HIGHWAYMEN 37 



so we will pass him by for once in a way. His fellow 

 diarist, Evelyn, was here in 1699, for he writes, under 

 August, " I drank the Shooter's Hill waters." A very 

 much more important person. Queen Anne, to wit 

 (who, alas ! is dead), is also said to have partaken of the 

 mineral spring which made Shooter's Hill a minor spa 

 long years ago. The spring is still here, and it is this 

 which makes the summit of Shooter's Hill so graciously 

 green and refreshing. People no longer come to drink 

 the waters, but he who thirsts by the wayside and sports 

 the blue ribbon, may, an he please, instead of calling 

 at the " Bull," or the " Red Lion," across the road, 

 quench his thirst at a drinking-fountain, which is 

 something between a lich-gate and a Swiss chalet, 

 erected here in recent years. 



So long ago as 1767 a project was set afoot for 

 building a town on the summit of Shooter's Hill, 

 but it came to nothing, which is not at all strange 

 when one considers how constantly the dwellers there 

 would have been obliged to run the gauntlet of the 

 gentlemen whom Americans happily call " road- 

 agents." And here is a sample of what would happen 

 now and again, taken, not from the romantic pages of 

 " Don Juan," nor from Dickens' " Tale of Two Cities," 

 but from the sober and truthful columns of a London 

 paper, under date of 1773. " On Sunday night," we 

 read, " about ten o'clock. Colonel Craige and his 

 servant were attacked near Shooter's Hill by two 

 highwajauen, well mounted, who, on the colonel's 

 declaring he would not be robbed, immediatel}^ fired 

 and shot the servant's horse in the shoulder. On this 

 the footman discharged a pistol, and the assailants 

 rode off with great precipitation." That they rode off 

 ^nth nothing else shows how effectually the colonel and 

 his servant, by firmly grasping the nettle danger, 

 plucked the flower safety. 



It was by similarly bold conduct that Don Juan 

 put to flight no fewer than four assailants on this 

 very spot. Arrived thus far from Dover, he had 



