want me to win; but you mustn’t be very much surprised if I do. This
old Fogo finds I’ve got a bit of the right stuff in me; and for that
matter, I’ve found it out myself. I take to it like a duck takes to
water. I’ve always been fond of dancing--nobody knows that better than
you--and dancing is very helpful to a fighter. To hit and get off
without being hit back--that’s the whole art of prize-fighting, and I’m
afraid I shall hit David twice to his once."
Instantly the lover came to Madge’s heart, despite herself.
"He doesn’t brag," she said. "He’s very quiet and humble about it. But
maybe you’ll find he can hit too, Bartley, though I grant you he can’t
dance."
He laughed and left her then; and next day as the pugilist from Plymouth
had to return home about his business, an experienced local called
Pierce, from Kingsett Farm, near Crazywell, on Dartmoor, was prevailed
upon to assist. He and Crocker set to steadily. But Pierce was nearly
forty, and too small for Bartley; therefore the lord of the manor
himself filled the breach. Not, indeed, that Sir Guy Flamank put on the
gloves; but he found a large-limbed youth down for Christmas from
Oxford, who was the heavy-weight champion at that seat of learning, and
this skilful youngster gave Bartley some invaluable information.
Little was known respecting David’s progress; but Elias Bowden made the
acquaintance of ’Frosty-face,’ and provided this celebrity with one or
two days’ sport on the warren. Mr. Fogo proved no mean shot, and among
other game of a good mixed bag, two wood-pigeons and three golden plover
fell to his borrowed weapon. He discussed the Prize Ring for the
gratification of Mr. Bowden on this occasion, but though David’s father
tried hard to learn how Bartley was coming on in his training, Mr.
Fogo’s silence upon that theme exceeded even the customary taciturnity
of the Warren House. He was only concerned with the growing rumours of
organised interference, yet he assured Mr. Bowden that the fight would
certainly come off, at a time and place to be arranged by him and Reuben
Shillabeer.
It is to be noted that Crocker had now left his home altogether, and was
living at ’The Corner House.’ The high-handed attitude of his mother
and her immense energy and indignation rendered this step necessary. The
reminder that his grandfather had been a bailiff lacked force to shake
Bartley from his evil determination; therefore she threatened to
disinherit him, and hinted at incarceration and other vague
counter-strokes. But when day followed day and nothing moderated his
intention; when she saw that he had given up malt liquor and spirits;
that he insisted on certain foods; that he rose at reasonable hours and
took an immense deal of active exercise--when, in fact, she grasped the
truth that her only son meant to fight a prize-fight, and was taking
every possible precaution to win it, then she broke down and threatened
no more, but became hysterical, melodramatic and mournful. It was
enough that he entered the house for Nanny to fling herself into an
attitude of despair. Her appetite suffered, her sleep suffered, even
her spirits suffered. From being a dictatorial and assertive woman, who
used her personality like a pistol, she grew meek, mild and plaintive.
She wearied her hearers; she filled Susan’s ears with pathetic details
concerning her wasting flesh, and begged her to report them again to
Bartley. Thus her son learned that his mother’s stockings had become
too large for her attenuated calves, and that her dresses were being
taken in many inches as the result of a general atrophy of tissue
produced by his behaviour. Nanny’s eyes haunted him. She had,
moreover, an art to drop tears exactly at those moments when he cast a
sly side glance at her face. She would drop them on to her work, or her
plate, or into her tea.
These distressing circumstances finally ejected Bartley from the
maternal threshold. He saw his mother daily, but felt that until the
battle was lost or won, he could endure her constant remonstrances no
more. He strove to make her take a sterner view, and she assured him
that had she not been a woman of gentle birth, it might have been
possible; but from one with the delicate Saunders blood in her veins,
only a genteel outlook on life could be expected; and there was no room
for tolerance of prize-fighting in that survey.
*CHAPTER XI*
*MR. FOGO IS SHOCKED*
’Frosty-face’ very naturally looked to it that this little encounter of
rustics should have some useful bearing on his own affairs. He was a
poor man and could not afford to ignore opportunities. With Mr.
Shillabeer he set about reviving all the glories of the twenty-four-foot
square, and he was determined that nothing should be omitted which could
make the approaching fight a dignified and successful entertainment,
worthy, in its small way, of the best traditions.
Before a full bar Mr. Fogo spoke at length. He had sold thirteen of his
poems that evening, and he was now about to unfasten a parcel that day
received from London; but, before doing so, he outlined the situation.
