human
A captain in the army, who was going to Bath in a postchaise, was stopped near Sandy Lane by two highwaymen, by one of whom he was told that he wanted but a guinea, which he hoped to be soon able to pay him again. The captain gave him the guinea, and the fellow gave the driver a shilling, and told the gentleman if he was stopped by any one else, to say 'Virgin Mary,' that being the watchword for the day. They had not gone far before they were stopped by four persons; but on being given the watchword, they raised their hats, and rode off.
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CLIBBORN'S POST.
human
Clibborn's Post is peculiarly interesting. This relic is found in Hertfordshire, in the neighbourhood of that fine old Elizabethan manor-house, now a farm, but famed in romance, Queen Hoo Hall. On the way from Tewin and Queen Hoo Hall to Bramfield, the wooded lane rises in a curve to the summit of what is known locally as
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Open Valley Hill. Here, on the grassy bank, firmly planted in the soil, stands a stout, oaken post, carefully bound with strips of iron. This is
human
Clibborn's Post, the modern successor of the original stake driven through the body of a brutal highwayman of that name, shot dead at this spot in the act of attacking a farmer who was on his way home from Hertford Market to Datchworth. This occurrence happened on December 28th, 1782. There had, about that time, been many highway robberies committed on the country roads in this neighbourhood; but no one had been able to identify the desperado, who had plunged the countryside, and especially the week-end market folk, into such terror. On this particular night this farmer was driving home in a cart, accompanied by a servant named Shock. Just as they reached this spot—then, as now, a lonely place surrounded by tangled undergrowth and dense plantations—a man rushed out from the thickets and seized the horse's reins. The farmer jumped down to struggle with him, but his assailant was getting the upper hand, and was in the act of unclasping a knife to cut his throat, when the farmer called out to his servant, who carried a blunderbuss:
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Shoot, Shock, or I am a dead man!