A STREET FIGHT, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
He emerged upon the street which crosses the head of Market Strand,
and, dropping his arms, stood for a moment us if in doubt of his
bearings. He was flagrantly drunk, but not aggressively.
He reminded me of a purblind owl that, blundering Into daylight, is
set upon and mobbed by a crowd of small birds.
The 'longshoremen and loafers grinned and winked at one another, but
forbore to interfere. Plainly the spectacle was a familiar one.
The man was not altogether repulsive; pitiable, rather; a small, lean
fellow, with a grey-white face drawn into wrinkles about the jaw, and
eyes that wandered timidly. He wore a suit of good sea-cloth--
soiled, indeed, but neither ragged nor threadbare--and a blue and
yellow spotted neckerchief, the bow of which had worked around
towards his right ear. His hat, perched a-cock over his left eye,
had made acquaintance with the tavern sawdust. Next to his
drunkenness, perhaps, the most remarkable thing about him was his
stick--of ebony, very curiously carved in rings from knob to ferrule,
where it ended in an iron spike; an ugly weapon, of which his
tormentors stood in dread, and small blame to them.
While he stood hesitating, they swarmed close and began to bay him
afresh.
"Captain Coffin, Captain Coffin!" "Who killed the Portugee?"
"Who hid the treasure and got so drunk he couldn't find it?"
"Where's your ship, Cap'n Danny?" These were some of the taunts
flung; and as the urchins danced about him, yelling them, the passion
blazed up again in his red-rimmed eyes.
Amongst the crowd capered Ted Bates. "Hallo, Brooks!" he shouted,
and, catching at another boy's elbow, pointed towards me.
Beyond noting that the other boy had a bullet-shaped head with ears
that stood out from it at something like right angles, I had time to
take very little stock of him; for just then, us Captain Coffin
turned about to smite, a stone came flying and struck him smartly on
the funny-bone. His hand opened with the pain of it, but the stick
hung by a loop to his wrist, and, gripping it again, he charged among
his tormentors, lashing out to right and left.
So savagely he charged that I looked for nothing short of murder; and
just then, while I stood at gaze, a boy stepped up to me--the same
that Ted Bates had plucked by the arm.
"Look here!" said he, frowning, with his legs a-straddle.
"Doggy Bates tells me that you told him you could whack me with one
hand behind you."
I replied that I had told Doggy Bates nothing of the sort.
"That's all right," said he. "Then you take it back?"
He had the air of one sure of his logic, but his under lip--not to
mention his ears--protruded in a way that struck me as offensive, and
I replied--
"That depends."
"My name's Stokes," said he, still in the same reasonable tone.
"And you'll have to take coward's blow."
"Oh, indeed!" said I.
"It's the rule," said he, and gave it me with a light, back-handed
smack across the bridge of the nose; whereupon I hit him on the point
of the chin, and, unconsciously imitating Captain Coffin's method of
charging a crowd, lowered my head and butted him violently in the
stomach.
I make no doubt that my brain was tired and giddy with the day's
experiences, but to this moment I cannot understand why we two
suddenly found ourselves the focus of interest in a crowd which had
wasted none on Captain Coffin.
But so it was. In less time than it takes to write, a ring
surrounded us--a ring of men staring and offering bets. The lamp at
the street-corner shone on their faces; and close under the light of
it Master Stokes and I were hammering one another.
We were fighting by rule, too. Some one--I cannot say who--had taken
up the affair, and was imposing the right ceremonial upon us. It may
have been the cheerful, blue-jerseyed Irishman, to whose knee I
returned at the end of each round to be freshened up around the face
and neck with a dripping boat-sponge. He had an extraordinarily wide
mouth, and it kept speaking encouragement and good advice to me.
I feel sure he was a good fellow, but have never set eyes on him from
that hour to this.
Bully Stokes and I must have fought a good many rounds, for towards
the end we were both panting hard, and our hands hung on every blow.
But I remember yet more vividly the strangeness of it all, and the
uncanny sensation that the fight itself, the street-lamp, the crowd,
and the dim houses around were unreal as a dream: that, and the
unnatural hardness of my opponent's face, which seemed the one
unmalleable part of him.
