Jackknife

“ The remains of poor Zacchary, the "boy" who was shot at the loophole, had been reverently interred, and Jack and his friend were standing alone beside the mound of freshly turned earth, when the latter observed, "Oh, by the way, Jack, I would very much like to have a look at that stone you spoke to me about."
"You mean the pebble Pete gave to me?" asked Jack.
"Yes, I think that is the nigger's name," replied Morton.
To the trooper's great surprise, Jack instantly fired up. "No, that won't do; we don't call our 'boys' niggers. They are our 'boys,' and faithful ones they are, too." ”

“ Equality enough here! for every one appears equally miserably off.”
As he thus gave vent to his thoughts he perceived that there was another person in the berth—Mr. Jolliffe, the master’s mate, who had fixed his eye upon Jack, and to whom Jack returned the compliment. The first thing that Jack observed was, that Mr. Jolliffe was very deeply pockmarked, and that he had but one eye, and that was a piercer; it appeared like a little ball of fire, and as if it reflected more light from the solitary candle than the candle gave.
“I don’t like your looks,” thought Jack; “we shall never be friends.” ”

“ He forced his way through the trees, and saw a huge Giant, thirty-five feet high, dragging along by the hair of their heads a Knight and his beautiful Lady, one inn each hand, with as much ease as if they had been a pair of gloves. Jack shed tears at such a sight, and alighting from his horse, and tying him to an oak, put on his invisible coat, under which he carried his sword off sharpness. When he came up to the Giant, he made many strokes at him, but could not reach his body, on account of his great height. ”

“ It only made me conceive a greater respect for our opponents.
"How do you know he was the butcher-boy?" I inquired with interest.
"From his blue apron, and having no hat, sir," said Mrs. Jackman, as if it were ridiculous to ask such a question.
"Well, he was n't," I said sharply. "And the sooner we get back the better. Jackman, does n't it strike you as remarkable that while I am engaged with one gentleman in the front, both Mrs. Jackman and you are inveigled away by another at the back? You see what the effect is—to leave the house bare of its defences." ”

“ Mrs. Jackman made an approach to conversing; Jackman could only answer. But it was the woman's opportunity, and she made the most of it. I learned, among other things, that she rejoiced Sir Gilbert had let at last; that the house had not been kept up for years, not since Sir Edmund died; that Sir Gilbert had been a stranger to it since he was a boy; that Jackman and she had lived in London a good deal in Sir Gilbert's service; and that Sir Gilbert was twenty-nine and unmarried. I gathered on the way through this that any princess would be fortunate if she should be chosen by Sir Gilbert. ”

“ Probably Jackman had had enough of the sea and its pictures, and nothing short of a whirlpool or a lightning-clothed disaster, full of foam and rolling peals, was likely to court Miss Conway's eye to that wide blue flashing breast.
'Ada,' said Jackman, 'your father will not give his consent. That's as certain to me as that it is I that am talking to you.'
'Why will not he give me my way?' she cried. 'It's hard to have to take it—to leave an old father. Yet he binds me to him by nothing; we see little or nothing of each other. I am a convenience as mistress of his house. ”

“ It's a orful place, Jack, that me an' you's goin' to—more damn orful, I reckon, than we can hev any idee. Gin's all thet's lef' to us, and it's good luck we hev such swashins of it aboard. Here's at you, Jack an' gimme some more out o' the kag, you damn starin' owl."
There was an angry tone in his voice as he spoke these last words; and the tone was sharper a moment later when he went on: "Can't you keep your owl eyes shet, you beast? Don't look at me like that, or I'll stick a knife into you. No, I'm not starin' at you; it's you who's starin' at me, damn you. Stop it! ”

“ While Jack studied the picture, his father studied Jack, whose face and whose manner of blissful challenge to all comers in the unconcern of easy fatality and ready blade seemed to grow more and more like that of the first John Wingfield. At length, Jack passed over to the other side of the mantel and turned on the reflector over the portrait of his mother; and, in turn, standing silently before her all his militancy was gone and in its place came the dreamy softness with which he would watch the Eternal Painter cloud-rolling on the horizon. ”

