KENELM spoke no more to his new friend in the hayfields; but when the
day's work was over he looked round for the farmer to make an excuse
for not immediately joining the family supper. However, he did not
see either Mr. Saunderson or his son. Both were busied in the
stackyard. Well pleased to escape excuse and the questions it might
provoke, Kenelm therefore put on the coat he had laid aside and joined
Jessie, who had waited for him at the gate. They entered the lane
side by side, following the stream of villagers who were slowly
wending their homeward way. It was a primitive English village, not
adorned on the one hand with fancy or model cottages, nor on the other
hand indicating penury and squalor. The church rose before them gray
and Gothic, backed by the red clouds in which the sun had set, and
bordered by the glebe-land of the half-seen parsonage. Then came the
village green, with a pretty schoolhouse; and to this succeeded a long
street of scattered whitewashed cottages, in the midst of their own
little gardens.
As they walked the moon rose in full splendour, silvering the road
before them.
"Who is the Squire here?" asked Kenelm. "I should guess him to be a
good sort of man, and well off."
"Yes, Squire Travers; he is a great gentleman, and they say very rich.
But his place is a good way from this village. You can see it if you
stay, for he gives a harvest-home supper on Saturday, and Mr.
Saunderson and all his tenants are going. It is a beautiful park, and
Miss Travers is a sight to look at. Oh, she is lovely!" continued
Jessie, with an unaffected burst of admiration; for women are more
sensible of the charm of each other's beauty than men give them credit
for.
"As pretty as yourself?"
"Oh, pretty is not the word. She is a thousand times handsomer!"
"Humph!" said Kenelm, incredulously.
There was a pause, broken by a quick sigh from Jessie.
"What are you sighing for?--tell me."
"I was thinking that a very little can make folks happy, but that
somehow or other that very little is as hard to get as if one set
one's heart on a great deal."
"That's very wisely said. Everybody covets a little something for
which, perhaps, nobody else would give a straw. But what's the very
little thing for which you are sighing?"
"Mrs. Bawtrey wants to sell that shop of hers. She is getting old,
and has had fits; and she can get nobody to buy; and if Will had that
shop and I could keep it,--but 'tis no use thinking of that."
"What shop do you mean?"
"There!"
"Where? I see no shop."
"But it is /the/ shop of the village,--the only one,--where the
post-office is."
"Ah! I see something at the windows like a red cloak. What do they
sell?"
"Everything,--tea and sugar and candles and shawls and gowns and
cloaks and mouse-traps and letter-paper; and Mrs. Bawtrey buys poor
Will's baskets, and sells them for a good deal more than she pays."
"It seems a nice cottage, with a field and orchard at the back."
"Yes. Mrs. Bawtrey pays L8 a year for it; but the shop can well
afford it."
Kenelm made no reply. They both walked on in silence, and had now
reached the centre of the village street when Jessie, looking up,
uttered an abrupt exclamation, gave an affrighted start, and then came
to a dead stop.
Kenelm's eye followed the direction of hers, and saw, a few yards
distant, at the other side of the way, a small red brick house, with
thatched sheds adjoining it, the whole standing in a wide yard, over
the gate of which leaned a man smoking a small cutty-pipe. "It is Tom
Bowles," whispered Jessie, and instinctively she twined her arm into
Kenelm's; then, as if on second thoughts, withdrew it, and said, still
in a whisper, "Go back now, sir; do."
"Not I. It is Tom Bowles whom I want to know. Hush!"
For here Tom Bowles had thrown down his pipe and was coming slowly
across the road towards them.
Kenelm eyed him with attention. A singularly powerful man, not so
tall as Kenelm by some inches, but still above the middle height,
herculean shoulders and chest, the lower limbs not in equal
proportion,--a sort of slouching, shambling gait. As he advanced the
moonlight fell on his face; it was a handsome one. He wore no hat,
and his hair, of a light brown, curled close. His face was
fresh-coloured, with aquiline features; his age apparently about six
or seven and twenty. Coming nearer and nearer, whatever favourable
impression the first glance at his physiognomy might have made on
Kenelm was dispelled, for the expression of his face changed and
became fierce and lowering.
Kenelm was still walking on, Jessie by his side, when Bowles rudely
thrust himself between them, and seizing the girl's arm with one hand,
he turned his face full on Kenelm, with a menacing wave of the other
hand, and said in a deep burly voice,
"Who be you?"
