________________________________________________
_ "Clear the outer ring!" cried Jackson, standing up beside the ropes
with a big silver watch in his hand.
"Ss-whack! ss-whack! ss-whack!" went the horse-whips--for a number
of the spectators, either driven onwards by the pressure behind or
willing to risk some physical pain on the chance of getting a better
view, had crept under the ropes and formed a ragged fringe within
the outer ring. Now, amidst roars of laughter from the crowd and a
shower of blows from the beaters-out, they dived madly back, with
the ungainly haste of frightened sheep blundering through a gap in
their hurdles. Their case was a hard one, for the folk in front
refused to yield an inch of their places--but the arguments from the
rear prevailed over everything else, and presently every frantic
fugitive had been absorbed, whilst the beaters-out took their stands
along the edge at regular intervals, with their whips held down by
their thighs.
"Gentlemen," cried Jackson, again, "I am requested to inform you
that Sir Charles Tregellis's nominee is Jack Harrison, fighting at
thirteen-eight, and Sir Lothian Hume's is Crab Wilson, at thirteen-
three. No person can be allowed at the inner ropes save the referee
and the timekeeper. I have only to beg that, if the occasion should
require it, you will all give me your assistance to keep the ground
clear, to prevent confusion, and to have a fair fight. All ready?"
"All ready!" from both corners.
"Time!"
There was a breathless hush as Harrison, Wilson, Belcher, and Dutch
Sam walked very briskly into the centre of the ring. The two men
shook hands, whilst their seconds did the same, the four hands
crossing each other. Then the seconds dropped back, and the two
champions stood toe to toe, with their hands up.
It was a magnificent sight to any one who had not lost his sense of
appreciation of the noblest of all the works of Nature. Both men
fulfilled that requisite of the powerful athlete that they should
look larger without their clothes than with them. In ring slang,
they buffed well. And each showed up the other's points on account
of the extreme contrast between them: the long, loose-limbed, deer-
footed youngster, and the square-set, rugged veteran with his trunk
like the stump of an oak. The betting began to rise upon the
younger man from the instant that they were put face to face, for
his advantages were obvious, whilst those qualities which had
brought Harrison to the top in his youth were only a memory in the
minds of the older men. All could see the three inches extra of
height and two of reach which Wilson possessed, and a glance at the
quick, cat-like motions of his feet, and the perfect poise of his
body upon his legs, showed how swiftly he could spring either in or
out from his slower adversary. But it took a subtler insight to
read the grim smile which flickered over the smith's mouth, or the
smouldering fire which shone in his grey eyes, and it was only the
old-timers who knew that, with his mighty heart and his iron frame,
he was a perilous man to lay odds against.
Wilson stood in the position from which he had derived his nickname,
his left hand and left foot well to the front, his body sloped very
far back from his loins, and his guard thrown across his chest, but
held well forward in a way which made him exceedingly hard to get
at. The smith, on the other hand, assumed the obsolete attitude
which Humphries and Mendoza introduced, but which had not for ten
years been seen in a first-class battle. Both his knees were
slightly bent, he stood square to his opponent, and his two big
brown fists were held over his mark so that he could lead equally
with either. Wilson's hands, which moved incessantly in and out,
had been stained with some astringent juice with the purpose of
preventing them from puffing, and so great was the contrast between
them and his white forearms, that I imagined that he was wearing
dark, close-fitting gloves until my uncle explained the matter in a
whisper. So they stood in a quiver of eagerness and expectation,
whilst that huge multitude hung so silently and breathlessly upon
every motion that they might have believed themselves to be alone,
man to man, in the centre of some primeval solitude.
It was evident from the beginning that Crab Wilson meant to throw no
chance away, and that he would trust to his lightness of foot and
quickness of hand until he should see something of the tactics of
this rough-looking antagonist. He paced swiftly round several
times, with little, elastic, menacing steps, whilst the smith
pivoted slowly to correspond. Then, as Wilson took a backward step
to induce Harrison to break his ground and follow him, the older man
grinned and shook his head.
