Harlington Corner is the name of the spot, half a mile down the road, where one of the many old roadside hostelries stands by a branch road leading on the right to Harlington, and on the left to East Bedfont, on the Exeter Road. The Corner, besides leading to Harlington, was also the "junction" for Uxbridge, and here the slow stages set down or took up passengers for that town. The fast coaches did not stop here, or were supposed not to do so. Some of them, however, in defiance of time-bills, halted at the "Magpies"--by arrangement, of course, with the innkeeper--much to the profit of that house. One of these venal drivers was neatly caught by Mr. Chaplin, of the once well-known coaching firm of Chaplin and Horne. The coachman had with him on the box seat that day a particularly genial passenger, who proved also to have a very intimate knowledge of horseflesh. Pulling up at the "Magpies," where tables were spread, showing that the coach was expected as a matter of course, he winked at his passenger and invited him to refresh. Then, when all was, as the poet would say, "merry as a marriage-bell," the unknown, like another "Hawkshaw the Detective," revealed himself. He was Chaplin! The coachman drove that coach no more! [Illustration: THE "OLD MAGPIES."] [Sidenote: _"ARLINGTON OF HARLINGTON"_] Harlington, up the road to Uxbridge, was once the seat of the Bennets, one of whom, Henry Bennet, was created Viscount Thetford and Earl of Arlington in 1663, and lives in history as the "Arlington" of the Cabal. He selected this village for one of his titles, but the 'eralds' College (as it surely should have been called) made out his patent of nobility without the "H," and so "Arlington" he had to become. Arlington Street, Piccadilly, remains to this day, and the Dukes of Grafton, in whose numerous titles this is merged, are still Barons "Arlington of Harlington, in Middlesex." After which we will hasten on, passing Sipson (a corruption of "Shepiston") Green. Here we come upon the trail of messieurs the footpads again, for the road between this inn and the humbler "Old Magpies," a few hundred yards further on, is sad with the story of highway murder. XV The times of the highwaymen are, fortunately for the wayfarer, if unhappily for romance, long since past, and many of the once-notorious haunts of Sixteen-string Jack, Claude du Vall, Dick Turpin, and their less-famed companions have disappeared before the ravages of time and the much more destructive onslaughts of the builder. A hundred years ago it would have been difficult to name a lonely suburban inn that was not more or less favoured and frequented by the "Knights of the Road." Nowadays the remaining examples are, for those interested in the old story of the roads, all too few.