"I’m very pleased to find you know a bit down here," he began. "There’s
more of the right sort in these parts than we might have expected, and
there’ll be a good sprinkling of Corinthians at the ring-side too. The
doctor from Tavistock, who is going to referee, is as spicy a dare-devil
as I wish to meet at any mill; and he knows his job; and afterwards, if
either of you chaps want to be blooded, he can do it for you."
"We shall judge of the patronage by the number of fogies the swells take
up," said Mr. Shillabeer. "You see, the old rule is that a fighter
gives his colours to all who’ll take ’em; and it’s understood that if
he’s beat, the colours cost nought; but if he wins, everybody as took a
handkerchief be expected to pay a guinea for it."
"Well, here they are," answered ’Frosty-face.’ "I got ’em myself so
cheap as they could be got through a friend. Fifty there
are--twenty-five for each of the men--and if they go off, I can get more
at the same low figure."
He opened his parcel and revealed the colours. Bartley and several of
his friends were present; but David, who was to call that night with his
father, had not yet arrived. Mr. Crocker’s handkerchief was much
admired. It showed a rich orange centre bordered with three inches of
purple.
Both Fogo and Shillabeer took one, though not on the usual
understanding, and Bartley calculated that he knew about twenty
sportsmen, including Sir Guy, who would be glad to possess this memento
of the battle.
Then came the Bowdens, and the future combatants shook hands in a
friendly spirit and compared their colours. David’s were simpler and
quieter--a blue ’bird’s-eye’ with a white spot. Both parties could
number a good handful of patrons, and the encounter, albeit date and
place were still kept a dark secret, promised to be well attended.
"I’m painting the true blue stakes myself," said ’Frosty-face,’ "and
we’ll have a nobby ring if we don’t have a nobby fight in it."
"And where is it to be, Mr. Fogo?" asked Simon Snell.
"I wouldn’t tell everybody, but you shall know," answered the old man,
assuming a grim expression, which always preceded his finest jokes.
"We’ll have our turn up in the bull-ring, Mr. Snell. It have seen many
a bit of fun, they tell me, so why not a bit more?"
Everybody laughed, because Sheepstor bull-ring was the most public spot
for many miles round. It lay under the churchyard wall at the centre of
the hamlet.
"Couldn’t choose a better place, all the same," said Reuben Shillabeer,
"that is, if they’d let us alone. The burying-ground runs eight feet
above the ring; and there’s good grass there, and a nice tilt to the
ground, and proper trees all round for the sporting public to climb
into. However, that’s rather too warm a corner for modest men. We
don’t want the eyes of the nation on us."
"Leave it to me," said the Londoner. "There are certain people we
shan’t have no use for on the morning of the fight. And if they stop at
Sheepstor, ’tis clear we must go somewhere else. However, look to me;
I’ll give you the office in plenty of time."
"You’ll never get round parson and Mr. Moses and p’liceman and Mrs.
Crocker," foretold Tim Mattacott.
"I fear but one of ’em," answered Mr. Fogo. "They are all harmless men,
and I can handle ’em as easy as a mother handles her tenth babby. ’Tis
that spry lady will take some stopping. I’ve not got the length of her
foot yet--to say it with all respect. But all in good time."
"There’s to be a sermon preached by Mr. Merle next Sunday against this
here fight," said Mr. Bowden. "I’m sorry to the bone that he’s taken
this view, because I never like to quarrel with my betters; but to the
House of the Lord me and mine go as usual next Sunday, and whatever he
may preach won’t change my opinions."
"And I’ll go too," declared Fogo. "Yes, I’ll go and hear his
argeyments. ’Tis a good few years since I was in a place of prayer--in
fact, never since I stood best man when Alec Reid, ’the Chelsea Snob,’
was married. But on Sunday I shall be there, and you’ll see I can shut
my eyes and sniff my hat with the best among ye."
"You shall come along of me," said the ’Dumpling.’ "I go most times and
get a deal of good from it. My wife was a steady church member, for
though she’d fling off to chapel for change now and again, as women
will, yet she comed back again and again to the Establishment; and she
died in it, and Parson Merle will tell you ’twas so."
Then exploded suddenly a piece of news that quite staggered and shocked
the renowned visitor. It also cast down Mr. Shillabeer, for he felt
that Fogo, as a man, and the P.R., as an institution, were alike
insulted by such an astounding assertion from the rival camp.