"You must come to me, lad," said he. "I'm too old to scamper round
the ring after you. But we have the day before us, and I'll wait."
He may not have expected his invitation to be so promptly answered;
but in an instant, with a panther spring, the west-countryman was on
him. Smack! smack! smack! Thud! thud! The first three were on
Harrison's face, the last two were heavy counters upon Wilson's
body. Back danced the youngster, disengaging himself in beautiful
style, but with two angry red blotches over the lower line of his
ribs. "Blood for Wilson!" yelled the crowd, and as the smith faced
round to follow the movements of his nimble adversary, I saw with a
thrill that his chin was crimson and dripping. In came Wilson again
with a feint at the mark and a flush hit on Harrison's cheek; then,
breaking the force of the smith's ponderous right counter, he
brought the round to a conclusion by slipping down upon the grass.
"First knock-down for Harrison!" roared a thousand voices, for ten
times as many pounds would change hands upon the point.
"I appeal to the referee!" cried Sir Lothian Hume. "It was a slip,
and not a knock-down."
"I give it a slip," said Berkeley Craven, and the men walked to
their corners, amidst a general shout of applause for a spirited and
well-contested opening round. Harrison fumbled in his mouth with
his finger and thumb, and then with a sharp half-turn he wrenched
out a tooth, which he threw into the basin. "Quite like old times,"
said he to Belcher.
"Have a care, Jack!" whispered the anxious second. "You got rather
more than you gave."
"Maybe I can carry more, too," said he serenely, whilst Caleb
Baldwin mopped the big sponge over his face, and the shining bottom
of the tin basin ceased suddenly to glimmer through the water.
I could gather from the comments of the experienced Corinthians
around me, and from the remarks of the crowd behind, that Harrison's
chance was thought to have been lessened by this round.
"I've seen his old faults and I haven't seen his old merits," said
Sir John Lade, our opponent of the Brighton Road. "He's as slow on
his feet and with his guard as ever. Wilson hit him as he liked."
"Wilson may hit him three times to his once, but his one is worth
Wilson's three," remarked my uncle. "He's a natural fighter and the
other an excellent sparrer, but I don't hedge a guinea."
A sudden hush announced that the men were on their feet again, and
so skilfully had the seconds done their work, that neither looked a
jot the worse for what had passed. Wilson led viciously with his
left, but misjudged his distance, receiving a smashing counter on
the mark in reply which sent him reeling and gasping to the ropes.
"Hurrah for the old one!" yelled the mob, and my uncle laughed and
nudged Sir John Lade. The west-countryman smiled, and shook himself
like a dog from the water as with a stealthy step he came back to
the centre of the ring, where his man was still standing. Bang came
Harrison's right upon the mark once more, but Crab broke the blow
with his elbow, and jumped laughing away. Both men were a little
winded, and their quick, high breathing, with the light patter of
their feet as they danced round each other, blended into one
continuous, long-drawn sound. Two simultaneous exchanges with the
left made a clap like a pistol-shot, and then as Harrison rushed in
for a fall, Wilson slipped him, and over went my old friend upon his
face, partly from the impetus of his own futile attack, and partly
from a swinging half-arm blow which the west-countryman brought home
upon his ear as he passed.
"Knock-down for Wilson," cried the referee, and the answering roar
was like the broadside of a seventy-four. Up went hundreds of curly
brimmed Corinthian hats into the air, and the slope before us was a
bank of flushed and yelling faces. My heart was cramped with my
fears, and I winced at every blow, yet I was conscious also of an
absolute fascination, with a wild thrill of fierce joy and a certain
exultation in our common human nature which could rise above pain
and fear in its straining after the very humblest form of fame.
Belcher and Baldwin had pounced upon their man, and had him up and
in his corner in an instant, but, in spite of the coolness with
which the hardy smith took his punishment, there was immense
exultation amongst the west-countrymen.
"We've got him! He's beat! He's beat!" shouted the two Jew
seconds. "It's a hundred to a tizzy on Gloucester!"
