Turpin

“ And then there was the Bollin, with its shelvy banks, which Turpin cleared at a bound; the broad meadows over which he winged his flight; the pleasant bowling-green of the pleasant old inn at Hough, where he produced his watch to the Cheshire squires, with whom he was upon terms of intimacy; all brought something of the gallant robber to mind. No wonder, in after-years, in selecting a highwayman for a character in a tale, I should choose my old favorite, Dick Turpin. ”

“ Of course it is now by far too late to snatch from Turpin the false glory bestowed upon him. A hundred romances, a century of popular plays, have for ever in the popular mind identified him with the Ride to York, and with all manner of achievements and graces that were never his. Lies are brazen and immortal; truth is modest; and the Great Turpin Myth is too fully established to be thoroughly scotched.
But let us to the career of Nevison, as told in the pages of what few authorities exist. He seems to have been a precocious boy: precocious in things evil. ”

“ Every day was just like another; as the days are in New York. In the morning Turpin would take bromo-seltzer, his pocket change from under the clock, his hat, no breakfast and his departure for the office. At noon Mrs. Turpin would get out of bed and humour, put on a kimono, airs, and the water to boil for coffee.
Turpin lunched downtown. He came home at 6 to dress for dinner. They always dined out. They strayed from the chop-house to chop-sueydom, from terrace to table d’hôte, from rathskeller to roadhouse, from café to casino, from Maria’s to the Martha Washington. ”

“ I drive along, and am a proper man, as if I had four-and-twenty legs!" These were Turpin's sentiments precisely. Give him four legs and a wide plain, and he needed no Mephistopheles to bid him ride to perdition as fast as his nag could carry him. Away, away!—the road is level, the path is clear. Press on, thou gallant steed, no obstacle is in thy way!—and, lo! the moon breaks forth! Her silvery light is thrown over the woody landscape. Dark shadows are cast athwart the road, and the flying figures of thy rider and thyself are traced, like giant phantoms, in the dust! ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are all your friends for life."
"Nevertheless," returned Turpin, "I should be glad to know what has become of Bess."
"If it's your prancer you are wanting," chirped a fluttering creature, whom Turpin recognized as Luke's groom, Grasshopper, "I gave her a fresh loaf and a stoup of stingo, as you bade me, and there she be, under yon tree, as quiet as a lamb."
"I see her," replied Turpin; "just tighten her girths, Grasshopper, and bring her after me, and thou shalt have wherewithal to chirp over thy cups at supper." ”

“ Turpin was born at Thaxted, in Essex; he is about thirty, by trade a butcher, about five feet nine inches high, very much marked with the small-pox, his cheek-bones broad, his face thinner towards the bottom, his visage short: he stands nearly upright, and is broad about the shoulders. ”

“ But Turpin was on his feet almost instantly; and though he bore four lance-wounds in his body, he raised his sword on high and ran to the side of Roland, crying,—
"I am not defeated! A brave soldier yields with life alone!" Then wreaked he such vengeance upon the heathen hordes that some say God wrought a miracle in his behalf.
If miracle of God there was, it was not granted to save the Christian few from destruction. In the last struggle, the valiant Turpin, wounded and afoot, and the matchless Roland faced the Moslem hosts alone. ”

“ The familiar "Dick" itself shows us how the great public long ago took Turpin to its ample bosom, and cherished him, but the student of these things smiles a little sourly as he traces the quite unheroic doings of this exceptionally mean and skulking scoundrel, and fails all the time to note anything of a dashing nature in his very busy but altogether sordid career.
Turpin never rode that famous Ride to York upon Black Bess: another and an earlier than he by some sixty years—the bold and daring Nevison—performed [Pg 174] that ride, as we have already shown ”

“ Gladly do we now exchange the dank atmosphere of Saint Cyprian's cell, and the horrors which have detained us there so long, for balmy air, genial sunshine, and the boon companionship of Dick Turpin. Upon regaining the verdant ruins of the ancient priory, all appeared pretty much as our highwayman had left it. Dick wended towards his mare. Black Bess uttered an affectionate whinnying sound as he approached her, and yielded her sleek neck to his caresses. No Bedouin Arab ever loved his horse more tenderly than Turpin. ”

“ King, the highwayman, as he was returning from this place for London, being well dressed and mounted, Turpin seeing him have the appearance of a substantial gentleman, rode up to him and thinking him a fair mark, bade him stand, and deliver, and thereupon producing his pistols, King fell a-laughing, and said, “What, dog rob dog Come, Come Brother Turpin, If you don’t know me, I know you, and would be very glad of your company.” After a mutual communication of circumstances, they agreed to keep company, and divide good or ill fortune, as the trumps might turn up. ”

“ The idea struck Turpin that the restless mass of parti-colored shreds and patches, of vivid hues and varied tintings, singularly, though accidentally, disposed to produce such an effect, resembled an immense tiger-moth, or it might be a Turkey carpet spread out upon the grass!
The scene was a joyous one. It was a brilliant sunshiny morning. Freshened and purified by the storm of the preceding night, the air breathed a balm upon the nerves and senses of the robber. The wooded hills were glittering in light ”

“ Dick Turpin!" and the hurrahs were changed to hootings; but such was the rate at which our highwayman rode, that no serious opposition could be offered to him.
A man in a donkey-cart, unable to get out of the way, drew himself up in the middle of the road. Turpin treated him as he had done the dub at the knapping jigger, and cleared the driver and his little wain with ease. This was a capital stroke, and well adapted to please the multitude, who are ever taken with a brilliant action. "Hark away, Dick!" resounded on all hands, while hisses were as liberally bestowed upon his pursuers. ”

