Then the highwayman strode into the bar
parlour.
His mask, of course, was now removed, and the features were revealed of
Captain Jeremy Rofflash.
Here he sat drinking until the rumble of the London coach was heard.
Then he quitted the bar and went to the stable, where he remained during
the stay of the coach which occupied some little time, for the story of
the highway robbery had to be told.
No one about the inn was in the least surprised. Highwaymen haunted
Hammersmith and Turnham Green, and had the landlord of the "Red Cow"
chosen to open his mouth he might have thrown a little light upon the
man who had stopped the Bath coach.
Once more the coach was on its way and following it went Captain
Rofflash, dogging it to its destination at the Belle Savage. He watched
Lavinia alight and wherever she went he went too. Could she have
listened to what he was saying she would have heard the words:--
"By gad, it's the very wench. I'll swear 'tis. Perish me if this isn't
the best day's work I've done for many a day. If I don't make Mr.
Archibald Dorrimore fork out fifty guineas my name isn't Jeremy
Rofflash."
Shortly after Lavinia set out on her way to Grub Street. Lancelot Vane
was pacing Moor Fields--a depressing tract of land, the grass trodden
down here and there into bare patches, thanks to the games of the London
'prentices and gambols of children--in company with Edmund Curll, the
most scurrilous and audacious of writers and booksellers who looked upon
standing on the pillory, which he had had to do more than once, more as
a splendid form of advertisement than as a degradation.
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