rly that evening,
having taken only fifteen hours for a journey of two hundred miles. If
the time is correct, she must have been a great mare, and he a
consummate horse-master. At his subsequent trial, as it was proved
beyond question that in the evening of the day on which the robbery took
place he had played bowls in York with well-known citizens, the jury,
holding it to be impossible that any person could have been on the same
day in two places so far apart as Gadshill and York, on that ground
acquitted the prisoner.

But if Nevison, nor Nicks, nor Turpin, ever crossed into Scotland, there
were others, less known to fame, who occasionally tried their fortune in
that country. In the early part of the year 1664, robberies, highway and
otherwise, were of extraordinary frequency in Scotland, and this was
attributed to the great poverty then prevalent amongst the people,
owing to "the haill money of the kingdom being spent by the frequent
resort of our Scotsmen at the Court of England."

In 1692-3 there seems to have been what one might almost call an
epidemic of highway robbery over the southern part of Scotland, and he
was quite a picturesque ruffian who robbed William M'Fadyen near
Dumfries on 10th December 1692. Or, rather, there were two ruffians
engaged in the affair. M'Fadyen was a drover who had been paid at
Dumfries a sum of L150 for cattle sold. Sleeping overnight in the town,
the drover started for home next morning before daylight. Possibly he
had seen at the inn the previous evening some one whose appearance or
manner made him uneasy, and being a cautious man, with a good deal of
money in his possession, he had hoped by an early start to give this
suspected person the slip.

A clear, cold December morning, stars winking frostily in a cloudless
sky, and a waning moon casting sharp black shadows over the whitened
ground, saw him out of Dumfries, and well on his homeward road. And, as
he blew on his fingers, and beat his unoccupied hand briskly against his
thigh, to warm himself withal, M'Fadyen chuckled to think how cleverly
and quietly he had slipped unnoticed from the inn and through the town.
They must be up early indeed who would weather on _him_! And so,
ruminating somewhat vain-gloriously, he pushed on over the ringing
ground, his horse snorting frosty breaths on the chill air, and inclined
to hump his back and squeal on the smallest excuse. Mile after mile
slipped easily behind him, and the sun began