"Beat, is he?" answered Belcher. "You'll need to rent this field
before you can beat him, for he'll stand a month of that kind of
fly-flappin'." He was swinging a towel in front of Harrison as he
spoke, whilst Baldwin mopped him with the sponge.
"How is it with you, Harrison?" asked my uncle.
"Hearty as a buck, sir. It's as right as the day."
The cheery answer came with so merry a ring that the clouds cleared
from my uncle's face.
"You should recommend your man to lead more, Tregellis," said Sir
John Lade. "He'll never win it unless he leads."
"He knows more about the game than you or I do, Lade. I'll let him
take his own way."
"The betting is three to one against him now," said a gentleman,
whose grizzled moustache showed that he was an officer of the late
war.
"Very true, General Fitzpatrick. But you'll observe that it is the
raw young bloods who are giving the odds, and the Sheenies who are
taking them. I still stick to my opinion."
The two men came briskly up to the scratch at the call of time, the
smith a little lumpy on one side of his head, but with the same
good-humoured and yet menacing smile upon his lips. As to Wilson,
he was exactly as he had begun in appearance, but twice I saw him
close his lips sharply as if he were in a sudden spasm of pain, and
the blotches over his ribs were darkening from scarlet to a sullen
purple. He held his guard somewhat lower to screen this vulnerable
point, and he danced round his opponent with a lightness which
showed that his wind had not been impaired by the body-blows, whilst
the smith still adopted the impassive tactics with which he had
commenced.
Many rumours had come up to us from the west as to Crab Wilson's
fine science and the quickness of his hitting, but the truth
surpassed what had been expected of him. In this round and the two
which followed he showed a swiftness and accuracy which old
ringsiders declared that Mendoza in his prime had never surpassed.
He was in and out like lightning, and his blows were heard and felt
rather than seen. But Harrison still took them all with the same
dogged smile, occasionally getting in a hard body-blow in return,
for his adversary's height and his position combined to keep his
face out of danger. At the end of the fifth round the odds were
four to one, and the west-countrymen were riotous in their
exultation.
"What think you now?" cried the west-countryman behind me, and in
his excitement he could get no further save to repeat over and over
again, "What think you now?" When in the sixth round the smith was
peppered twice without getting in a counter, and had the worst of
the fall as well, the fellow became inarticulate altogether, and
could only huzza wildly in his delight. Sir Lothian Hume was
smiling and nodding his head, whilst my uncle was coldly impassive,
though I was sure that his heart was as heavy as mine.
"This won't do, Tregellis," said General Fitzpatrick. "My money is
on the old one, but the other is the finer boxer."
"My man is un peu passe, but he will come through all right,"
answered my uncle.
I saw that both Belcher and Baldwin were looking grave, and I knew
that we must have a change of some sort, or the old tale of youth
and age would be told once more.
The seventh round, however, showed the reserve strength of the hardy
old fighter, and lengthened the faces of those layers of odds who
had imagined that the fight was practically over, and that a few
finishing rounds would have given the smith his coup-de-grace. It
was clear when the two men faced each other that Wilson had made
himself up for mischief, and meant to force the fighting and
maintain the lead which he had gained, but that grey gleam was not
quenched yet in the veteran's eyes, and still the same smile played
over his grim face. He had become more jaunty, too, in the swing of
his shoulders and the poise of his head, and it brought my
confidence back to see the brisk way in which he squared up to his
man.
Wilson led with his left, but was short, and he only just avoided a
dangerous right-hander which whistled in at his ribs. "Bravo, old
'un, one of those will be a dose of laudanum if you get it home,"
cried Belcher. There was a pause of shuffling feet and hard
breathing, broken by the thud of a tremendous body blow from Wilson,
which the smith stopped with the utmost coolness. Then again a few
seconds of silent tension, when Wilson led viciously at the head,
but Harrison took it on his forearm, smiling and nodding at his
opponent. "Get the pepper-box open!" yelled Mendoza, and Wilson
sprang in to carry out his instructions, but was hit out again by a
heavy drive on the chest. "Now's the time! Follow it up!" cried
Belcher, and in rushed the smith, pelting in his half-arm blows, and
taking the returns without a wince, until Crab Wilson went down
exhausted in the corner. Both men had their marks to show, but
Harrison had all the best of the rally, so it was our turn to throw
our hats into the air and to shout ourselves hoarse, whilst the
seconds clapped their man upon his broad back as they hurried him to
his corner.
