than Harry Halter the Highwayman. Sixteen-string Jack, with the bunches of ribbons at his knees, and the ends of his neckcloth fluttering in the air of St. George's Fields, had a more swelling swagger, and Abershaw might carry in his face a more stubborn and insolent assurance of the gallows; but Harry, with his hat on one side, his quid in his left cheek, and his bludgeon in his right hand, contrived to associate such a real air of high birth and fashion, that it was impossible to distinguish him from the nobility and gentry with whom he was constantly intermingled at boxing-matches and cockpits. Even the Bow-street officers were sometimes deceived; and many a lord and member of parliament going to receive his dividends at the Bank, has been tapped on the shoulder, with a-" Come, come, Mr. Harry, this is no place for you-you're nosed, so bundle off." The Wig and Water-Spaniel in Monmouth-street was his favourite haunt in London; none but " Booth's best" was ever dispensed from that savoury bar, which, not being above six feet square, was exactly big enough to admit Mrs. Juniper the fat landlady, a dozen or two of dram glasses, and a small net of lemons, which, with a delicacy of feeling that did her honour, she declined hanging from the roof, as customary, lest it should awaken any dangling presentiments in the minds of her guests. Here with his two friends Ned Noose and old Charley Crape, one of whom ultimately emigrated to Australasia, and the other, after being kept some time in suspense as to his final fate, was admitted of Surgeons' Hall,-Harry has sate behind many a pint of purl, arranging the plans

of innumerable burglaries which figure in the annals of those days, or singing the ballad of

Turpin and the Bishop.

Bold Turpin upon Hounslow Heath

His black mare Bess bestrode, When he saw a Bishop's coach and four

Sweeping along the road.

He bade the coachman stop, but he,
Suspecting of the job,

His horses lash'd-but soon roll'd off,
With a brace of slugs in his nob.
Galloping to the carriage-door,

He thrust his face within,
When the Chaplain cried-sure as
eggs is eggs,

That is the bold Turpin.
Quoth Turpin, You shall eat your
words

With sauce of leaden bullet,
So clapp'd his pistol in his mouth,
And fired it down his gullet.
The Bishop fell upon his knees,

When Turpin bade him stand,
And gave him his watch, a bag of gold,
And six bright rings from his hand.
Rolling with laughter, Turpin pluck'd
The Bishop's wig from his head,
And popp'd it on the Chaplain's poll,
As he sate in the corner dead.

Upon the box he tied him then,

With the reins behind his back, Put a pipe in his mouth, the whip in his hand,

And set off the horses smack! Then whisper'd in his black mare's

ear,

Who luckily wasn't fagg'd,
You must gallop fast and far, my dear,
Or I shall be surely scragg'd.

He never drew bit nor stopp'd to bait,
Nor walk'd up hill or down,
Until he came to Gloucester gate,
Which is the Assizes town.
Full eighty miles in one dark night,
He made his black mare fly,
And walk'd into court at nine o'clock
To swear to an Alibi.

A hue and cry the Bishop raised,
And so did Sheriff Foster,
But stared to hear that Turpin was

By nine o'clock at Gloucester.
So all agreed it couldn't be him,

Neither by hook nor crook;
And said that the Bishop and Chaplain

was

Most certainly mistook.

Here it was, that on a dark and tempestuous night of November, when the wind struggling amid the thick-cluster'd chimneys of St. Giles's responded to the signal whistle of the thieves below, and the rain dashed with fitful violence against the windows of the private room in which they were stationed, that our hero and his companions arranged the plan of their attack upon Farmer Bruin's house, of Finchley Common. "I tell you," cried Harry, anxious to silence the objections of his comrades, "It's as lone and snug a dwelling as a man need wish to break into. I vas all over it vonce, and knows the rigs on't. No alarmsno vatch-and as for the dog in the yard, we must physick him, that's all."

"And are you sure he keeps five hundred guineas in the bed-room?" enquired Noose.

"Psha, man! d'ye think I doesn't know vot's vot? Didn't he brag on it to his club at Barnet? Vill the vaiter told me so himself. Besides there's a silver tankard vorth twenty flimsies, and a gold sneezer."

"Vot men sleeps in the house?" said old Charley, with a thoughtful look.

