MaryLou the Highway Robber
Photo of a mossy tree stump in a wintery woodland, with a hazel coppice behind it and lots or red beech trees leaves on the ground. The tree stump is wavy and rippled and very interestingly shaped.
How do you like this stump? It’s lovely, isn’t it? Kind of like a melty Oscar the Grouch somehow. However, I’m sorry to be deceptive, but this isn’t actually a story about this beautiful stump. It’s just that I was unable to take a picture of the subject of the story, who was, right at that moment, behind the stump.
As it goes, I was sitting down eating my lunch on the remnants of an old laid beech hedge opposite this glorious stump, when a ghostly lady slowly approached on an equally ghostly bay horse. The pair were smiling gently, clearly deep inside some shared reverie, as they ambled down the path before them. At first I was not sure if they would notice me, but as they came adjacent, the lady turned her vaguely opaque head toward me and said ‘good day’ as she doffed her top hat. After which, she and the horse stopped.
I’ve been spoken to by ghosts a few times before, so I wasn’t really afraid. Plus, I was in the middle of a nice chicken-avocado salad, so feeling quite content. Eating quality food and being in the woods are two of my favourite activities. I’m also quite good at both, so the ghostly lady and her lovely horse caught me at a confident time in my life.
Of course, I returned the greeting and we struck up a nice conversation. It turns out that she was an American and her name was MaryLou. The beautiful horse was called Panama. MaryLou was born on an American prairie to a rich a rich father. She was his youngest child, and only daughter, yet he couldn’t bear to look upon her, such that she reminded him of her late mother, his beloved wife, who had died as she gave birth to MaryLou. So, one day, when the opportunity arrived, her father shipped MaryLou over to Britain to marry the rich English toff of a nearby Linchmere manor.
The toff wasn’t so bad and even agreed to pay the passage of her beloved horse, Panama, so MaryLou didn’t complain. In addition, her husband was often off on business making his fortune in various types of colonial exploitation, so she didn’t have to see him much. The worst thing for MaryLou, as a child of giant skies and conveniently remembered half-histories, was the structure of English society. She thought it terribly undemocratic that the serfs were required to bring her part of their annual harvests.
One day, whilst her husband was off ravaging nations for rubies, MaryLou hatched a plan to do a little ravaging of her own. She sewed herself an eye mask, tucked her hair up inside a top hat, stole a pair of her husband’s breeches, and tied a bandana around the bottom half of her face. After availing herself of some of her husband’s ornamental weapons from the drawing room wall, she then jumped upon dear old Panama, rode to the London to Portsmouth Road, and set about to do a bit of highway robbery. As you will likely expect, she stole from the rich to give to the poor, and so the next time a serf came to her manor with tithes, they returned home with several gold pennies and a stupefied awe.
This all went on for some length of time and our Masked MaryLou started to make a name for herself amongst the robbers of Rake and Hindhead. Who was this masked robber so fleet of foot and seemingly light as air? Why did they not participate in The Ancient Skullduggery Rules and Order Club?
Unbeknownst to MaryLou, the full-time robbers of thereabouts donated 7% of each heist into said Club. That way, should one of the bandits come up short on a robbery, they could cash in their chips for a portion of the communal pie, and thus still be able to finance their naughty skullduggery life. Being only a part-time robber, and I think, if we’re honest, a fair weather robber, MaryLou of course did not know this. And this sad lack of local knowledge was to be her downfall.
One day, as the full-time robbers were having a drink in The Flying Bull, they hatched a revenge laden plan. It wasn’t that the robbers were de facto against MaryLou’s skirmishes into their profession, it was simply that she was breaking their ethical code by not paying tithes. As such, one starry, moonlit night, our part-time, fair weather class warrior robber got jumped from behind. Human and horse throats were slit, entrails were displayed, and it was only when one of the full-time robber’s decided to take MaryLou’s breeches that they realised the error of their ways.
Being the wife of a toff, MaryLou’s life was of course avenged by the local toff-funded militia. The Flying Bull was raided, the robbers given up, and they were hanged for her murder on Gibbet Hill. I can tell you for a fact, that if you go for a walk from Gibbet Hill down to Greenhill Wood, you will certainly feel the evil bastards following you. Flesh will crawl, hearts will race, eyes will flicker back and forth, and you will generally cease to enjoy an otherwise perfectly pleasant walk.
Nowadays, MaryLou wanders Greenhill Wood on her horse, slowly, sadly, and trapped to the earthly realm as she is by an untimely and horrific demise. The good thing is that she’s made peace with her past, so neither she or Panama drips blood anymore as they slowly walk the woods of thereabouts. So despite this sad tale of the untimely end of a beneficent class warrior, I can recommend a visit to Greenhill woods for an unexpected local history lesson.