MY UNCLE JACK.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 187, 7 September 1871, Page 7

MY UNCLE JACK.

My Uncle Jack,, had once a rather good adventure in the Brierly Thicket, near to our house in Blankshire, which at one time had such a bad reputation. He was what was called, in those good old times which I have referred to, a red-hot Radical, or as we should now say, a moderate Whig, and in the electioneering practices of that date he was a somewhat unscrupulous proficient. His hatred for the noble house of Calderton, which arrogated to itself the right of appointing the member for the borough, was of a nature of which wo moderns, unacquainted as we are with what political animosity really means, can have no conception : " all's fail* at an election time," was a favourite moral precept with my uncle, and one up to which, whenever Brierly. was coutestcd, he most conscientiously acted. The struggle between the nominee of his lordship and a certain yellow candidate from the metropolis, was upon one occasion — the first in which the Cal Jerton rule was rebelled against with any hopes of success — excessively keen, and the screw was put very sharply upon the Brierly tenants. Uncle Jack, the better to observe the enemy, was stopping at the Calderton Arms itself, from which he secretly sent forth his ukases, and regulated Liberal affairs. He saw that those were going badly, that mors moiiey was wanted, an,d that for certain reasons, neither in Brierly notes, nor even in those of the Bank of Englard, but in good, untestifying, unrecognisable gold sovereigns from the mint. There was very little time to procure it in, and the getting it from town was a highly important and most confidential task, so Uncle Jack, after some consultation with those he considered could be trusted, determined to undertake it himself.

Nobody, reasoned he, would surely suspect him, an inmate of the Calderton Arms, of being the pursebeirer of the Friends of Liberty. Robert Supple, the landlord, who wa^, of course,. Caldertonian.to the backbone, and had a considerable following, was a dull man, who thought himself shrewd, and of the easiest pss3ible so/fc to hoodwink ; while his son was a scam,), if not something even worse, whose feelings were not likely to be interested in any electioneering matters whatever.

Uncle Jack was neither a dull man nor a scamp, ergo (so he proved it) he was more than a match for them. He ordered out his gig aud his big brown horse in order to go to Fussworth ; there was certainly no mistake about that ; he motioned Fussworth twice, distinctly to Mr. Supple, who was smoking his pipe at the inn-door, with an expression of countenance as though he were personifying human wisdow at the request of so ememinent sculptor lie spoke of Fussworth, causally, to Supple- the younger, as he hung about the inn-yard, as visual, with both hands in his pockets ; and Fussworth, said he nodding to the inquiring ostler, as he snatched the horsecloth cleverly off the Brown at the moment of departure ; and yet Uncle Jack was going further, tban Fusaworth that same day, nevertheless.

It was night — midnight, by the time my uncle got upon our thicket again upon his way home. He had nobody with h m, and no weapon of any kind, and he had two thousand pound in gold under the gig seat. It was upon the last account that he kept his eyes so sharply round him, and listened so painfully with his ears, not through any fear upon his own account, for Uncle Jack was as bold asajion. He was anxious lest the cause of liberty should suffer a dire loss ; lest the Calderton clique should triumph on this as on all other occasions, through a misadventure of his ; and it was this alone that he feared the chances of the dark and the highwaymen. Blindfold, he .had almost- known every inch of the way, and he drove through the gloom as softly as he possibly could, with his wheels low on the sand, and dumb on the turf, and grating on the hard road but rarely ; sometimes he would even pull up to listen, and be did not press the big brown to speed at any time, but kept him as fresh as his long journey would permit him to be, in case it should come to a stern chase.

Presently, in the centre of the way, there loojned a horseman, and the fatal " Stand I" ran hoarsely out over the heath. My uncle would have made a rush, and trusted to the fellow's pistol missing fire, but he saw that the muzzel covered him, and that the risk was too tremendous for that. The robber, who was masked, rode up to his side with the weapon still leveled and demanded, the money. My uncle offered him his watch and some loose sovereigns, but the other shook his head. ' " T want the money under the seat," cried he, coarsely ; " I know you have it there."

"If you know that," said my uncle quietly, " you must also know that not a penny of it belongs 'to me . I will not voluntarily give it up to any man, — I will die first — since you have a .pistol I cannot help your' taking. it if you have a mind ; and may I live to see you hung, you rascal !"