"Only one spooney chap of a rustic,—and old Bruin."

"Who isn't no flincher," resumed Charley.

"But we've our bulldogs and barkers, and arn't we three to two? -you 're 'nation squeamish, Charley."

"I fears no man but the hangman," said Noose, scratching his neck; "but there's no call for us to be nabb'd and pull'd up."

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"Never fear," exclaimed Harry, slapping him on the back, 'you shall have many a bout yet at stand and deliver."

"But," said Charley enquiringly," if we has to stand at the Old Bailey, I should like to know who's to deliver us."

"Betty Martin! never fear, man-you may live these three months yet-so cheer up, cheer up, my hearty."

"You 're like a sparrow," mutter'd Crape, "you would cry chirrup if a chap was going up the gallows' ladder-Hush! hark! I heard some one snoring.'

"Stuff," cried Harry, "you're always thinking of the watchman: we're all snug."—" Zounds !" added Noose, making towards the door, "vot noise is that there?"-Here there was an audible snorting and rustling, as of some one awaking, and Harry suddenly drawing a pistol from his pocket, and seizing the solitary candle by which they had been sitting, rushed to the corner of the dim chamber, where, behind a low screen, he discovered a female figure, stretching and yawning in apparent emergence from a sound sleep.-" Ranting Moll, by Jingo!" he exclaimed, "the old drunken fortune-teller of Dog and Bear-yard. What are you after here, you infernal- -? are you lurking for bloodmoney-do you mean to peach-have you heard our palaver?-speak, you crazy old cat, or I'll pop my barker down your muzzle."

The figure whom he thus addressed, while he held his pistol hardly an inch from her mouth, was not calculated to awaken suspicions of any very treacherous intentions, for she bore an expression of mental fatuity, which it would have been difficult to divide between the triple claims of nature, sleep, and intoxication. Her cap was off, her dress disordered, her hair wildly spread over her haggard features, and her eyes, one of which was black from some recent contusion, were fixed upon Harry in a stolid, unmeaning stare. But suddenly her recollection and intellects seemed to flash upon her, her countenance lighted up with a sort of prophetic orgasm, her eyes, particularly the black one, glared with a preternatural lustre, and without offering to move the pistol she cried out in a harsh voice-"Away, away! I have heard nothing of your plots and plans; but he that fears leaves, let him not go into the wood-good swimmers at length are drowned. Thou art young, Harry; but green wood makes a hot fire-thy doom is fixed, spite of these knaves, thy companions. He that lies with the dogs riseth with fleas-not a day passes but thou takest a step up Jack Ketch's ladder: punishment is lame, but it comes. Mark me, boy; I have read what the stars have written in the palm of thy hand-under the sign of the Bear wert thou born, and under that sign shalt thou perish. Stand aside-he who spitteth against heaven, it falls in his face." So saying, she put on her cap, gathered up her garments, and with a wild look of inspiration, as of an ancient Pythoness, stalked out of the room.

"Bravo!" cried Harry," bravo, ranting Moll!-Egad! it is as good as a tragedy." "Better," said Charley, "for there's nothing to pay--but what did the old witch mean by your perishing at the sign of the Bear? There's the Black Bear in Piccadilly, as well as the White; but you never goes to neither."--" Mean, " replied Harry," there's seldom much meaning comes out of the mouth, after fourteen or fifteen tosses of blue ruin have gone into it; and I warrant she hasn't had a drop less." So saying,

they resumed their conversation, and finally arranged the time and method of their attack upon the farmer's house at Finchley Common.

The unconscious object of their deliberation was one of those stout, surly, stubborn yeomen of the old school, who are about as amiable as one of their own bulls in a pound. He quarrelled with his wife if she let him have his own way, stormed outright if she thwarted him, and, though he was notoriously miserable before his marriage, did nothing but extol the happiness of his bachelor days. He would not let his daughter Dolly marry young Fairlop, a neighbouring farmer to whom she was attached, simply because he had not first proposed the connexion himself; and insisted upon her having Mr. Gudgeon, a smart London fishmonger, who drove down to his cottage upon the Common in his own gig, not out of regard to the man, but out of opposition to his daughter. On the very evening of the meeting at the Wig and Water-Spaniel, he came growling home to his house, when the following colloquy ensued between him and his wife.