"What think you now?" shouted all the neighbours of the west-
countryman, repeating his own refrain.
"Why, Dutch Sam never put in a better rally," cried Sir John Lade.
"What's the betting now, Sir Lothian?"
"I have laid all that I intend; but I don't think my man can lose
it." For all that, the smile had faded from his face, and I
observed that he glanced continually over his shoulder into the
crowd behind him.
A sullen purple cloud had been drifting slowly up from the south-
west--though I dare say that out of thirty thousand folk there were
very few who had spared the time or attention to mark it. Now it
suddenly made its presence apparent by a few heavy drops of rain,
thickening rapidly into a sharp shower, which filled the air with
its hiss, and rattled noisily upon the high, hard hats of the
Corinthians. Coat-collars were turned up and handkerchiefs tied
round. necks, whilst the skins of the two men glistened with the
moisture as they stood up to each other once more. I noticed that
Belcher whispered very earnestly into Harrison's ear as he rose from
his knee, and that the smith nodded his head curtly, with the air of
a man who understands and approves of his orders.
And what those orders were was instantly apparent. Harrison was to
be turned from the defender into the attacker. The result of the
rally in the last round had convinced his seconds that when it came
to give-and-take hitting, their hardy and powerful man was likely to
have the better of it. And then on the top of this came the rain.
With the slippery grass the superior activity of Wilson would be
neutralized, and he would find it harder to avoid the rushes of his
opponent. It was in taking advantage of such circumstances that the
art of ringcraft lay, and many a shrewd and vigilant second had won
a losing battle for his man. "Go in, then! Go in!" whooped the two
prize-fighters, while every backer in the crowd took up the roar.
And Harrison went in, in such fashion that no man who saw him do it
will ever forget it. Crab Wilson, as game as a pebble, met him with
a flush hit every time, but no human strength or human science
seemed capable of stopping the terrible onslaught of this iron man.
Round after round he scrambled his way in, slap-bang, right and
left, every hit tremendously sent home. Sometimes he covered his
own face with his left, and sometimes he disdained to use any guard
at all, but his springing hits were irresistible. The rain lashed
down upon them, pouring from their faces and running in crimson
trickles over their bodies, but neither gave any heed to it save to
manoeuvre always with the view of bringing it in to each other's
eyes. But round after round the west-countryman fell, and round
after round the betting rose, until the odds were higher in our
favour than ever they had been against us. With a sinking heart,
filled with pity and admiration for these two gallant men, I longed
that every bout might be the last, and yet the "Time!" was hardly
out of Jackson's mouth before they had both sprung from their
second's knees, with laughter upon their mutilated faces and
chaffing words upon their bleeding lips. It may have been a humble
object-lesson, but I give you my word that many a time in my life I
have braced myself to a hard task by the remembrance of that morning
upon Crawley Downs, asking myself if my manhood were so weak that I
would not do for my country, or for those whom I loved, as much as
these two would endure for a paltry stake and for their own credit
amongst their fellows. Such a spectacle may brutalize those who are
brutal, but I say that there is a spiritual side to it also, and
that the sight of the utmost human limit of endurance and courage is
one which bears a lesson of its own.
