Jack Ovet was born at Nottingham, and after serving his time as apprentice to a shoemaker, took up that useful employment for a livelihood. But he soon grew tired of his awl and his cobblers'-wax, and disregarding the old saw which advises cobblers (and, no doubt, also boot and shoe makers) to "stick to their last," deserted his last and his bench, and took to the highway. A shoemaker newly emancipated from his useful, but not romantic, trade does not impress us as a figure of romance; but that is merely prejudice; and really he started off at score, and at his first essay robbed a gentleman of twenty of the best, without a moment's hesitation. The dispute as to whom the guineas should belong took place on the road to London from his native Nottingham, so you will perceive how quickly Ovet fell into his stride. Ovet argued that the guineas were rightly his, "by the law of capture"; thus following the theory of the poet who put the law of ownership in property so neatly in declaring it:

"Yours, you impudent scoundrel!" bellowed the traveller; "if I had not been taken unawares, we would have seen about that."

Ovet, already prepared to take the ancient traditional line of chivalric consideration, said he would fight fairly for the money. "Here it is again, and whoever is best man, let him keep it." The enraged traveller agreed to this proposal, and they fell to fighting with swords, with the result that the gentleman was mortally wounded, and Ovet went off with the purse.

Our ex-shoemaker was a quarrelsome fellow, and soon after this killed another man in a heated dispute, but escaped capture. Skulking in remote places, afraid of being taken at a disadvantage, he soon found himself short of money, and waylaid a train of pack-horses. Cutting open their packs, he discovered a number of guineas among the goods, and finally went off with a hundred and eighty, and three dozen silver knives, forks, and spoons.

One day Jack Ovet, drinking at a wayside inn, overheard a soapboiler and a carrier consulting how the carrier could most securely carry a hundred pounds to a friend in the country. It was finally decided to convey the money in a barrel of soap. The carrier was highly pleased with the notion, and laughingly remarked that if any rogue were to rob his waggon, "the devil's cunning must be in him if he looks for any money in the soap-barrel."

Jack Ovet, later in the day, overtook him upon the road and commanded him to stop, else he would shoot both him and his horses.

"I must make bold to borrow a little money out of your waggon," he said; "therefore, if you have any, direct me to it, that I may not lose any time, which, you know, is always precious."

The carrier, quite unmoved in his fancied security, replied that he had none, and if he did not believe him, he might, if he would, search every box and bundle in his waggon.

Ovet then, simulating a violent passion, began to toss down every box, parcel, and barrel in the waggon, until at last, coming to the soap-barrel, he flung it down with all his force, so that it broke in pieces, the money-bag appearing in midst of the soap scattered on the road.

Then, jumping down, he exclaimed, "Is not he that sells this soap a cheating villain, to put this bag of lead into it, to make the barrel weigh heavier? However, that he may not succeed in his roguery, I'll take it and sell it in the next house I come to, for it will wet my whistle to the tune of two or three shillings."

So saying, he was making off, when the poor carrier cried out, "Hold, hold, sir! that is not lead. It is a bag with a hundred pounds in it, for which I must be accountable."

"No, no," returned Ovet, "this can't be money; but if it is, tell the owner that I'll be answerable for it, if he'll come to me."

"To you! Where, then, sir, may one find you?"

"Why, truly," rejoined Ovet, with a chuckle, "that's a question soon asked, but not so soon answered. The best answer I can give you is that you'll probably find me in a gaol before night, and then perhaps you may have what I have taken, and forty pounds more."

The highwaymen were generally susceptible creatures, and Ovet not less so than his brethren. One day, robbing the Worcester stage-coach, filled on that occasion with young women, he was violently smitten with one in particular.

"Madam," he declared, "your charms have softened my temper. Cast not your eyes down, nor cover your face with those modest blushes; and, believe me, what I have taken from necessity is only borrowed, and shall be honourably restored, if you will let me know where you may be found."

The young woman gave him her address, and a week later, overcome by the most violent passion, he wrote her a love-letter in which, in the most bombastic and ridiculous style, he expressed his love. "Although I had the cruelty to rob you of twenty guineas," he concluded, "you committed at the same time a greater robbery, by taking my heart. Do, I implore you, direct a favourable answer."

But this was the discouraging reply:

"Sir,—

"Yours I received with as great dissatisfaction as when you robbed me. I admire your impudence in offering yourself to me as a husband, when I am sensible it would not be long ere you made me a hempen widow. Perhaps some foolish girl or another may be so bewitched as to go in white, to beg the favour of marrying you under the gallows; but, indeed, I shall neither venture there, nor in a church, to marry one of your profession, whose vows are treacherous, and whose smiles, words, and actions, like small rivulets, through a thousand turnings of loose passions, at last arrive at the dead sea of sin.

"Should you, therefore, dissolve your eyes into tears; were every accent in your speech a sigh; had you all the spells and magic charms of love, I should seal up my ears. You have already broken your word, in not sending what you villainously took from me; but, not valuing that, let me tell you, for fear you should have too great a conceit of yourself, that you are the first, to my recollection, whom I ever hated; and, sealing my hatred with the hopes of quickly reading your dying speech, in case you die in London, I presume to subscribe myself."

"Yours, never to command."

Soon after this harrowing dismissal, Jack Ovet was taken, tried, and executed, ending in May 1708, in the thirty-second year of his age.