"Let go that young woman before I tell you."
"If you weren't a stranger," answered Bowles, seeming as if he tried
to suppress a rising fit of wrath, "you'd be in the kennel for those
words. But I s'pose you don't know that I'm Tom Bowles, and I don't
choose the girl as I'm after to keep company with any other man. So
you be off."
"And I don't choose any other man to lay violent hands on any girl
walking by my side without telling him that he's a brute; and that I
only wait till he has both his hands at liberty to let him know that
he has not a poor cripple to deal with."
Tom Bowles could scarcely believe his ears. Amaze swallowed up for
the moment every other sentiment. Mechanically he loosened his hold
of Jessie, who fled off like a bird released. But evidently she
thought of her new friend's danger more than her own escape; for
instead of sheltering herself in her father's cottage, she ran towards
a group of labourers who, near at hand, had stopped loitering before
the public-house, and returned with those allies towards the spot in
which she had left the two men. She was very popular with the
villagers, who, strong in the sense of numbers, overcame their awe of
Tom Bowles, and arrived at the place half running, half striding, in
time, they hoped, to interpose between his terrible arm and the bones
of the unoffending stranger.
Meanwhile Bowles, having recovered his first astonishment, and
scarcely noticing Jessie's escape, still left his right arm extended
towards the place she had vacated, and with a quick back-stroke of the
left levelled at Kenelm's face, growled contemptuously, "Thou'lt find
one hand enough for thee."
But quick as was his aim, Kenelm caught the lifted arm just above the
elbow, causing the blow to waste itself on air, and with a
simultaneous advance of his right knee and foot dexterously tripped up
his bulky antagonist, and laid him sprawling on his back. The
movement was so sudden, and the stun it occasioned so utter, morally
as well as physically, that a minute or more elapsed before Tom Bowles
picked himself up. And he then stood another minute glowering at his
antagonist, with a vague sentiment of awe almost like a superstitious
panic. For it is noticeable that, however fierce and fearless a man
or even a wild beast may be, yet if either has hitherto been only
familiar with victory and triumph, never yet having met with a foe
that could cope with its force, the first effect of a defeat,
especially from a despised adversary, unhinges and half paralyzes the
whole nervous system. But as fighting Tom gradually recovered to the
consciousness of his own strength, and the recollection that it had
been only foiled by the skilful trick of a wrestler, and not the
hand-to-hand might of a pugilist, the panic vanished, and Tom Bowles
was himself again. "Oh, that's your sort, is it? We don't fight with
our heels hereabouts, like Cornishers and donkeys: we fight with our
fists, youngster; and since you /will/ have a bout at that, why, you
must."
"Providence," answered Kenelm, solemnly, "sent me to this village for
the express purpose of licking Tom Bowles. It is a signal mercy
vouchsafed to yourself, as you will one day acknowledge."
Again a thrill of awe, something like that which the demagogue in
Aristophanes might have felt when braved by the sausage-maker, shot
through the valiant heart of Tom Bowles. He did not like those
ominous words, and still less the lugubrious tone of voice in which
they were uttered, But resolved, at least, to proceed to battle with
more preparation than he had at first designed, he now deliberately
disencumbered himself of his heavy fustian jacket and vest, rolled up
his shirt-sleeves, and then slowly advanced towards the foe.
Kenelm had also, with still greater deliberation, taken off his
coat--which he folded up with care, as being both a new and an only
one, and deposited by the hedge-side--and bared arms, lean indeed and
almost slight, as compared with the vast muscle of his adversary, but
firm in sinew as the hind leg of a stag.
By this time the labourers, led by Jessie, had arrived at the spot,
and were about to crowd in between the combatants, when Kenelm waved
them back and said in a calm and impressive voice,--
"Stand round, my good friends, make a ring, and see that it is fair
play on my side. I am sure it will be fair on Mr. Bowles's. He is
big enough to scorn what is little. And now, Mr. Bowles, just a word
with you in the presence of your neighbours. I am not going to say
anything uncivil. If you are rather rough and hasty, a man is not
always master of himself--at least so I am told--when he thinks more
than he ought to do about a pretty girl. But I can't look at your
face even by this moonlight, and though its expression at this moment
is rather cross, without being sure that you are a fine fellow at
bottom, and that if you give a promise as man to man you will keep it.