But if the ring can breed bright virtues, it is but a partisan who
can deny that it can be the mother of black vices also, and we were
destined that morning to have a sight of each. It so chanced that,
as the battle went against his man, my eyes stole round very often
to note the expression upon Sir Lothian Hume's face, for I knew how
fearlessly he had laid the odds, and I understood that his fortunes
as well as his champion were going down before the smashing blows of
the old bruiser. The confident smile with which he had watched the
opening rounds had long vanished from his lips, and his cheeks had
turned of a sallow pallor, whilst his small, fierce grey eyes looked
furtively from under his craggy brows, and more than once he burst
into savage imprecations when Wilson was beaten to the ground. But
especially I noticed that his chin was always coming round to his
shoulder, and that at the end of every round he sent keen little
glances flying backwards into the crowd. For some time, amidst the
immense hillside of faces which banked themselves up on the slope
behind us, I was unable to pick out the exact point at which his
gaze was directed. But at last I succeeded in following it. A very
tall man, who showed a pair of broad, bottle-green shoulders high
above his neighbours, was looking very hard in our direction, and I
assured myself that a quick exchange of almost imperceptible signals
was going on between him and the Corinthian baronet. I became
conscious, also, as I watched this stranger, that the cluster of men
around him were the roughest elements of the whole assembly:
fierce, vicious-looking fellows, with cruel, debauched faces, who
howled like a pack of wolves at every blow, and yelled execrations
at Harrison whenever he walked across to his corner. So turbulent
were they that I saw the ringkeepers whisper together and glance up
in their direction, as if preparing for trouble in store, but none
of them had realized how near it was to breaking out, or how
dangerous it might prove.
Thirty rounds had been fought in an hour and twenty-five minutes,
and the rain was pelting down harder than ever. A thick steam rose
from the two fighters, and the ring was a pool of mud. Repeated
falls had turned the men brown, with a horrible mottling of crimson
blotches. Round after round had ended by Crab Wilson going down,
and it was evident, even to my inexperienced eyes, that he was
weakening rapidly. He leaned heavily upon the two Jews when they
led him to his corner, and he reeled when their support was
withdrawn. Yet his science had, through long practice, become an
automatic thing with him, so that he stopped and hit with less
power, but with as great accuracy as ever. Even now a casual
observer might have thought that he had the best of the battle, for
the smith was far the more terribly marked, but there was a wild
stare in the west-countryman's eyes, and a strange catch in his
breathing, which told us that it is not the most dangerous blow
which shows upon the surface. A heavy cross-buttock at the end of
the thirty-first round shook the breath from his body, and he came
up for the thirty-second with the same jaunty gallantry as ever, but
with the dazed expression of a man whose wind has been utterly
smashed.
"He's got the roly-polies," cried Belcher. "You have it your own
way now!"
"I'll vight for a week yet," gasped Wilson.
"Damme, I like his style," cried Sir John Lade. "No shifting,
nothing shy, no hugging nor hauling. It's a shame to let him fight.
Take the brave fellow away!"
"Take him away! Take him away!" echoed a hundred voices.
"I won't be taken away! Who dares say so?" cried Wilson, who was
back, after another fall, upon his second's knee.
"His heart won't suffer him to cry enough," said General
Fitzpatrick. "As his patron, Sir Lothian, you should direct the
sponge to be thrown up."
"You think he can't win it?"
"He is hopelessly beat, sir."
"You don't know him. He's a glutton of the first water."
"A gamer man never pulled his shirt off; but the other is too strong
for him."
"Well, sir, I believe that he can fight another ten rounds." He
half turned as he spoke, and I saw him throw up his left arm with a
singular gesture into the air.
"Cut the ropes! Fair play! Wait till the rain stops!" roared a
stentorian voice behind me, and I saw that it came from the big man
with the bottle-green coat. His cry was a signal, for, like a
thunderclap, there came a hundred hoarse voices shouting together:
"Fair play for Gloucester! Break the ring! Break the ring!"
Jackson had called "Time," and the two mud-plastered men were
already upon their feet, but the interest had suddenly changed from
the fight to the audience. A succession of heaves from the back of
the crowd had sent a series of long ripples running through it, all
the heads swaying rhythmically in the one direction like a
wheatfield in a squall. With every impulsion the oscillation
increased, those in front trying vainly to steady themselves against
the rushes from behind, until suddenly there came a sharp snap, two
white stakes with earth clinging to their points flew into the outer
ring, and a spray of people, dashed from the solid wave behind, were
thrown against the line of the beaters-out. Down came the long
horse-whips, swayed by the most vigorous arms in England; but the
wincing and shouting victims had no sooner scrambled back a few
yards from the merciless cuts, before a fresh charge from the rear
hurled them once more into the arms of the prize-fighters. Many
threw themselves down upon the turf and allowed successive waves to
pass over their bodies, whilst others, driven wild by the blows,
returned them with their hunting-crops and walking-canes. And then,
as half the crowd strained to the left and half to the right to
avoid the pressure from behind, the vast mass was suddenly reft in
twain, and through the gap surged the rough fellows from behind, all
armed with loaded sticks and yelling for "Fair play and Gloucester!"
