to borrow four guineas of the man at the inn, and
to leave her in his hands by way of security, which was making but a
poor hand of what he had hazarded his life for.
By this time his father had received some intelligence of his way of
living, and out of tenderness of its consequences, wrote to him assuring
him of forgiveness for all that was past, if he would come down into the
country and live honestly. Such undeserved tenderness had some weight
even with our criminal himself, and he at last began to frame his mind
to comply with the request of so good a father. Accordingly, down he
came, and for a little space, behaved himself honestly and as he should
do; but his old distemper, laziness quickly came in his way, and finding
money not to come in so fast as he would have it, he began to think of
his old practice again, and prepared himself once more to sally out upon
his illegal adventures. For this purpose taking with him a little mare
of his brothers, for at that time he had no horse proper for the designs
he went on, forth he rode in search of prey.
Wales was the place he first visited, and after riding up and down for a
good while without meeting with any purchase worth taking, he at last
unluckily stumbled upon a poor old man in Flintshire, who had one foot
already in the grave. From him he took a silver watch, worth about five
pounds, and five shillings in money, which was all the poor man had, and
making thereupon the greatest haste he could out of the country, he got
clear away before it was discovered. After this he came again to London,
where what little money he had he lavished away upon women of the town.
It was not long before want overtook him again, upon which he determined
to visit Yorkshire, in hopes of raising some considerable booty there.
All the way down, according to his common practice, he bilked the
public-houses, and at last arriving at Doncaster, began to set heartily
about the work for which he came down. On a market day, he robbed an old
farmer of forty shillings and a pair of silver buckles, taking his horse
also from him, which, when he had ridden about fifteen miles across
country, he turned loose. He rambled from thence on foot, as well as he
could, in order to get into his native country of Shropshire, where
after the commission of a multitude of such actions, none of which
afforded him any great booty, he arrived.
His father took him home again, and he lived for eleven months to
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