The question of seconds had been raised and Mr. Fogo explained that he
and Shillabeer proposed to look after Crocker.
"I shall carry the bottle and offer advice as it’s called for, and
Reuben will pick him up and give him a knee," he declared.
"If he wants it," added the ’Dumpling’; "but unless David here be
cleverer than we think he is, Bartley won’t ask for much picking up."
"And who are going to look after you?" asked Fogo of David.
"My father and--"
"He can’t pick you up. Who else?"
"And my sister, Rhoda Bowden--a strong maiden. She and father will do
all that’s got to be done."
"Blow my dickey!" said Mr. Fogo, "that’s the first knock-down for you
anyway. A woman--a woman in the P.R.! You really thought that? That’s
the best joke I’ve heard since ’45."
"It’s settled," said David, calmly.
"A woman in the P.R.!" repeated Fogo. "Well, I’ve seen most things
during the last seventy years, but not that. Why don’t you ax your
sister to fight for you?"
"Look here," said the elder Bowden, "I won’t have nothing said in this
matter by you or anybody, Mr. Fogo, till you see for yourselves. Anyway
it’s going to happen."
"I quite agree!" declared Mr. Snell, suddenly. "Miss Rhoda’s a born
wonder and a most renowned creature for courage. None ever was like
her. A female no more feared to look on blood than we be to count our
wages. And as to picking him up, she could pick him up--and you too,
Mr. Fogo, as easily as I can turn a stop-cock."
"Can such things be?" asked Mr. Fogo. "This bangs Bannagher! A
woman--a young, female woman inside the P.R.! ’Tis enough to provoke
the anger of Heaven. May I die like a trundle-tailed cur, with a brick
round my neck, if I could ever stand it!"
"’Tis my girl that you saw up to the Warren House," said Mr. Bowden,
"her you said was a very fine woman, and you wished you’d got such a
pair of arms."
"Her with the chin?"
"She have a chin, I grant you."
"And who haven’t?" asked Mr. Snell.
"You must know ’tisn’t a common case," explained David. "My sister and
me be very close friends, and she’s terrible interested in this fight,
and, in short, she’ll have to be there--there’s no law against it."
"I’m shocked," said the old man. "’Tis a very indecent, outrageous
thing, and I protest with all my might. A petticoat in the P.R.! Can’t
everybody in this bar see it’s all wrong and disgraceful and
disorderly?"
"In a general way it would be," admitted Shillabeer; "but she ain’t no
common young woman, ’Frosty,’ and I’m not surprised to hear she means
it. She was axing me what a bottle-holder be expected to do a bit
back-along; and I half twigged that she’d got this idea in her noddle."
"Then it’s the end of the world," declared Mr. Fogo. "I ask for nothing
more. Perhaps our man wants his mother in his corner--also his aunt?
I’m sure they very much wish to be there by all accounts."
"Since the fight be in part about my sister, she’s a right on the spot,"
said David; "and this I’ll tell you, Mr. Fogo: though you laugh, you’ll
see what she’s like in the Ring; and if she does one thing--one single
thing--she shouldn’t, and fails of aught where a man could do better,
then I’ll give you the stakes if I win ’em."
"It’s contrary to all history and law and decency and nature. It isn’t
possible, I tell you. Here am I trying to revive the P.R. in a first
chop, gentlemanly fashion, and then you yokels plan a sin and a shame
like this," said Mr. Fogo. He was very much annoyed and returned again
and again to the threatened female incursion. Most of the company
agreed with him; indeed, only the Bowdens and Simon Snell supported
Rhoda as a second. Mr. Shillabeer was doubtful.
"Be there any law against it? That’s the question," he said. "Well, I
can’t say there is, ’Frosty.’ Of course there’s nought in the rules
about it."
"Because the rules was drawn for respectable, law-abiding people,"
answered Mr. Fogo.
They wrangled on, while David and Bartley spoke aside.
"Did you say that Miss Rhoda was really interested?" asked Crocker. "I
shouldn’t like to think that, David. I know I kissed her, like a silly
fool, in the Pixies’ House that day of the storm; but she don’t bear
malice, I hope, any more than you do?"
"Oh, no--no malice. It angered her cruel all the same, as it did me;
and she won’t be sorry to see you lose--though there’s no
malice--certainly not."
"You’re in luck with such a sister and such a wife to be."
David changed the subject.
"Have they settled where ’tis to come off?"
"No--only the day."
