A small time after this robbery they committed another upon a hop-merchant, who was riding with his wife.  They searched him very carefully for money, but could find none, until Dyer beginning to curse and swear and threatening to kill him, his wife cried out, For Heaven’s sake, do not murder my husband and I’ll tell you where his money is. Accordingly, she declared it was in his boots, upon which Dyer cut them off his legs and found fifty guineas therein, then taking their leave of the merchant and his wife, Dyer very gratefully thanked her for her good office.  From thence they went down to Sherbourne, and each of them having got a mistress, they lived there very merrily for a considerable space, living in full enjoyment of those gross sensualities in which they alone reaped satisfaction at the expense of such honest people as they had before plundered.

Here they had intelligence of a certain grazier who was going down into the country to buy lean beasts, upon which they followed him and robbed him of all the money he had, which was about fourscore-and-ten pounds.  So large a sum proved only a fund for extravagance, a use to which these men put all the money they laid their hands on.  Hampshire being so lucky a place, Dyer and his comrade went next to Ringwood, where the butcher fell sick, and lay for some time, until their money was almost consumed.  But then growing well again, Dyer took him down to Bath, where they robbed the stage-coaches from Bath to London, and as they returned from London to Bath again, until the road became so dangerous that they hired persons to guard them for the future; and notwithstanding they so often practised this villainy, they never were in danger but once, when a gentleman fired a blunderbuss at them but missed them both, whereupon they robbed the coach, and afterwards whipped him severely with their horse whips.

Their next expedition was to Hungerford, where they stayed about two months, in which time Dyer made a match for the butcher with a widow woman of his own trade; but just as they were going to be married, somebody discovered both his and the butcher’s occupation, and thereupon obliged them to quit Hungerford, and to take their road to Newbury, with more precipitation than they were wont to do.  In the road to Reading they robbed a tallow-chandler, and then galloped to Reading, where they had like to have been taken by the information of the Bath coachman; but they being pretty well mounted and riding hard night and day got safe down to Exeter in Devonshire, where, as the securest method, they agreed to part by consent.  The butcher went back to Devonshire again, and Dyer must needs go to visit his friends at Salisbury, and then after a short stay with them set out for London.