“ However, his weakness overcame him before he reached the water, and he fell forward dying. Feebly he made his confession, painfully he joined his hands in prayer, and as he prayed his spirit fled. Turpin, the faithful champion of the Cross, in teaching and in battle, died in the service of Charlemagne. May God have mercy on his soul!
When Roland awoke from his swoon he looked for Turpin, and found him dead, and, seeing Olifant, he guessed what the archbishop’s aim had been, and wept for pity. Crossing the fair white hands over Turpin’s breast, he sadly prayed:
“‘Alas! ”

“ PORTMANTEAU, FORMERLY BELONGING TO TURPIN, DISCOVERED AT CLERKENWELL.
But here there should not be much room for doubt. The relic was probably genuine. It was illustrated in Pink's book, but the whereabouts of it are not now known.
The irons worn by Turpin in his cell at York Castle are now preserved in the York Museum, together with those used for Nevison. They have a total weight of 28 lb. ”

“ It will be observed by these various newspaper paragraphs and scattered notices, that Turpin was always changing his associates, and it is obvious that the stories which would have us believe he and Tom King set up an exclusive partnership, [Pg 206] are not to be implicitly believed. Turpin and the many of his kind, with whom he associated from time to time, no doubt, worked together or apart, or in alliance with others, just as changing circumstances from week to week dictated. ”

“ Archbishop Turpin's brag was next in order: it would have been more in keeping for Turpin of Hounslow Heath, and we have all seen it performed in the travelling circus. While three of the king's best horses are running at full speed on the plain, he will overtake and mount the foremost, passing the others, and will keep four big apples in constant motion from one hand to the other; if he lets one fall, put out his eyes. ”

“ He took from him his whip, and saying he had a better horse than his, made him dismount, change, and stay till he had changed clothes likewise, and then rode towards London. Mr Major got to the Green Man, and acquainted Mr Bayes of it, who immediately said, "I dare wager it is Turpin has done it, or one of that crew, that'll endeavour to get intelligence of your horse. ”

“ But hark back to Dick Turpin. We left him rattling along in superb style, and in the highest possible glee. He could not, in fact, be otherwise than exhilarated; nothing being so wildly intoxicating as a mad gallop. We seem to start out of [389] ourselves—to be endued, for the time, with new energies. Our thoughts take wings rapid as our steed. We feel as if his fleetness and boundless impulses were for the moment our own. We laugh; we exult; we shout for very joy. ”

“ Kneeling by his side he unlaced Turpin's golden helmet, and bound up his gaping wounds. Then he pressed him closely to his heart and laid him gently on the ground. 'O friend, we must take farewell of each other, now all our comrades have gone before us. But let us do all we can for their bodies, which cannot be left lying here. ”

“ At length, after various twistings and turnings in that deep and devious lane; after scaring one or two farmers, and riding over a brood or two of ducks; dipping into the verdant valley of West End, and ascending another hill, Turpin burst upon the gorsy, sandy, and beautiful heath of Hampstead. Shaping his course to the left, Dick then made for the lower part of the heath, and skirted a path that leads towards North End, passing the furze-crowned summit which is now crested by a clump of lofty pines. ”

“ These forest partners frequently issued from from their cell like the theives from the cave in Gil Blas, and take a ride out in quest of plunder. King and he once riding towards Bungay, in Suffolk, met two young market women, who had just received a considerable sum of money for corn. King proposed to rob them, but Turpin dissuaded him from it, alleging for a reason, that they were two pretty inoffensive girls, and he would not be concerned in it. ”

“ Turpin, the reader already knows, was a crack rider; he was the crack rider of England of his time, and, perhaps, of any time. The craft and mystery of jockeyship was not so well understood in the eighteenth as it is in the nineteenth century; men treated their horses differently, and few rode them as well as many ride now, when every youngster takes to the field as naturally as if he had been bred a Guacho. Dick Turpin was a glorious exception to the rule, and anticipated a later age. ”

“ Amongst the rest was the ranger Thomson’s man i in company with a higgler. Turpin was unarmed, standing alonc, and not knowing the man, took him for one poaching for hares, and told him he would get no hares near that thicket. “No" says says the fellow, “but I have got a Turpin,” and presented his gun at him, commanded him to surrender. Turpin stood talking with him, and receding back to his cave, laid hold of his carbine, and shot him dead, at which the higgler made off. The man’s death obliged Turpin to make off precipitately; so he went farther into the country in search of King ”

“ Turpin had been frequently known to levy contributions at the back of Islington, and in a few hours to rob in a distant county.
It was remarkable, that, for such a course of time as from the date of the king’s reward of two hundred pounds for his apprehension, he should still go on with his depredations with the most audacious impunity, insomuch that it affected the national character in the eyes of foreigners, who could not help remarking, that the native bravery of the English was supine in bringing such a daring of fender to justice. ”

“ Then there was the astonishing change that had come over Turpin, owing, it seemed, to his talk with Miss Rodney; the man spent all his leisure time in 'making shapes and figuring'—just as he used to do when poor Harry was at the Grammar School. If Miss Rodney disappeared, it seemed only too probable that Turpin would be off again to 'The Swan With Two Necks.' On the other hand, the thought of 'giving notice' to Mr. Rawcliffe caused her something like dismay; how could she have the face to turn a real gentleman out of her house? ”

“ Turpin, of course made the most. He might be irregular in payment; he might come home 'at all hours,' and make unnecessary noise in going upstairs; he might at times grumble when his chop was ill-cooked; and, to tell the truth, he might occasionally be 'a little too free' with the young ladies—that is to say, with Mabel and Lily Turpin; but all these things were forgiven him because he was 'a real gentleman,' and spent just as little time as he liked daily in a solicitor's office.
Miss Rodney arrived early on Saturday afternoon. Smiling and silent, she saw her luggage taken up to the bedroom ”