"Monday week?"
"Yes."
"I’m going down to Plymouth Monday to practise with the boxers there,"
said David, and Bartley nodded.
"They’ll larn you a lot," he said.
Mr. Fogo’s voice again rose in wrath.
"The Fancy won’t stand it. Mark me; they’ll hiss her out of the Ring.
Such a thing won’t be suffered in a Christian land."
The hour grew late and Mr. Maunder looked in somewhat coldly. Since his
vital difference of opinion on the subject of the prize-fight, he had
withdrawn his patronage from ’The Corner House.’ It was felt that he
could hardly be present in the camp of a combatant until the matter of
the pending battle was at an end.
"Closing time, Mr. Shillabeer," he said, and the ’Dumpling’ nodded.
"Right you are, Ernest. Come in and take a thimbleful along with me,
won’t ’e?"
"No, thank you. Not till this business is over. I’m against you, and I
won’t have bit or sup along with the enemy. I speak as the law,
Shillabeer, and not as a man. Of course _afterwards_ I shall come back
again; but not till I’ve bested you, or you’ve bested me."
"Nobody could speak fairer," declared Mr. Shillabeer.
Then the company departed; Bartley Crocker went to bed; and Reuben asked
his friend what steps he proposed to take with respect to evading the
police on Monday week. But Fogo was in no amiable or communicative
mood. His feelings had that night been much lacerated and the prospect
of seeing a woman in a prize-ring affected him acutely. He would not
talk about the matter, and when Mr. Shillabeer, according to custom,
brought conversation round to his vanished partner over the last glass,
Mr. Fogo failed of that tact for which he was renowned and refused even
to speak well of the deceased.
"I’ve heard enough about women to make me sick of the name of female
this night," he said. "I won’t utter a word more about ’em, living or
dead. Thank my stars I kept single anyway. They may be all right in
their proper place, but they don’t know the meaning of fair play, and
are worse than useless in every branch of sport that man ever invented.
You mark me: this man’s sister will come across the ring and try to
gouge our eyes out if her brother’s getting worsted!"
"Not she," promised the ’Dumpling.’ "I grant ’tis a sign the P.R.’s
coming to nought that a chap should have his sister to second him in a
fight; but since it had to be, never was a woman built more likely to
give a good account of herself in that place than Rhoda Bowden."
"Well, I hope to God the Fancy will rise like one man," answered Mr.
Fogo. "And now I’ll go to my bed; and if I don’t have a nightmare and
dream that I’m in a Ring along with the Queen of England and a few
duchesses and other high female characters, may I be blowed from here to
the top of Paul’s cathedral and back again."
He then retired.
Bowden and Crocker had both paid for their colours and Mr. Shillabeer
called his friend back to hand him the money, which, in his misery, Mr.
Fogo had forgotten.
*CHAPTER XII*
*FOR THE GOOD CAUSE*
Probably the Prince of Darkness himself had won little more profound
attention than Mr. Fogo when, in his cape and black knee-breeches, the
old sportsman attended divine service on the following Sunday. Those
interested entirely attributed the forthcoming fight to him, and many of
the mothers and grandmothers of the hamlet would have been well pleased
to mob ’Frosty-face’ and drive him by force of arms from the village.
One painful interview with Bartley Crocker’s mother he had not been able
to escape. She offered him ten pounds in gold to prevent the fight, and
when he explained that not for a hundred or a thousand pounds would he
be party to a ’cross,’ she had ’given him a bit of her mind and
threatened him with her ten commandments,’ as he afterwards expressed
it.
And now Mr. Fogo, supported by Mr. Shillabeer, sat at worship, answered
the responses and even essayed to join in the hymns. The behaviour of
both old men was marked by highest propriety; and both put a penny in
the plate when it reached them. The Bowdens, including David, were also
present, and Mr. Fogo’s sole acts of inattention were caused by the
circumstance that Rhoda sat beside her father. He stole several glances
at her and observed a powerful, handsome young woman, exceedingly
self-possessed and apparently well able to keep her nerve under any
circumstances. He admitted to the ’Dumpling’ that in an ordinary
emergency or difficulty Miss Bowden might probably hold her own; but a
prize-fight was not an ordinary emergency, and he held that, under no
conceivable tangle of circumstances, should a woman, in any capacity
whatsoever, be present at such a proceeding.
