seized the poker to defend himself, but, on seeing their number, prudently laid it down.  They then rifled his pockets and took his watch and money; also making Mrs. Elsey turn her pockets out.  They then obliged the two to go into a small storeroom or closet, locked the door, and tied a hay fork across it.  They then collected all the plate, to the value of £30, and £50 in cash; having first regaled themselves with a hearty meal.  They also took all the silk handkerchiefs which they could find.  Mrs. Elsey, in her confinement close by, complained to the burglars that she was very cold, and begged them to let her warm herself at the fire; accordingly, with the gallantry of a Dick Turpin, one of them brought her out, but seeing that she was noticing them, he ordered her into the store-room again, giving her, however, some greatcoats which were hanging in the passage near.  When they had ransacked everything within reach, they compelled Mr. Elsey to go upstairs, one walking before him and another behind, each holding a pistol, and telling him that if he made any resistance he would be shot.  They then, in the same fashion, obliged Mrs. Elsey to go up after him.  The two were then locked up again, and the marauders politely wished them goodnight, and went off with their plunder, saying that if any alarm was given they would return.  Mr. Elsey, about two hours afterwards, by the help of a small hammer and an old knife, succeeded in making a small hole through the brick wall of the closet, through which one of the maids was able to thrust her arm, and set them at liberty.  The only article recovered was a plated silver teapot, which was found in Halstead Wood, near at hand.  Outside this wood ran a bridle path leading towards Woodhall Spa, and in the course of the night the inmates of a farmhouse, standing close to this path, were disturbed by the voices of men passing by toward “the Spa.”  One of these men was soon captured, and in due course hanged at Lincoln Castle on March 27th following; two more were taken that year, and hanged on March 19th in the next year, 1830.  Of these two, one was known as “Tippler,” the other as “Tiger Tom.”  “Tiger Tom” had been the terror of the neighbourhood, and the general opinion was that no one could take him.  But

two powerfully built and fearless men, David English, of Hameringham, and a gamekeeper named Bullivant, were set to accomplish the task, and they succeeded in running their man to ground, and securing him at “The Bungalow,” a public-house on the Witham, near Boston. [24]  With them was hanged another noted character known as “Bill” Clarke, convicted of sheep-stealing.  His was the last case of hanging for that offence.  The last of the gang was not captured till two years later.  He was the one who had planned the whole affair, having formerly been a servant of Mr. Elsey, and therefore well acquainted with the premises at the Hall.  He, however, escaped hanging, being transported for life, as the excitement over the affair had by that time cooled down; and, further, it was pleaded in his favour, that he had prevented a bad character among them, named Timothy Brammar, from shooting Mr. Elsey, or ill-treating the maids.  Of this same Timothy Brammar it is recorded that his own mother having foretold that he would “die in his shoes,” he carefully kicked them off as he stood on the scaffold, to falsify the prediction.  It is further stated that the man transported was, with two other criminals sent out at the same time, thrown overboard, as the three were caught trying to sink the vessel in which they were being conveyed “beyond the seas.”  These men, with the exception of this former servant of Mr. Elsey, were all “bankers,” as they were then called, i.e., navvies; and such men in those days were usually a very truculent class.  A robbery of a minor kind was cleverly frustrated in Woodhall about the year 1850.  A labourer’s wife, residing at a cottage on what is now called “Redcap Farm,” had been taking her husband’s dinner to him in the fields.  On returning, rather earlier than usual, she went to the bedroom upstairs.  While in the room she detected the legs of a man, who had concealed himself under the bed.  Retaining her presence of mind, she merely made a trifling remark to her cat, and went down again, and for some minutes made a

noise, as though busying herself about her usual household work.  She presently got out of the house, and ran to some men working near.  The thief thinking, by her cool behaviour, that she had not noticed him, remained still in his place of concealment; and she quickly returned, accompanied by two men, who captured him; when he was found to be a well-known thief, who had been convicted more than once of similar offences.  Not far from the scene of this occurrence, another attempted robbery was frustrated.  An aged couple lived in a solitary house, distant from any high road, near the wood called “Edlington Scrubs.”  After they had gone to rest a couple of men broke into the house.  Hearing a disturbance, the wife opened the one bedroom door upstairs, connected with the room below by a “Jacob’s ladder,” and looked down through the trap door at the ladder head, with a “dip” in her hand, to see the cause of the disturbance.  She was immediately accosted with the demand, “Your money, or your life.”  She replied, very deliberately, “Well, life is not worth having without the money.”  One of the men began mounting the ladder, but meanwhile the husband had armed himself with a strong bill-hook, a tool for cutting hedges; he took his place by the trap door, and said to the burglar on the ladder, “I shall cut your head off if you come up here.”  This position he maintained, moving his weapon backwards and forwards over the trap door, his figure being revealed to the thieves by the light of his wife’s dip, until day began to break, when, to avoid being recognised, they went off, having to content themselves with what spoil the second man could find in the room below.  On another occasion, a narrow escape from highway robbery occurred in Woodhall under the following circumstances.  It was at the time of the great August Fair at Horncastle, much larger at that time (in the forties) than it is at the present day; for it then lasted some three weeks.  That fair has been the occasion of many robberies, and more than one murder.  Skeletons have been found buried under the brick floors of public-houses in the town, being doubtless all that remained of those who had fallen the victims of the “sacra fames auri.”  The principal farmer in Woodhall was riding home leisurely from the fair late in the evening, when at a point in the road between Langton and Woodhall, about two fields from Old Woodhall Church, where a cartshed then stood contiguous to the road, two men rushed out from the

concealment of the shed and seized his bridle.  One of them told him roughly to give up his money, or he would pistol him.  The other held up a lantern to his face, and then said, “Oh, you’re not the man we want; you may go, and think yourself lucky.”  The farmer in question was not much of a horse-dealer, and would not be likely to have much money about him.  The man really wanted was a well-known character, then living at Stixwould, by name Grantham, who would be almost certain to be going home with pockets fairly full, as he dealt largely in horse-flesh, and the men had probably seen him make a good bargain or two in the fair that day.  The farmer, thus set at liberty, hurried to his home, only two fields