Their determined rush carried the prize-fighters before them, the
inner ropes snapped like threads, and in an instant the ring was a
swirling,' seething mass of figures, whips and sticks falling and
clattering, whilst, face to face, in the middle of it all, so wedged
that they could neither advance nor retreat, the smith and the west-
countryman continued their long-drawn battle as oblivious of the
chaos raging round them as two bulldogs would have been who had got
each other by the throat. The driving rain, the cursing and screams
of pain, the swish of the blows, the yelling of orders and advice,
the heavy smell of the damp cloth--every incident of that scene of
my early youth comes back to me now in my old age as clearly as if
it had been but yesterday.
It was not easy for us to observe anything at the time, however, for
we were ourselves in the midst of the frantic crowd, swaying about
and carried occasionally quite off our feet, but endeavouring to
keep our places behind Jackson and Berkeley Craven, who, with sticks
and whips meeting over their heads, were still calling the rounds
and superintending the fight.
"The ring's broken!" shouted Sir Lothian Hume. "I appeal to the
referee! The fight is null and void."
"You villain!" cried my uncle, hotly; "this is your doing."
"You have already an account to answer for with me," said Hume, with
his sinister sneer, and as he spoke he was swept by the rush of the
crowd into my uncle's very arms. The two men's faces were not more
than a few inches apart, and Sir Lothian's bold eyes had to sink
before the imperious scorn which gleamed coldly in those of my
uncle.
"We will settle our accounts, never fear, though I degrade myself in
meeting such a blackleg. What is it, Craven?"
"We shall have to declare a draw, Tregellis."
"My man has the fight in hand."
"I cannot help it. I cannot attend to my duties when every moment I
am cut over with a whip or a stick."
Jackson suddenly made a wild dash into the crowd, but returned with
empty hands and a rueful face.
"They've stolen my timekeeper's watch," he cried. "A little cove
snatched it out of my hand."
My uncle clapped his hand to his fob.
"Mine has gone also!" he cried.
"Draw it at once, or your man will get hurt," said Jackson, and we
saw that as the undaunted smith stood up to Wilson for another
round, a dozen rough fellows were clustering round him with
bludgeons.
"Do you consent to a draw, Sir Lothian Hume?"
"I do."
"And you, Sir Charles?"
"Certainly not."
"The ring is gone."
"That is no fault of mine."
"Well, I see no help for it. As referee I order that the men be
withdrawn, and that the stakes be returned to their owners."
"A draw! A draw!" shrieked every one, and the crowd in an instant
dispersed in every direction, the pedestrians running to get a good
lead upon the London road, and the Corinthians in search of their
horses and carriages. Harrison ran over to Wilson's corner and
shook him by the hand.
"I hope I have not hurt you much."
"I'm hard put to it to stand. How are you?"
"My head's singin' like a kettle. It was the rain that helped me."
"Yes, I thought I had you beat one time. I never wish a better
battle."
"Nor me either. Good-bye."
And so those two brave-hearted fellows made their way amidst the
yelping roughs, like two wounded lions amidst a pack of wolves and
jackals. I say again that, if the ring has fallen low, it is not in
the main the fault of the men who have done the fighting, but it
lies at the door of the vile crew of ring-side parasites and
ruffians, who are as far below the honest pugilist as the welsher
and the blackleg are below the noble racehorse which serves them as
a pretext for their villainies. _
Read next: CHAPTER XIX - CLIFFE ROYAL
Read previous: CHAPTER XVII - THE RING-SIDE
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