been charged weighed not a feather's
weight upon his destiny; he suffered not in the cause of plunder, but
in the cause of Charles Stuart. And in thus excusing his death, his
contemporaries did him scant justice. For while in treasonable loyalty
he had a thousand rivals, on the road he was the first exponent of the
grand manner. The middle of the seventeenth century was, in truth, the
golden age of the Road. Not only were all the highwaymen Cavaliers,
but many a Cavalier turned highwayman. Broken at their King's defeat,
a hundred captains took pistol and vizard, and revenged themselves as
freebooters upon the King's enemies. And though Hind was outlaw first
and royalist afterwards, he was still the most brilliant collector of
them all. If he owed something to his master, Allen, he added from the
storehouse of his own genius a host of new precepts, and was the first
to establish an enduring tradition.

Before all things he insisted upon courtesy; a guinea stolen by an
awkward ruffian was a sorry theft; levied by a gentleman of the highway,
it was a tribute paid to courage by generosity. Nothing would atone for
an insult offered to a lady; and when it was Hind's duty to seize part
of a gentlewoman's dowry on the Petersfield road, he not only pleaded
his necessity in eloquent excuse, but he made many promises on behalf of
knight-errantry and damsels in distress. Never would he extort a trinket
to which association had given a sentimental worth; during a long career
he never left any man, save a Roundhead, penniless upon the road; nor
was it his custom to strip the master without giving the man a trifle
for his pains. His courage, moreover, was equal to his understanding.
Since he was afraid of nothing, it was not his habit to bluster when he
was not determined to have his way. When once his pistol was levelled,
when once the solemn order was given, the victim must either fight
or surrender; and Hind was never the man to decline a combat with any
weapons and in any circumstances.

Like the true artist that he was, he neglected no detail of his craft.
As he was a perfect shot, so also he was a finished horseman; and his
skill not only secured him against capture, but also helped him to the
theft of such horses as his necessities required, or to the exchange
of a worn-out jade for a mettled prancer. Once upon a time a credulous
farmer offered twenty pounds and his own gelding for the Captain's
mount. Hind struck a bargain a