228 THE EXETER ROAD 



had been removed from London) on 31st July, and 

 both being found guilty, they were hanged at 

 Winchester, 19th August 1778. 



XXXII 



Soon after those two comrades had met their end, 

 there arose a highway-woman to trouble the district. 

 This was Mary Sandall, of Baverstock, a young- 

 woman of twenty - four years of age, who had 

 borrowed a pair of pistols and a suit of his clothes 

 from the blacksmith of Quidhampton, and, bestriding 

 a horse, set out one day in the spring of 1779, and 

 meeting Mrs. Thring, of North Burcombe, robbed her 

 of two shillino's cind a black silk cloak. Mrs. Thrino- 

 w^ent home and raised an alarm, with the result that 

 Mary Sandall was captured, and committed for trial 

 at the next assizes. Although there seems to have 

 been some idea that this w^as a practical joke, the 

 authorities were thick-headed persons who had heard 

 too much of the real thing to be patient with an 

 amateur highway- woman, and so they sentenced 

 Mary Sandall to death in due form, although she was 

 afterwards respited as a matter of course. 



William Peare was the next notability of the 

 roads, but it is not certain that he was the one who 

 stopped Mr. Jeffery, of Yateminster, on his way 

 home from AVeyhill, 9th October 1780, and knock- 

 ing him off his horse, robbed him of £500 in bank- 

 notes and £37 in coin. It was the same unknown. 