Is that so?"
One or two of the bystanders murmured assent; the others pressed round
in silent wonder.
"What's all that soft-sawder about?" said Tom Bowles, somewhat
falteringly.
"Simply this: if in the fight between us I beat you, I ask you to
promise before your neighbours that you will not by word or deed
molest or interfere again with Miss Jessie Wiles."
"Eh!" roared Tom. "Is it that you are after her?"
"Suppose I am, if that pleases you; and on my side, I promise that if
you beat me, I quit this place as soon as you leave me well enough to
do so, and will never visit it again. What! do you hesitate to
promise? Are you really afraid I shall lick you?"
"You! I'd smash a dozen of you to powder."
"In that case, you are safe to promise. Come, 'tis a fair bargain.
Is n't it, neighbours?"
Won over by Kenelm's easy show of good temper, and by the sense of
justice, the bystanders joined in a common exclamation of assent.
"Come, Tom," said an old fellow, "the gentleman can't speak fairer;
and we shall all think you be afeard if you hold back."
Tom's face worked: but at last he growled, "Well, I promise; that is,
if he beats me."
"All right," said Kenelm. "You hear, neighbours; and Tom Bowles could
not show that handsome face of his among you if he broke his word.
Shake hands on it."
Fighting Tom sulkily shook hands.
"Well now, that's what I call English," said Kenelm, "all pluck and no
malice. Fall back, friends, and leave a clear space for us."
The men all receded; and as Kenelm took his ground, there was a supple
ease in his posture which at once brought out into clearer evidence
the nervous strength of his build, and, contrasted with Tom's bulk of
chest, made the latter look clumsy and topheavy.
The two men faced each other a minute, the eyes of both vigilant and
steadfast. Tom's blood began to fire up as he gazed; nor, with all
his outward calm; was Kenelm insensible of that proud beat of the
heart which is aroused by the fierce joy of combat. Tom struck out
first and a blow was parried, but not returned; another and another
blow,--still parried, still unreturned. Kenelm, acting evidently on
the defensive, took all the advantages for that strategy which he
derived from superior length of arm and lighter agility of frame.
Perhaps he wished to ascertain the extent of his adversary's skill, or
to try the endurance of his wind, before he ventured on the hazards of
attack. Tom, galled to the quick that blows which might have felled
an ox were thus warded off from their mark, and dimly aware that he
was encountering some mysterious skill which turned his brute strength
into waste force and might overmaster him in the long run, came to a
rapid conclusion that the sooner he brought that brute strength to
bear the better it would be for him. Accordingly, after three rounds,
in which without once breaking the guard of his antagonist he had
received a few playful taps on the nose and mouth, he drew back and
made a bull-like rush at his foe,--bull-like, for it butted full at
him with the powerful down-bent head, and the two fists doing duty as
horns. The rush spent, he found himself in the position of a man
milled. I take it for granted that every Englishman who can call
himself a man--that is, every man who has been an English boy, and, as
such, been compelled to the use of his fists--knows what a "mill" is.
But I sing not only "pueris," but "virginibus." Ladies, "a
mill,"--using with reluctance and contempt for myself that slang in
which ladywriters indulge, and Girls of the Period know much better
than they do their Murray,--"a mill,"--speaking not to ladywriters,
not to Girls of the Period, but to innocent damsels, and in
explanation to those foreigners who only understand the English
language as taught by Addison and Macaulay,--a "mill" periphrastically
means this: your adversary, in the noble encounter between fist and
fist, has so plunged his head that it gets caught, as in a vice,
between the side and doubled left arm of the adversary, exposing that
head, unprotected and helpless, to be pounded out of recognizable
shape by the right fist of the opponent. It is a situation in which
raw superiority of force sometimes finds itself, and is seldom spared
by disciplined superiority of skill. Kenelm, his right fist raised,
paused for a moment, then, loosening the left arm, releasing the
prisoner, and giving him a friendly slap on the shoulder, he turned
round to the spectators and said apologetically, "He has a handsome
face: it would be a shame to spoil it."
Tom's position of peril was so obvious to all, and that good-humoured
abnegation of the advantage which the position gave to the adversary
seemed so generous, that the labourers actually hurrahed. Tom,
himself felt as if treated like a child; and alas, and alas for him!
in wheeling round, and regathering himself up, his eye rested on
Jessie's face. Her lips were apart with breathless terror: he fancied
they were apart with a smile of contempt. And now he became
formidable. He fought as fights the bull in the presence of the
heifer, who, as he knows too well, will go with the conqueror.
