en persuaded his son to deny
her also for his mother, which the boy with much fear and confusion did;
and the poor woman was forced to go down into the country again,
overwhelmed with sorrow at the ingratitude of the one and the
undutifulness of the other. However, Murrel still went on in the same
way with the woman he had chosen for his companion.

There is all the reason imaginable to suppose that he did not take the
most honest ways of supporting himself and his mistress. However, he
fell into no trouble nor is there any direct evidence of his having been
guilty of any dishonesty within the reach of the Law, until he ran away
with a mare from a man in town, as to which he excused himself by saying
that she had formerly been his own, and that there having nothing more
than a verbal contract between them, he thought fit to carry her off and
sell her again. Sometime afterwards, going down to Newcastle Fair (for
he still continued to carry on some dealing in horse-flesh) he fell
there into the company of some merchants in the same way, who found
means to get gains and sell very cheap, by paying nothing at the first
hand. Among these, there was a country man of his who went by the name
of Brown, with whom Murrel had formerly had an acquaintance. This fellow
knowing the company in general to be persons of the same profession,
began to talk very freely of his practices in that way (viz., of horse
stealing), and amongst other stories related this. He said he once rode
away with an officer's horse, who had just bought it with an intent to
ride him up to London; he carried the creature into the West, and having
made such alterations in his mane and tail as he thought proper, sold
him there to a parson for thirteen guineas, which was about seven less
than the horse was worth. But knowing the doctor had another church
about eight miles from the parish in which he lived, and that there was
a little stable at one angle of the churchyard, where the horse was put
up during service, he resolved to make bold with it again. Accordingly,
when the people were all at church, having provided himself with a red
coat and a horse-soldier's accoutrements, he picked the stable door,
clapped them on the priest's beast, and rode him without the least
suspicion as hard as conveniently he could to Worcester. There he laid
aside the habit of a cavalier, and transforming himself into the natural
appearance of a horse-courser, he sold the horse to a ph