oud's,
together with the dexterous hooker, issued forth from the hovel which
they termed their boozing ken, eager to catch a glimpse of the prince of
the high-tobygloaks. The limping palliard tore the bandages from his
mock wounds, shouldered his crutch, and trudged hastily after them. The
whip-jack unbuckled his strap, threw away his timber leg, and "leapt
exulting, like the bounding roe." "With such a sail in sight," he said,
"he must heave to, like the rest." The dummerar, whose tongue had been
cut out by the Algerines, suddenly found the use of it, and made the
welkin ring with his shouts. Wonderful were the miracles Dick's advent
wrought. The lame became suddenly active, the blind saw, the dumb spoke;
nay, if truth must be told, absolutely gave utterance to "most
vernacular execrations." Morts, autem morts, walking morts, dells,
doxies, kinching morts, and their coes, with all the shades and grades
of the Canting Crew, were assembled. There were, to use the words of
Brome--

----Stark, errant, downright beggars. Ay,
Without equivocation, statute beggars,
Couchant and passant, guardant, rampant beggars;
Current and vagrant, stockant, whippant beggars![25]

Each sunburnt varlet started from his shed; each dusky dame, with her
brown, half-naked urchins, followed at his heels; each "ripe young
maiden, with the glossy eye," lingered but to sleek her raven tresses,
and to arrange her straw bonnet, and then overtook the others; each
wrinkled beldame hobbled as quickly after as her stiffened joints would
permit; while the ancient patrico, the priest of the crew--who joined
the couples together by the hedge-side, "with the nice custom of dead
horse between"[26]--brought up the rear; all bent on one grand object,
that of having a peep at the "foremost man of all this prigging world!"

Dick Turpin, at the period of which we treat, was in the zenith of his
reputation. His deeds were full blown; his exploits were in every man's
mouth; and a heavy price was set upon his head. That he should show
himself thus openly, where he might be so easily betrayed, excited no
little surprise among the craftiest of the crew, and augured an excess
of temerity on his part. Rash daring was the main feature of Turpin's
character. Like our great Nelson, he knew fear only by name; and when he
thus trusted himself in the hands of strangers, confident in himself and
in his own resources, he felt perfectly easy as to the result. He