"Thought you were all dead-couldn't you hear me at the gardengate?"

"Where's Clod?"--" Gone out, my dear, but he'll be back directly."

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supper to-night."

Always sending him out of the way on some fool's errand or other."- "He is gone to the village, to get your favourite dish for "Get the devil for supper to-night-Shan't eat any you never get one any thing to drink." Yes, my dear, I tapp'd the ale on pur

pose.

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"Shan't drink any. What are you staring at?—why don't you help me off with my coat?"- -And then having eaten and drunk most copiously of the food which he had just said he would not touch, he drew his easy chair to the fire, stretched his legs, and to the old tune of the Hunting of the Hare roared out his favourite song, of

Bachelor's Fare.

Funny and free are a Bachelor's reveries,
Cheerily, merrily passes his life;

Nothing knows he of connubial devilries,
Troublesome children and clamorous wife.
Free from satiety, care, and anxiety,
Charms in variety fall to his share;
Bacchus's blisses, and Venus's kisses,
This, boys, this is the Bachelor's Fare.

A wife, like a canister, chattering, clattering,
Tied to a dog for his torment and dread,
All bespattering, bumping, and battering,

Hurries and worries him till he is dead;
Old ones are two devils haunted with blue devils,
Young ones are new devils raising despair,
Doctors and nurses combining their curses,
Adieu to full purses and Bachelor's Fare.

Through such folly days once sweet holidays
Soon are embitter'd by wrangling and strife;
Wives turn jolly days to melancholy days,
All perplexing and vexing one's life,

Children are riotous, maid-servants fly at us,
Mammy to quiet us growls like a bear;
Polly is squalling, and Molly is bawling,

While Dad is recalling his Bachelor's Fare.—

When they are older grown, then they are bolder grown,
Turning your temper, and spurning your rule,
Girls through foolishness, passion or mulishness,
Parry your wishes, and marry a fool.-
Boys will anticipate, lavish and dissipate,

All that your busy pate hoarded with care;
Then tell me what jollity, fun, or frivolity,
Equals in quality Bachelor's Fare?

The following Wednesday, which was the night fixed on for the robbery, happened to be the monthly meeting of Bruin's club, whence he seldom returned till a late hour, on which account it had been selected by Dolly's lover Fairlop as a favourable opportunity for paying his mistress a visit to concert measures for procuring her father's consent to their marriage. No sooner had he seen the farmer stumping out of the garden-gate with his dog Growler by his side, a lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other, his usual accompaniments when he had occasion to go to Finchley by night, than he tapped at the window, was ushered into the parlour up-stairs, received the renewal of Dolly's assurances that she never would marry Mr. Gudgeon, and devised plans for their support, if, as he implored, she consented to wed him without her father's approbation: all which she participated with so much satisfaction, that in the unconscious happiness of the moment they both began singing, and their thoughts involuntarily arranged themselves into the following duet:

Dolly.-I care not a fig for all their clacket,

I never will marry the London fop.
Fairlop.-A jack adandy! I'll lace his jacket,

Over the Common I'll make him hop.
Dolly.-Tis sad, no doubt, to quarrel with father,
What can a loving maiden do?
Sad as it is, I own I'd rather

Quarrel with him than part with you.

Fairlop. I care not a straw for all your money,
Ill-temper'd Dad may pocket his pelf;
I'll toil like a bee to gather honey,

And leave the old wasp to sting himself.

Both.-Love shall afford us wealth and pleasure,
Every hour shall bring delight,

While the great folks who roll in treasure,
Gamble all day and toss all night.

Lovers are the worst chronometers in the world. When they meet, Cupid seems to lend Time his wings; and the old gentleman, upon the occasion we are recording, plied his double pinions with such velocity, that Fairlop, startled by the sound of the midnight clock, was just pronouncing a hasty adieu when he heard the gruff voice of Bruin growling at the foot of the stairs for a candle. Escape was impossibleDolly, frightened out of her wits, had none left to employ when they were most wanted; and Fairlop, who knew that her father, always violent, generally returned from his club with a pistol in his hand and liquor in his head, was really terrified for the personal safety of his