k back more
than they gave, and before long Simms was astride his horse again,
flourishing his irons, and crying: 'Stand and deliver'! upon every road
in England.

Epping Forest was his general hunting-ground, but his enterprise took
him far afield, and if one night he galloped by starlight across
Bagshot Heath, another he was holding up the York stage with unbridled
insolence. He robbed, he roared, he blustered with praiseworthy
industry; and good luck coming to the aid of caution, he escaped for
a while the necessary punishment of his crimes. It was on Stockbridge
Downs that he met his first check.

He had stopped a chariot, and came off with a hatful of gold, but the
victims, impatient of disaster, raised the county, and Gentleman Harry
was laid by the heels. Never at a loss, he condescended to a cringing
hypocrisy: he whined, he whimpered, he babbled of reform, he plied his
prosecutors with letters so packed with penitence, that they abandoned
their case, and in a couple of days Simms had eased a collector at
Eversey Bank of three hundred pounds. For this enterprise two others
climbed the gallows, and the robber's pride in his capture was miserably
lessened by the shedding of innocent blood.

But he forgot his remorse as speedily as he dissipated his money, and
sentimentality neither damped his enjoyment nor restrained his energy.
Even his brief visits to London were turned to the best account; and,
though he would have the world believe him a mere voluptuary, his eye
was bent sternly upon business. If he did lose his money in a gambling
hell, he knew who won it, and spoke with his opponent on the homeward
way. In his eyes a fuddled rake was always fair game, and the stern
windows of St. Clement's Church looked down upon many a profitable
adventure. His most distinguished journey was to Ireland, whither he set
forth to find a market for his stolen treasure. But he determined that
the road should bear its own charges, and he reached Dublin a richer man
than he left London. In three months he was penniless, but he did not
begin trade again until he had recrossed the Channel, and, having got to
work near Chester, he returned to the Piazza fat with bank-notes.

With success his extravagance increased, and, living the life of a man
about town, he was soon harassed by debt. More than once he was lodged
in the Marshalsea, and as his violent temper resented the interference
of a dun, he became notorious for his assaults