THE OLD EXGLAXD OF COACHING DAYS 327 



tlie Great Xorth Road lef t Alconbury Avitlioiit first 

 seeing that the jd riming of his jjistols was in order, 

 w]iil(» the passengers by mail or stage secretly put 

 their watches and jewellery between their skin 

 and their underclothing, or deposited their j^urses 

 in their boots, before the coach topped Alconbury 

 Hill. For at " Aukenbury," as Ogilby in his old 

 road-maps styles it, you were on the threshold of 

 a robbing-2)lace only less famous than Gad's Hill, 

 near Rochester, or those other notorious dark or 

 daylight lurks (for day or night mattered little 

 in those times), Hounslow Heath and Finchley 

 Common. The name of this ill-reputed place was 

 *' Stonegate Hole." It is marked distinctly on 

 the maps of Ogilby and his successors, between 

 the sixty-fourth and sixty-fifth milestones from 

 London, by the Old Xorth lload, measured from 

 Shoreditch, and passing through Ware, Royston, 

 and Caxton. 



Passing Papworth Everard, you came in those 

 days, on the left hand, just before reaching the 

 fifty-sixth milestone, to " Beggar's Bush," where 

 you probably saAV the tramjis, vagrants and foot- 

 pads of that age skulking, on the chance of robbing 

 some traveller unable to take care of himself. 

 Here, in sight of these wretches, you ostentatiously 

 toyed Avitli your pistol holsters, or loosened your 

 sword ill its scabbard, and so passed on scathless. 

 On leaving Alconbury, however, the horseman 

 generally preferred company, because the highway- 

 men of Stonegate Hole were well armed, and, by 

 consequence, courageous. 