A dreadful thought possessed me that if he could only contrive to hit
me with his face all would be over. My own was badly pounded; for we
fought--or, at any rate, I fought--without the smallest science; it
was blow for blow, plain give-and-take, from the start. But what
distressed me was the extreme tenderness of my knuckles; and what
chiefly irritated me was the behaviour of Doggy Bates, dancing about
and screaming, "Go it, Stimcoes! Stimcoes for ever!" Five times the
onlookers flung him out by the scruff of his neck; and five times he
worked himself back, and screamed it between their legs.
In the end this enthusiasm proved the undoing of all his delight.
Towards the end of an intolerably long round, finding that my arms
began to hang like lead, I had rushed in and closed; and the two of
us went to ground together. Then I lay panting, and my opponent
under me--the pair of us too weary for the moment to strike a blow;
and then, as breath came back, I was aware of a sudden hush in the
din. A hand took me by the shirt-collar, dragged me to my feet, and
swung me round, and I stared, blinking, into the face of Mr. Stimcoe.
"Dishgrashful!" said Mr. Stimcoe. He was accompanied by a constable,
to whom he appealed for confirmation, pointing to my face.
"Left immy charge only this evening, Perf'ly dishgrashful!"
"Boys will be boys, sir," said the constable.
"M' good fellow "--Mr. Stimcoe comprehended the crowd with an
unsteady wave of his hand--"that don't 'pply 'case of men. _Ne tu
pu'ri tempsherish annosh_; tha's Juvenal."
"Then my advice is, sir--take the boy home and give him a wash."
"He can't," came a taunting voice from the crowd. "'Cos why?
The company 've cut off his water."
Mr. Stimcoe gazed around in sorrow rather than in anger. He cleared
his throat for a public speech; but was forestalled by the
constable's dispersing the throng with a "Clear along, now, like good
fellows!"
The wide-mouthed man helped me into my jacket, shook hands with me,
and said I had no science, but the devil's own pluck-and-lights.
Then he, too, faded away into the night; and I found myself alongside
of Doggy Bates, marching up the street after Mr. Stimcoe, who
declaimed, as he went, upon the vulgarity of street-fighting.
By-and-by it became apparent that in the soothing flow of his
eloquence he had forgotten us; and Doggy Bates, who understood his
preceptor's habits to a hair, checked me with a knowing squeeze of
the arm, and began, of set purpose, to lag in his steps. Mr. Stimcoe
strode on, still audibly denouncing and exhorting.
"It was all my fault!" Master Bates pulled up and studied my mauled
face by the light of a street-lamp. "The beggar heard me shouting
his own name, silly fool that I was!"
I begged him not to be distressed on my account.
"What's the use of half a fight?" he groaned again. "My word,
though, won't Stimcoe catch it from the missus! She sent him out to
get change for your aunt's notes--'fees payable in advance.' I know
the game--to pay off the bailey; and he's been soaking in a
public-house ever since. Hallo!"
We turned together at the sound of footsteps approaching after us up
the street. They broke into a run, then appeared to falter; and,
peering into the dark interval between us and the next lamp, I
discerned Captain Coffin. He had come to a halt, and stood there
mysteriously beckoning.
"You--I want you!" he called huskily. "Not the other boy! You!"
I obeyed, having a reputation to keep up in the eyes of Doggy Bates;
but my courage was oozing as I walked towards the old man, and I came
to a sudden stop about five yards from him.
"Closer!" he beckoned. "Good boy, don't be afraid. What's your
name, good boy?"
"Harry Brooks, sir."
"Call me 'sir,' do you? Well, and you're right. I could ride in my
coach-and-six if I chose; and some day you may see it. How would you
like to ride in your coach-and-six, Harry Brooks?"
"I should like it finely, sir," said I, humouring him.
"Yes, yes, I'll wager you would. Well, now--come closer. Mum's the
word, eh? I like you, Harry Brooks; and the boys in this town "--he
broke off and cursed horribly--"they're not fit to carry slops to a
bear, not one of 'em. But you're different. And, see here: any time
you're in trouble, just pay a call on me. Understand? Mind you, I
make no promises." Here, to my exceeding fright, he reached out a
hand, and, clutching me by the arm, drew me close, so that his breath
poured hot on my ear, and I sickened at its reek of brandy.
"It's _money_, boy--_money_, I tell you!"
He dropped my arm, and, falling back a pace, looked nervously about
him.
"Between you and me and the gatepost, eh?" he asked.
His hand went down and tapped his pocket slily, and with that he
turned and shuffled away down the street. I stared after him into
the foggy darkness, listening to the tap of his stick upon the
cobbles.