If Tom had never yet fought with a man taught by a prizefighter, so
never yet had Kenelm encountered a strength which, but for the lack of
that teaching, would have conquered his own. He could act no longer
on the defensive; he could no longer play, like a dexterous fencer,
with the sledge-hammers of those mighty arms. They broke through his
guard; they sounded on his chest as on an anvil. He felt that did
they alight on his head he was a lost man. He felt also that the
blows spent on the chest of his adversary were idle as the stroke of a
cane on the hide of a rhinoceros. But now his nostrils dilated; his
eyes flashed fire: Kenelm Chillingly had ceased to be a philosopher.
Crash came his blow--how unlike the swinging roundabout hits of Tom
Bowles!--straight to its aim as the rifle-ball of a Tyrolese or a
British marksman at Aldershot,--all the strength of nerve, sinew,
purpose, and mind concentred in its vigour,--crash just at that part
of the front where the eyes meet, and followed up with the rapidity of
lightning, flash upon flash, by a more restrained but more disabling
blow with the left hand just where the left ear meets throat and
jaw-bone.
At the first blow Tom Bowles had reeled and staggered, at the second
he threw up his hands, made a jump in the air as if shot through the
heart, and then heavily fell forwards, an inert mass.
The spectators pressed round him in terror. They thought he was dead.
Kenelm knelt, passed quickly his hand over Tom's lips, pulse, and
heart, and then rising, said, humbly and with an air of apology,--
"If he had been a less magnificent creature, I assure you on my honour
that I should never have ventured that second blow. The first would
have done for any man less splendidly endowed by nature. Lift him
gently; take him home. Tell his mother, with my kind regards, that
I'll call and see her and him to-morrow. And, stop, does he ever
drink too much beer?"
"Well," said one of the villagers, "Tom /can/ drink."
"I thought so. Too much flesh for that muscle. Go for the nearest
doctor. You, my lad? good; off with you; quick. No danger, but
perhaps it may be a case for the lancet."
Tom Bowles was lifted tenderly by four of the stoutest men present and
borne into his home, evincing no sign of consciousness; but his face,
where not clouted with blood, was very pale, very calm, with a slight
froth at the lips.
Kenelm pulled down his shirt-sleeves, put on his coat, and turned to
Jessie,--
"Now, my young friend, show me Will's cottage."
The girl came to him, white and trembling. She did not dare to speak.
The stranger had become a new man in her eyes. Perhaps he frightened
her as much as Tom Bowles had done. But she quickened her pace,
leaving the public-house behind till she came to the farther end of
the village. Kenelm walked beside her, muttering to himself: and
though Jessie caught his words, happily she did not understand; for
they repeated one of those bitter reproaches on her sex as the main
cause of all strife, bloodshed, and mischief in general, with which
the classic authors abound. His spleen soothed by that recourse to
the lessons of the ancients, Kenelm turned at last to his silent
companion, and said kindly but gravely,--
"Mr. Bowles has given me his promise, and it is fair that I should now
ask a promise from you. It is this: just consider how easily a girl
so pretty as you can be the cause of a man's death. Had Bowles struck
me where I struck him I should have been past the help of a surgeon."
"Oh!" groaned Jessie, shuddering, and covering her face with both
hands.
"And, putting aside that danger, consider that a man may be hit
mortally on the heart as well as on the head, and that a woman has
much to answer for who, no matter what her excuse, forgets what misery
and what guilt can be inflicted by a word from her lip and a glance
from her eye. Consider this, and promise that, whether you marry Will
Somers or not, you will never again give a man fair cause to think you
can like him unless your own heart tells you that you can. Will you
promise that?"
"I will, indeed,--indeed." Poor Jessie's voice died in sobs.
"There, my child, I don't ask you not to cry, because I know how much
women like crying; and in this instance it does you a great deal of
good. But we are just at the end of the village; which is Will's
cottage?"
Jessie lifted her head, and pointed to a solitary, small thatched
cottage.
"I would ask you to come in and introduce me; but that might look too
much like crowing over poor Tom Bowles. So good-night to you, Jessie,
and forgive me for preaching."