Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheekbones and over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one of the three could have said, from anything he saw, what either of the other two was like; and each was hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those days, travellers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, for anybody on the road might be a robber or in league with robbers. As to the latter, when every posting-house and ale-house could produce somebody in "the Captain's" pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable non-descript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter's Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and ahand on the arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on a substratum of cutlass.
As to the latter possibility, when every posting-house and ale-house could produce a wanted criminal as wanted by the authorities as the Captain, a criminal that could happen to be anything from the landlord to the lowest stable non-descript, it was certainly the most likely thing.
Top answer
That sounds like a reasonable interpretation.
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I don't really see how your interpretation works. If "the Captain" is an authority figure, then somebody "in the Captain's pay" is not particularly expected to be a robber. Unfortunately I don't understand who "the Captain" is (or why he is in quotes). It sounds like it might be a nickname for a well-known thief or outlaw of the time, but I'm just guessing. Is this character mentioned elsewhere i
No, that's not the correct interpretation of this sentence. The expression "in the Captain's pay" is an outdated idiom meaning "on the payroll of highwaymen or robbers." "Plots and conspiracies were often hatched under an inn roof, and it was a well-known fact that highwaymen used to be in touch with hostlers and other servants of many a house of public entertainment, giving r