Stand and Deliver!

I accept a certain amount of risk as an occupational hazard of travelling in time, so I suppose I have to accept the consequences when I find myself in the middle of a hazardous situation, although to be honest, it doesn't happen very often. One of the easiest ways I've found to infiltrate myself into a time and place is to join a travelling party early in the day as they prepare to set out. Of course, that also means I am accepting the same risk as my fellow-travellers, of being intercepted and robbed on the road, and in May of 1721 my complacency about the potential risk was confronted with the reality in the middle of Epping Forest, miles from the nearest village. It took me a few minutes to realize what was happening when we were ordered to disembark from the coach in which we were travelling. A number of possible causes for our unscheduled halt ran through my mind:

• One of the horses had been lamed? (during the ride one of my companions told me how a couple of years ago, the Essex Gang, led by Mr.Turpin, sowed the road with caltrops, laming the horses of an express team in a most cruel manner).
  
• A wheel had come off the coach? (unlikely, the coach would probably have tipped)
• A fallen tree blocking the road?

When I saw the masked horseman pointing a flintlock pistol I got the shock of my adventurous life. One of the most notorious highwaymen of the period is "Dick" Turpin, originally an Essex lad, who served his apprenticeship as a butcher and has become notorious for his daring and violent robberies. He has already outlived the Essex Gang with whom he allied for a while; apparently his cavalier disregard for hazard was more than they felt their lives justified. But it seems my concerns were not altogether justified; our interrogator's manners were very much those of a gentleman, assisting myself and an older lady in dismounting from the coach (not the easiest maneuver in a hoopskirt), and while he would not spare any coin or jewelry, at least he apologized to us for inconveniencing us so rudely.
X:1
T:Air XX, March in Rinaldo with Drums and Trumpets % title
T:Adapted by John Gay for The Beggar's Opera
C: % composer
O:http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25063/25063-h/music/air_XX.pdf % origin.
M:C % meter
L:1/8 % length of shortest note
Q: % tempo
K:Bb % key
V:1 % voice 1
z2 z2 DE | F4 F4 | F6 Bc | dcde d2 d2 |
w:Let us take the Road. Hark! I hear the Sound of Coach-es!
d4 f4 | dcde d2 d2 | d4 f3 e | e2 cd edcB |
w:The Hou-r of At-tack ap-proach-es, To your Arms, bra-ve Boy-s an-d
c6 || AB | c4 c4 | !trill! c6 f2 | FGAB c2 d2 |
w:load. See the Ball I hold! Let the Chy-mists toil like Ass-
e4 f3 e | d2 cd edcB | c2 F2 f3 e | dcBc !trill! c3 B |
w:es, Our Fire their Fi-re sur--pas--ses And turns all our Lead__ to_
B6 |]
w:Gold.
Our assailant did, however, unhitch one of the team of horses, which he took with him. While the animal might not be broken to saddle, and difficult to ride, it still represents a considerable loss to the coaching company. The shortfall in the team means that any further progress will be painfully slow, and some of us will have to continue on foot, alongside the coach. And I will probably have to explain to my director the loss of a couple of items of antique jewelry, which cannot be replaced. The music, which I thought would be appropriate to this little adventure, is from the Beggar's Opera by John Gay, produced by John Rich, which as one wag put it,

made Gay rich, and Rich gay

After I got back here a little research suggested that the most likely identity for our assailant would be "Captain" King, so called because of his delightfully gallant manners! To convert the code above to sheet music, or listen to the tunes, copy the code for a single song, then paste it here and [submit].