176 THE COACHING ERA 



astonished each other. Then the groom was asked who 

 had acquitted himself the best, and gave his vote in 

 favour of the highwayman, saying: "Why, my lord, 

 your honour swears as well as ever I heard any gentle- 

 man of quality in my life, but indeed, to give the strange 

 gentleman his due, he has done better than yourself, 

 and has won the wager if it was for a thousand pounds." 



The introduftion of the mail-coaches spoilt "the high 

 Toby profession," but did not entirely ruin it. Dr. 

 Routh, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 

 1791 to 1854, could remember seeing an execution. 

 In reply to questions he would say: "What, sir, do you 

 tell me, sir, that you never heard of Gownsman's 

 Gallows? Why, I tell you, sir, that I have seen two 

 undergraduates hanged on Gownsman's Gallows in 

 Holywell — hanged, sir, for highway robbery!" As late 

 as 1840 newspapers came out with such headlines as: 

 "Notorious highwaymen taken," but in such instances 

 the highwayman had degenerated into footpads or 

 robbers, feeble imitations of their dashing forerunners. 



The "gentlemen of the road" led a life crowded with 

 incident and excitement, but their careers were not of 

 long duration; after a few years came the inevitable 

 end: a bullet aimed by an unusually courageous 

 traveller; a wild flight across country with the officers 

 of the law in hot pursuit; a gallant horse shot dead. A 

 crowded trial, and sentence to death. 



Bold and desperate to the last, they kept a gay atti- 

 tude. Dressed in the height of fashion they received 

 visitors of all ranks of society. Even on the last journey 



