Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of

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Westminster Hall; today, taking the life of an atrocious murderer,

and tomorrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer’s

boy of sixpence.

All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and

close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and

seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the

Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those

other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and

carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one

thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct there

Greatnesses, and myriads of small creaturesthe creatures of this

chronicle among the restalong the roads that lay before them.

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Chapter II

THE MAIL

t was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in

November, before the first of the persons with whom this

history has business. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond

the Dover mail, as it lumbered up Shooter’s Hill. He walked uphill

in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of the passengers

did; not because they had the least relish for walking exercise,

under the circumstances, but because the hill, and the harness,

and the mud, and the mail, we