Perhaps this queer little roadside inn, the "Old Magpies," is the most romantic-looking among those that are left. For one thing, it possesses a thick and beetle-browed thatch which impends over the upper windows like bushy eyebrows, and gives those windows--the eyes of the house--just that lowering and suspicious look which heavy and bristling eyebrows confer upon a man. But it is not only its romantic appearance that gives the "Old Magpies" an interest, for it is a well-ascertained fact that outside this house, so near to the once terrible Hounslow Heath, the brother of Mr. Mellish, M.P. for Grimsby, was murdered by highwaymen in April, 1798, when returning from a day's hunting with the King's hounds. He had started with two others from the "Castle" Hotel, at Salt Hill, for London, after dinner, and the carriage in which the party was seated was passing near the "Old Magpies" at about half-past eight, when it was attacked by three footpads. One held the horses' heads while the other two guarded the windows, firing a shot through, to terrify the occupants. They then demanded money. No one offered any resistance, purses and bank-notes being handed over as a matter of course. Then the travellers were allowed to go, a parting shot in the dark being fired into the carriage. It struck Mr. Mellish in the forehead. Coming to another inn near by, called the "Magpies," the wounded man was taken upstairs and put to bed, while a surgeon was sent for. He came from Hounslow, and was robbed on the way by the same gang. Additional medical assistance was called in, but this late victim of highway robbery died within forty-eight hours. [Sidenote: _SIR JOSEPH BANKS_] The assassins were never apprehended, although Bow Street sent its cleverest officers to track them down. Bow Street caught the smaller fry readily enough, who snatched handkerchiefs and such petty booty, and hanged them out of hand, while the more desperate villains generally escaped. This is not to say that the Bow Street Runners were not vigilant and zealous. Indeed, their zeal sometimes outran their discretion, as instanced in their bold capture of Sir Joseph Banks, who was collecting natural history specimens in the wilds. Sir Joseph, distinguished man of science though he was, and a gentleman, was singularly ill-favoured, and in this fact lies the chief sting of Peter Pindar's witty verses on the subject-- "Sir Joseph, fav'rite of great Queens and Kings, Whose wisdom weed- and insect-hunter sings; And ladies fair applaud, with smile so dimpling; Went forth one day amid the laughing fields Where Nature such exhaustless treasure yields--A-simpling! It happened on the self-same morn so bright The nimble pupils of Sir Sampson Wright, A-simpling too, for plants called Thieves, proceeded; Of which the nation's field should oft be weeded." They seize Sir Joseph.