Uncle Jack used some rather excited language besides, which • would better bear repetition in those good old times than in these, and then sullenly shifted his legs, so that the bags of gold wnder the seat could be got at. The highwayman leaned forward' to jviob

them with one hand, still keeping the piscol levelled in the other, as though he knew the man he had to deal with, but in doing this he bont his head for a secondhand before he could raise it again. Uncle Jack was upon him like a lion. By striking spurs into his horse the robber managed to extricate himself, but in the brief struggle the pistol went off harmlessly, and remained with my uncle, and before the wretch could draw another, the big Brown was laying his four feet to the ground to some purpose ; they were nearly at the end of our thicket, before the enraged highwayman could come within range of him. " Chuck out the gold," lie cried, in a tevvibte voice, " or I'll shoot ye ! "

"Shoot and ," halloed Uncle Jask, whose flying wheels", no longer particular about making a noise, drowned the rest of the sentences. " I'll lay a pound that I live to see you hung." He knew it was not an easy matter for a man on horseback to shoot a man in a gig — both flying. After they had gone on in this fashion for some time — " Patrol ! " cried my uncle, joyfully, and at the full pitch of his voice.

" Death aud thunder ! " or something of th-itkiud, exclaimed thehighwayman, as he pulled up his mare upon her haunches. By wh'ch device Uncle Jack gained fifty yards, and got quite clear of our thicket. In five minutes more he had reached the toll-gate, and was out of RobbQi'-land. Not a word said he of his adventuie to the ostler, roused up at one in the morning to attend upon him ; only, "What has become of the Grey 1 ?" asked he, carelessly, as his eyes rested upon one empty stall in the huge stable wherein his own Brown was housed.

" Master William has took him out to Wutton until the day after to-mor-row," was the simple reply.

Uncle Jack retired to rest with the serenest of simles, and deposited the gold in safety under the mattress. On the next morning his landlord waited upon him after breakfast, by particular desi.-e.

" How many votes, my good friend," said my uncle, " can you really command now, independently of his lordship V

"Why, you surely ain't a coming that game 1 " said the innkeeper grimly. " I should have thought you had known me by this time befcter than that: I am a-goining to bring seventeen voters up to poll next week to vote for the True Blue, however, and I don't care who knows it."

"Seventeen,"-said my uncle smiling, that will do capitally ; I should not hive thought, Mr. Supple, yoa could have brought so many. This will be equivalent to give us thirty-four," added he, soliloquising, v and we only wanted thirty to win."

"To giving you thirty-four]" cried the indignant host ; " why, I'd see you hangerl first ; leastways, not you, sir, but the whole vollow lot."

'• Do you know this pistol ! " oxclaimed my uncle, suddenly, and with a great deal of sternness, " are you aware to whom it belongs 1 "

" Yes, "1 do," said the innkeeper, a llkkle uncomfortable, but nob in the least suspecting what was to come "it belongs to my son William."

"It does!" said Uncle Jack. "I took it from him last night upon Brierly Thicket, where he tried to commit a highway robbery with a badly fittiug mask on his face — which is a lianqiwj matter, Mr. Supple.

The agony of the father (who was only too convinced of the truth of what was said, as he had himself mentioned to his son his suspicions of what my uncle was really gone to Fussworth about) was terrible to witness, and moved the accuser greatly. " Spare him ; spare my son ! " exclaimed the poor fellow.

"Do I look the sort of man to hang the son of anybody who promises to do me a favour?" said Uncle Jack, placidly ; " but," added he, with meaning, " you had better not forget these seveuteen voters, Mr. Supple."

And so it turned out, that through Uncle Jack's adventure in the Blankshire Thicket, the yellow candidate came in for Brierly for two thousand pounds less than what he hadLcalculated it would cost him.

The "Sydney Morning Herald" gives currency to the following curious paragraph, which has since been published in nearly all the colonial papers : — '• In this year there will be fiftythroe Sundays, but only fifty -two weeks. Nowhere during the year does Sunday come oftener than once in ssven clays. The first weak of the year begins with Sunday, and so do all the other weeks. This may appear mysterious at first, but by consulting the calendars for 1871 and 1872 it will be ssen tha* the last week of 1871 begins with Sunday, and has a Sunday following it. As two cannot come together, this year • 1872 begins with Monday, and,^ it being Lsap Year, Sundays will occur once in seven days thereafter. The arrangement will place Smidays at -the end of the week instead of tho beginning, and is a complete theological triumph for the Seventh Day Biptists. This complication of the calendar is supposed to have been planned by the Jews, who, on account of their superior education, were entrusted with its revisiou. This explanation is not to be binding upon anybody, nor to conflict with and person's constibutionaliprivilege of universal toleration/