70 The Pytchley Hunt, Past and Pi^esent. [chap. n. 



possessing the " gift of the gab/^ and also the art of per- 

 suasion, many a yokel and young farmer, full of public- 

 house beer and swagger, was induced to pocket the 

 Queen's shilling, as he believed, and was afterwards 

 bought off by reproachful and indignant relations. The 

 sums demanded by the pseudo-serjeant for liberating his 

 victims from their supposed enlistment, ranged from 

 twenty to thirty shillings. Nemesis, in the guise of a 

 Northampton county-policeman, put an end to the 

 nefarious practices of this arch-rogue for some time : but 

 the spirit of evil was too strong within him to allow of 

 his becoming an honest citizen. Seven years after 

 quitting Northampton gaol, he again found himself one 

 of its inmates on the same description of charge as 

 before, obtaining money under false pretences. On his 

 way from Birmingham (where he had robbed his 

 employer) to London, he entered a cottage in a village 

 near Northampton, and told the good woman of the 

 house that her son had just been apprehended on a charge 

 of theft. After expressing his deep sympathy with her 

 in her serious trouble, he informed her that he was a 

 lawyer, and would take the delinquent's case i: hand 

 on a payment down of the customary legal fee of six and 

 eightpence. After many protestations on the part of 

 the unhappy mother as to her inability to pay such a sum, 

 she contrived to raise it amongst her friends, and hand- 

 ing it over to her shameless impostor, she entreated him 

 to enter at once upon her son's business. Yery soon 

 after his departure, the poor woman fell in with the rural 

 policeman, and at once opened her heart on the subject 

 of her sorrow. A few questions soon opened the eyes of 

 the policeman to the real state of the case, and off ho 



