Ogden and Reynolds ended at last at Kingston, on April 23rd, 1714; Ogden himself dying with an air of complete indifference. He threw a handful of small change among the crowd, with the remark: "Gentlemen, here is a poor Will's farewell."
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:
His to take who has the power, 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.