Page:Life and adventures of that notorious robber and murderer, Richard Turpin.pdf/12

 to a different death, as the savageness of his own nature prompted him. At length one of them took a kettle of water from the fire, and threw it over him; but it providentially happened not to be hot enough to scald him. In the interim, the maid-servant, who was churning butter in the dairy, hearing a noise in the house, apprehended some mischief; on which she blew out her candle to screen herself, but being found in the course of their search, one of the miscreants forced her up stairs, where he insisted upon gratifying his brutal passion; at the same time endeavouring to prevail upon her, by alternate threats and promises, to divulge the secret hoard of money, though she persisted in her ignorance of any such hoard being in the house. Mr. Lawrence being ordered down stairs, one of them took a chopping-bill, and threatened to cut of his leg: they then brutally fractured his head with their pistols, and dragged him about by the hair of his head, swearing they “would do for him,” if he did not immediately inform them where the rest of his money was hid. They then ransacked every part of the house, and found 20l. in a box belonging to Mr. Lawrence, jun.; and robbing the house of all the valuable effects they could find, they locked the family in the parlour, threw the keys of the house into a water-closet, and took their plunder to London.

The particulars of this atrocious robbery being represented to the king, a proclamation was issued for the apprehension of the