“ A sound as if the shed door had been closed told Jack he was wasting what might be precious time. [Pg 98]
"Get the carving knife quick," he whispered, "and when I go out lock the door after me."
Aunt Nancy obeyed in silence.
She brought the knife much as though it was the deadliest of weapons, and put it in Jack's hands with something very like awe.
"Don't kill the men if you can help it," she whispered. "It would be better to frighten them very badly rather than stain your hands with blood." ”

“ So under the tender care of Captain Gullbeak, of the Tiger brig, poor Jack commenced his career as a seaman—in mind still a child, in stature a big lad. The only thing he regretted was being separated so far from his mother’s grave. Away over the ocean glided the African trader. Hard had been Jack’s life in the workhouse—much harder was it now. Every man’s hand seemed against him. A cuff or a rope’s end was his only reward for every service done his many masters. ”

“ Putting his hand in his pocket, the prince gave the woman all he had left, so that after their day’s food, which cost what small store Jack had by him, they were without a penny between them.
When the sun got low, the king’s son said: “Jack, since we have no money, where can we lodge this night?”
But Jack replied: “Master, we’ll do well enough, for I have an uncle lives within two miles of this place; he is a huge and monstrous giant with three heads. He’ll fight five hundred men in armour, and make them to fly before him.” ”

“ Minus his leg, yet unbroken in spirit, and with a heart warm as ever and his trust in God’s mercy unabated, Jack returned once more to old England. Happily he had served long enough to entitle him to a berth in Greenwich Hospital. For that magnificent abode of England’s gallant and worn-out defenders he accordingly bore up, and on his way there he sent for his faithful Nancy to nurse him and keep him company. A smiling black countenance under a three-cornered gold-laced hat greeted him on his arrival, and he found his hand warmly grasped by his old friend Sambo. ”

“ For some seconds he was not observed by the enemy, until he went clattering away down the steep path at a pace which would have brought many a steed on his knees. But Jack knew what he was about. Not until Uncle Jeff found that the enemy had seen him did he utter a sound. He then gave vent to a loud shout, which rang through the air, echoing from rock to rock. It had the effect he intended, and drew the attention of our foes to him. A shower of bullets went whistling through the figure and on either side of it; still the horse kept on his way uninjured. ”

“ As a class, the United States Jacky is more contented, perhaps, than any other man of similar conditions. Unlike the soldier, he does [197] not even have to rough it very much, for wherever he goes he takes his house with him.
Jacky sleeps in a hammock strung upon hooks to the beams of the deck above him. When he turns out, he lashes his hammock with its lashing, and stores it in the nettings,—the troughs for the purpose at the sides of the ship,—where it must stay until night. If Jack wants to sleep in the meanwhile, he chooses the softest spot he can find on a steel-clad deck ”

“ My appearance created no small commotion among three or four young ladies who were seated in the room.
“Go away; how dare you venture in here?” exclaimed one or two of them.
“Will you not believe me?” I cried. “I am Jack, I assure you, and I hope soon to convince you of the fact.”
“It is Jack, I know it is!” exclaimed one of them, jumping up and coming forward. I knew her in an instant to be Grace Goldie, though grown almost into a young woman. “It is Jack, I am sure it is,” she added, taking my hand and leading me forward. “Oh, how strange that you do not know him!” ”

“ The prince went to bed in great sorrow, but Jack’s cap of knowledge informed him how it was to be obtained. In the middle of the night she called upon her familiar spirit to carry her to Lucifer. But Jack put on his coat of darkness and his shoes of swiftness, and was there as soon as she was. When she entered the place of the demon, she gave the handkerchief to him, and he laid it upon a shelf, whence Jack took it and brought it to his master, who showed it to the lady next day, and so saved his life. ”

