ot fail to meet me there
at the appointed Hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put
on the same Sword which he made use of at the Battle of _Steenkirk_.
Sir Roger's Servants, and among the rest my old Friend the Butler, had,
I found, provided themselves with good oaken Plants to attend their
Master upon this occasion. When we had placed him in his Coach, with
myself at his left hand, the Captain before him, and his Butler at the
Head of his Footmen in the Rear, we convoyed him in safety to the
Playhouse."[142] "One night, in the beginning of November, 1749," wrote
Walpole, "as I was returning from Holland House by moonlight, about ten
at night, I was attacked by two highwaymen in Hyde Park, and the pistol
of one of them going off accidentally, razed the skin under my left eye,
left some marks of shot on my face, and stunned me."[143] These men were
taken about a year later. "I have been in town for a day or two, and
heard no conversation but about M'Lean, a fashionable highwayman, who
is just taken, and who robbed me among others. * * * His father was an
Irish Dean; his brother is a Calvinist minister in great esteem at the
Hague. * * * He took to the road with only one companion, Plunkett, a
journeyman apothecary, my other friend. * * * M'Lean had a lodging in
St. James Street, over against White's, and another at Chelsea; Plunkett
one in Jermyn St., and their faces are as well known about St. James' as
any gentleman who lives in that quarter, and who, perhaps, goes upon the
road too. M'Lean had a quarrel at Putney Bowling Green two months ago
with an officer whom he challenged for disputing his rank; but the
captain declined, till M'Lean should produce a certificate of his
nobility, which he has just received. * * * As I conclude he will suffer,
and wish him no ill, I don't care to have his idea, and am almost single
in not having been to see him. Lord Mountford at the head of half White's
went the first day: his aunt was crying over him: as soon as they were
withdrawn she said to him, knowing they were of White's, 'My dear, what
did the lords say to you? Have you ever been concerned with any of
them?'--was not it admirable? What a favorable idea people must have
of White's! and what if White's should not deserve a much better! But
the chief personages who have been to comfort and weep over this fallen
hero are Lady Caroline Petersham and Miss Asche: I call them Polly and
Lucy."[144]

The fact that death w