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esercito sconfitto
You've been so very kind. As far as your question about literature involving stage coach robberies or highwaymen, I don't know if it's great literature but I remember watching British movies from the 1940s on the television like The Wicked Lady with James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, and Patricia Roc that were surely based on novels.
I don't have the time to write a full-length story, and everyone is probably getting tired of me anyway, but a scenario might run
something like this.
A coach is stopped on a road in Houndslow Heath in 1751 by a highwayman, only it is a woman, masked, dressed in black shirt and boots and breeches. Her name is Jenny. The only passenger is Lady Gwendoline, lately returned from France. While Jenny is taking Lady Gwendoline's jewels, the driver aims his pistol, but Jenny shoots first and kills him.
Lady Gwendoline gets out of the coach and screams in horror. "What have you done? You will surely hang for this." She turns and hides her face, weeping.
Jenny knows that she is right. She looks around and sees no one coming. She takes the butt of her pistol and strikes Lady Gwendoline on the back of the head, knocking her unconscious. "Someone will hang," Jenny says, "that is a certain."
Jenny props Lady Gwendoline against the rear wheel of the coach and strips her of her dress, shoes, shift, petticoats, and drawers. Then she strips and dresses in Lady Gwendoline's clothes. She then dresses the unconscious lady in her shirt, breeches and boots, binds her hair in a pony tail, and finally puts her mask of Lady Gwendoline.
Riders arrive, having heard the shot. Jenny tells them the bandit killed the driver and was knocked unconscious when the horses bolted. The men drag Lady Gwendoline away, looking for the nearest tree.
As for what happens next, if this were a James Mason movie, he, playing a highwayman, would rescue Lady Gwendoline from hanging, thinking he is saving a fellow robber. When he discovers his mistake, he falls in love with her, and she in turn is grateful. Meanwhile, Jenny finds she is an impoverished noble with a ruined ancestral home.
Autolycus
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