From the unrelieved vulgarity and brutality of Cady’s exploit it is a relief to turn to that of a man of humour. Would that we knew his name, so that it might be ranged with those of Du Vall and Captain Hind, themselves spiced with an airy wit that occasionally eased the loss of a watch or a purse to those suddenly bereft of them. This unknown worthy, whose exploit is recorded in a contemporary newspaper, was a humorist, if ever there was one. It was one evening in 1732, when he was patrolling the Common, that a chariot and four horses approached from the direction of London. Hopeful of a rich quarry, he spurred up and thrust a pistol through the carriage window, demanding money and jewellery. Now, unhappily for the highwayman’s hope of plunder, this was the carriage of a Yorkshire squire returning home without him, and the person sitting within was but a countryman to whom the coachman had given a lift. “I am very poor,” exclaimed the rustic, terrified at sight of the pistol, “but here are two shillings; all I have got in the world.” Cady, doubtless, in his disappointment, would have shot the yokel; but this was a “highway lawyer” of a different stamp. “Poor devil!” said that true Knight of the Road, withdrawing his pistol and waving the proffered money aside; “here, take a shilling and drink my health!” And so, tossing him a coin, he disappeared. For accounts of other happenings upon this sombre Common, let the curious refer to the pages of the GREAT NORTH ROAD, where they will be found, duly set forth. Not until the first few years of the nineteenth century had passed was the place safe. It was an Alsatia wherein the most craven of footpads might rob with impunity. Strange to say, there were those who did not think it right to shoot highwaymen, and many of those who did so, lost their nerve at the supreme moment and fired wildly into space. The robbers’ risks were therefore not overwhelming. Dr. Johnson was undecided about this matter of right, as we learn from one of those semi-philosophical discussions into which Boswell led him; discussions the indefatigable “Bozzy” has recorded at length. Three of them—Johnson, Boswell, and Taylor—were disputing the question. “For myself,” said Taylor, “I would rather be robbed than shoot highwaymen.” Johnson—perhaps because he generally took the opposite view, from “cussedness” or a love of disputation—argued that he would rather shoot the man on the instant of his attempt than afterwards give such evidence against him as would result in his execution. “I may be mistaken,” said the great man, “as to him when I swear; I cannot be mistaken if I shoot him in the act. Besides, we feel less reluctance to take away a man’s life when we are heated by the injury, than to do it at a distance of time by an oath after we have cooled.”