122 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



they tied their sheets and blankets, ripped up into 

 lengths and made into a rope, and by this means they 

 descended into the Square. It was late in the month of 

 February, and, favoured by the darkness, they commenced 

 their descent soon after five in the morning. An old 

 barber, however, named Tommy Norris^ who was a very 

 early riser, looking out of his house, which was nearly 

 opposite the County Hall, saw them in the glimmer of 

 the early morning descend the rope. He gave the alarm, 

 the men were followed, and one of the Cribbs was 

 captured on my farm, his fettered legs having caught on 

 the top of a field-gate ; he had fallen head-foremost to 

 the ground, where he lay unable to get up. Banks was 

 found in a hayrick about four miles away, and the other 

 condemned felon was captured not far from his comrade 

 in a ditch. They expressed their belief that if they 

 had not been detained so long in getting their comrade 

 through the hole they might have made their escape in 

 safety, even though in irons, as it was no uncommon 

 thing for the gipsies and wandering vagrants to file 

 through prisoners' fetters, and as they had no distinctive 

 clothes, they thus easily would avoid detection. 



They were hung according to their sentence. Their 

 companions under sentence of death were Randell and 

 Croker, who had committed a dastardly murder on a 

 poor defenceless old couple named Needle, who kept a 

 turnpike-gate about two miles from Aylesbury, and who 

 were murdered under the impression that they had 

 plenty of money, the takings of a week or more. The 

 wretches found after the murder that the money upon 

 the old people amounted to only a few shillings, as the 



