By the Rev. W. C. P lender leatk. 



263 



not omit to chronicle was what was known as " The Cherhill Gang." 

 This was a company of foot- pads, who no doubt found abundant 

 exercise for their vocation upon the lonely downs above the village. 

 There is a tradition that one of them was accustomed to go out upon 

 his marauding expeditions in the summer time without a single 

 stitch of clothing, and that he used to tell his neighbours that he 

 did so because not only did such an apparition frighten people on a 

 dark night, but that also a man thus wholly unadorned was less 

 easily recognized than one who appeared in the ordinary costume of 

 the period. The usage, must, however, I should think, have entailed 

 some practical inconveniences with regard to the disposal of booty 

 if trade was brisk ; and also, if the victims did happen to show 

 fight, it would have been apt to hurt ! 



Our downs must have been queer places in those days for the 

 belated traveller. I remember a story that our late neighbour, Mr. 

 Henry Mere wether, was very fond of telling of how he was re- 

 turning one dark night from Devizes, where he had been defending 

 a man charged with highway robbery. So clearly had he shown 

 the jury that, notwithstanding the existence of suspicious circum- 

 stances, his client was a man whom it was impossible for one 

 moment to suppose capable of such a crime, that the latter was 

 triumphantly acquitted, and " left the dock," as the newspapers say, 

 J without a stain upon his character." But the same night, alas ! 

 on the top of the downs, Mr. Merewether was himself requested to 

 stand and deliver. And, still more sad to relate, the author of this 

 request was his maligned client of the same morning ! Those of 

 us who remember Mr. Merewether will feel sure that the tale must 

 have ended happily, and that whether by reason of his strong right 

 arm or his persuasive tongue — (I think, if I remember rightly, it 

 was the former) — he came off triumphantly, scot free. Very possibly 

 there may be some persons still alive who recollect the existence of 

 a gibbet on the downs between Cherhill and Beckhampion swinging 

 about with the remains of a highwayman who had been hanged in 

 chains for a robbery committed upon the subsequent site of his 

 punishment. And I myself very distinctly remember that when 

 I first came to live in Wiltshire at the beginning of 1861, my uncle, 