“ Jack-knife. The name formerly given to a large folding pocket-knife, and now used by sailors, in contradistinction to a “Penknife.” See “Jack Tar.”
Jackson. The name of a river and several towns of the United States, after General Andrew Jackson, the seventh President.
Jack Straw’s Castle. A noted hostelry at Hampstead, said to have been built on the spot where Jack Straw, one of the leaders in Wat Tyler’s insurrection, made his habitation on the hillside.
Jack Tar. A sailor, because he wears tarpaulins in “dirty weather.” Jack is a generic name for a man or servant. ”

“ Where, in the old days, ignorance and all its accompanying evils held sway over the mind of poor Jack, and made him a prey to superstition and imagination, to-day, by dint of careful training of brain as well as body, he has become a thinking creature of power and force of mind. He knows in a general way the working of the great mechanical contrivances; and in the fights that are to come, as well as those that have been, he will show that the metal the American Jacky is made of rings true and stands well the trial by fire. ”

“ There was the sound of a match crackling, and a spurt of fire issued from Jackman's fingers. "Why, man, you have matches!" I cried.
"Just got them from the mantelpiece, sir," he explained. He lit my candle, and we surveyed each other.
"It's no go, Jackman," I said with resignation. "We 're done. By the way, what is kept in the strong room."
"The family plate, sir, and the gold service presented to Sir Craven in 1772, and the Norroy jewels."
"Ah!" I said significantly. "Well, we are not worth much as detectives, Jackman, and I think we may take it our man has vanished, and go to bed." ”

“ But to pull a man even an inch is a difficult task even for the strongest girl, and after a moment’s tug she was about to tell Jackson to alight while she stood at the horse’s head, when suddenly the prostrate man staggered to his feet, and leaned against the brougham as if it had been specially built and brought there for that purpose.
Lady Bell went up to him and laid her hand upon his arm.
“What has happened?” she said, anxiously. “Were you run over—are you hurt?”
Jack—for it was Jack—opened his eyes and stared at her with the gravity of a man suddenly sobered. ”

“ He's used to seeing girls who are always dainty and fresh, like his sister Elsie, and I'm not going to let him see me looking like a poor, bedraggled Cinderella. It isn't fair that some people should have all the good things in life, and others nothing but the drudgery.
"Jack doesn't seem to mind it. There he stands out in the road in his old faded, paint-smeared overalls, and his sleeves rolled up, never caring how awkward and lanky he looks. He's taking as eager an interest in that horse's good points as if he were to have the pleasure of riding it. ”

“ Jacky was a smart Yankee lad, and was always remarkable for his dislike of staying at home, and a love of lounging upon the wharves, where the sailors used to tell him stories about sea-life. Jacky was always a little fellow. The country people, who did not much like the sea, or encourage Jacky's fondness for it, used to say, that he took so much salt air and tar smoke into his lungs that it stopped his growth. The boys used to call him Little Jacket. ”

“ In Prussia it is recited as a game of forfeits. The sequence of the powers in the one version is house, door, lock, band, mouse, cat, dog, stick, fire, water, ox, butcher, devil; and in the other, house, door, lock, band, mouse, cat, huntsman.
Jack in Germany is called Jockel, Jöggeli, Jokele. The Master who sent out Jockel is mentioned already in the Gargantua of Fischart, which was published in 1575 (Chap. XXV.) . The name Jack among ourselves is applied to a person or an object of peculiar serviceableness, as in Jack-of-all-trades, or boot-jack. ”

“ Said Jack: "The King of Oakenrealm must rule me as well as others of his liege-men: he must fight if he will, and be slain if he will." Then suddenly he fell a-laughing, and beat his hand on his thigh till the armour rattled again, and then he cried out: "Lord Gandolf, Lord Gandolf, have a care, I bid thee! Where wilt thou please to be buried, Lord?"
Said the other: "I wot not what thou wilt mean by thy fooling, rank reiver. But here I take up this youngling's glove; and on his head be his fate! Now as to this battle. My will is, that we two champions be all alone and afoot on the eyot. ”