Mr. Merle preached, or it would be more correct to say thundered, from a
peaceable text in the New Testament. He hit hard and spared not. From
the lord of the manor to the landlord of ’The Corner House’ he ranged;
and he called heaven to witness that, for his part, no stone should be
left unturned to overthrow the forces of disorder. Incidentally Mr.
Merle gave his hearers a picture of a prize-fight, for it appeared that
in his degenerate Oxford days the pastor had witnessed a battle.
"One of the unhappy creatures who marred God’s own image on that
occasion was called Peter Crawley and known to his friends by the vulgar
soubriquet of ’Young Rump Steak,’" said the clergyman. Then glaring at
his congregation as though to dare a smile, he pulled his black gown
from his wrists and proceeded: "The name of the other pugilist was Jem
Ward, and they met on a winter’s day within a hundred miles of London--"
"At Royston--I was there," whispered Mr. Fogo to Reuben Shillabeer.
Both old men paid the preacher every attention.
"Their degrading operations were considered to constitute a pretty day’s
sport," continued Mr. Merle. "These men battered and tore and dashed
each other upon the earth time after time. Again and again they fought
themselves to a standstill, which is, I believe, the technical
expression for absolute physical exhaustion. It was a battle of
ferocious fiends disguised as men, and when this Peter Crawley had
stricken the wretched Ward senseless in the eleventh round; and when
both were reduced to mere swollen, half-blind palpitating masses of
bruised and bleeding flesh, the people present shouted with infamous joy
and bore both combatants away in triumph from the ensanguined field."
"Jem lost all along of not having Tom Oliver for second," whispered
Fogo.
The clergyman proceeded at considerable length to point his moral, and
he wound up an eloquent appeal with special allusion to the stranger who
had come among his sheep. He did not actually describe ’Frosty-face’ as
a wolf; but he left no manner of doubt as to his opinion of the
Londoner; and he expressed acute regret that this Philistine should be
spending his leisure in Sheepstor, to the debasement of the youth and
manhood of the district.
Mr. Fogo listened with attention and propriety; while Mr. Shillabeer,
fearing what might happen, rolled uneasily, puffed, perspired and grew
red at intervals.
Of the principals and those who intended to aid them, only Bartley
Crocker was not present; but his mother heard the sermon, and the vision
of Peter Crawley and Jem Ward caused her to become so faint, that she
had to be helped into the air by Charles Moses long before the sermon
was finished.
Mr. Fogo himself and the company of the Bowdens accepted all the vicar
said without emotion. Only once, when he quoted Horace, did they lose
him for a moment. Elias Bowden had long convinced himself that a fair
stand-up fight, between men pretty closely matched, was a circumstance
morally justifiable in every respect; and his children accepted this
conclusion without demur. As for ’Frosty,’ his deep mind moved far too
busily with the future to trouble about any harsh present criticisms,
personal and public though they might be. He saw in Mr. Merle’s attitude
an opportunity that he sought, and after the service was ended, he bade
Reuben Shillabeer get home and leave him behind. Then, when most of the
people had gone; when the Bowdens, full of this charge, trailed up to
Ditsworthy; when the ’Dumpling,’ in great uneasiness, got him back to
his public-house; and when the congregation of chattering women and
dubious men had vanished this way and that, Mr. Fogo prevailed upon Mr.
Moses to introduce him to the vicar. The Rev. Theodore Merle was a
solid, plethoric parson of the old school--a pillar of Church and State,
loud-voiced, red-faced, kind-hearted, narrow-minded and conservative.
Mr. Fogo saluted this gentleman with the greatest deference, and briefly
explained that his discourse had caused him deep interest and touched
his conscience very forcibly at certain points. He then begged to know
if he might, at the vicar’s convenience, enjoy a little private
conversation.
Mr. Merle gladly consented to go at greater length into the matter with
the old stranger. He named the following evening for their meeting at
the vicarage, and expressed a hope that he might yet lead the Londoner
from his turbulent and unlawful ways.
Mr. Fogo replied that if any man had the art to do such a thing, it must
be Mr. Merle, whose eloquence had deeply impressed him. He then bowed
in a very courtly manner and withdrew. Afterwards, he secretly confided
to the shoemaker that the sermon had left him in great doubt of his
conduct, and he very patiently suffered Charles Moses to press the case
for law and order without offering much in the nature of opposition. He
hoped finally that Mr. Moses would make it convenient to be present at
the meeting with Mr. Merle; and the cobbler, firmly convinced that
’Frosty-face’ was yielding, promised to oblige him.