And his to keep who can.
"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.