Before all things he insisted upon courtesy; a guinea stolen by an awkward ruffian was a sorry theft; levied by a gentleman of the highway, it was a tribute paid to courage by generosity.  Nothing would atone for an insult offered to a lady; and when it was Hind’s duty to seize part of a gentlewoman’s dowry on the Petersfield road, he not only pleaded his necessity in eloquent excuse, but he made many promises on behalf of knight-errantry and damsels in distress.  Never would he extort a trinket to which association had given a sentimental worth; during a long career he never left any man, save a Roundhead, penniless upon the road; nor was it his custom to strip the master without giving the man a trifle for his pains.  His courage, moreover, was equal to his understanding.  Since he was afraid of nothing, it was not his habit to bluster when he was not determined to have his way.  When once his pistol was levelled, when once the solemn order was given, the victim must either fight or surrender; and Hind was never the man to decline a combat with any weapons and in any circumstances.

Like the true artist that he was, he neglected no detail of his craft.  As he was a perfect shot, so also he was a finished horseman; and his skill not only secured him against capture, but also helped him to the theft of such horses as his necessities required, or to the exchange of a worn-out jade for a mettled prancer.  Once upon a time a credulous farmer offered twenty pounds and his own gelding for the Captain’s mount.  Hind struck a bargain at once, and as they jogged along the road he persuaded the farmer to set his newly-purchased horse at the tallest hedge, the broadest ditch.  The bumpkin failed, as Hind knew he would fail; and, begging the loan for an instant of his ancient steed, Hind not only showed what horsemanship could accomplish, but straightway rode off with the better horse and twenty pounds in his pocket.  So marvellously did his reputation grow, that it became a distinction to be outwitted by him, and the brains of innocent men were racked to invent tricks which might have been put upon them by the illustrious Captain.  Thus livelier jests and madder exploits were fathered upon him than upon any of his kind, and he has remained for two centuries the prime favourite of the chap-books.

Robbing alone, he could afford to despise pedantry:  did he meet a traveller who amused his fancy he would give him the pass-word (’the fiddler’s paid,’ or what not), as though the highway had not its code of morals; nor did he scruple, when it served his purpose, to rob the bunglers of his own profession.  By this means, indeed, he raised the standard of the Road and warned the incompetent to embrace an easier trade.  While he never took a shilling without sweetening his depredation with a joke, he was, like all humorists, an acute philosopher.  ’Remember what I tell you,’ he said to the foolish persons who once attempted to rob him, the master-thief of England, ’disgrace not yourself