Above all, he was distinguished in prison. A crowd thronged his cell
to identify him, and one there was who offered to bet the keeper half a
guinea that the prisoner was not Turpin; whereupon Turpin whispered the
keeper, 'Lay him the wager, you fool, and I will go you halves.' Surely
this impudent indifference might have kept green the memory of the man
who never rode to York!
If the Scoundrel may claim distinction on many grounds, his character
is singularly uniform. To the anthropologist he might well appear
the survival of a savage race, and savage also are his manifold
superstitions. He is a creature of times and seasons. He chooses the
occasion of his deeds with as scrupulous a care as he examines his
formidable crowbars and jemmies. At certain hours he would refrain from
action, though every circumstance favoured his success: he would rather
obey the restraining voice of a wise, unreasoning wizardry, than fill
his pockets with the gold for which his human soul is ever hungry. There
is no law of man he dares not break but he shrinks in horror from the
infringement of the unwritten rules of savagery. Though he might cut a
throat in self-defence, he would never walk under a ladder; and if the
13th fell on a Friday, he would starve that day rather than obtain a
loaf by the method he best understands. He consults the omens with as
patient a divination as the augurs of old; and so long as he carries an
amulet in his pocket, though it be but a pebble or a polished nut, he is
filled with an irresistible courage.
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