Work was struck at one o’clock at the coal-pits and the iron-works, and
the fight was arranged for three. From the Croxley Furnaces, from
Wilson’s Coal-pits, from the Heartsease Mine, from the Dodd Mills, from
the Leverworth Smelters the workmen came trooping, each with his
fox-terrier or his lurcher at his heels. Warped with labour and twisted
by toil, bent double by week-long work in the cramped coal galleries or
half-blinded with years spent in front of white-hot fluid metal, these
men still gilded their harsh and hopeless lives by their devotion to
sport. It was their one relief, the only thing which could distract
their minds from sordid surroundings, and give them an interest beyond
the blackened circle which enclosed them. Literature, art, science, all
these things were beyond their horizon; but the race, the football
match, the cricket, the fight, these were things which they could
understand, which they could speculate upon in advance and comment upon
afterwards. Sometimes brutal, sometimes grotesque, the love of sport is
still one of the great agencies which make for the happiness of our
people. It lies very deeply in the springs of our nature, and when it
has been educated out, a higher, more refined nature may be left, but it
will not be of that robust British type which has left its mark so
deeply on the world. Every one of these raddled workers, slouching with
his dog at his heels to see something of the fight, was a true unit of
his race.
It was a squally May day, with bright sunbursts and driving showers.
Montgomery worked all morning in the surgery getting his medicine made
up.
“The weather seems so very unsettled, Mr. Montgomery,” remarked the
doctor, “that I am inclined to think that you had better postpone your
little country excursion until a later date.”
“I am afraid that I must go to-day, sir.”
“I have just had an intimation that Mrs. Potter, at the other side of
Angleton, wishes to see me. It is probable that I shall be there all
day. It will be extremely inconvenient to leave the house empty so
long.”
“I am very sorry, sir, but I must go,” said the assistant, doggedly.
The doctor saw that it would be useless to argue, and departed in the
worst of bad tempers upon mission. Montgomery felt easier now that he
was gone. He went up to his room, and packed his running-shoes, his
fighting-drawers, and his cricket sash into a hand-bag. When he came
down, Mr. Wilson was waiting for him in the surgery. “I hear the doctor
has gone.”
“Yes; he is likely to be away all day.”
“I don’t see that it matters much. It’s bound to come to his ears by
to-night.”
“Yes; it’s serious with me, Mr. Wilson. If I win, it’s all right.
I don’t mind telling you that the hundred pounds will make all the
difference to me. But if I lose, I shall lose my situation, for, as you
say, I can’t keep it secret.”
“Never mind. We’ll see you through among us. I only wonder the doctor
has not heard, for it’s all over the country that you are to fight the
Croxley Champion. We’ve had Armitage up about it already. He’s the
Master’s backer, you know. He wasn’t sure that you were eligible.
The Master said he wanted you whether you were eligible or not.
Armitage has money on, and would have made trouble if he could. But I
showed him that you came within the conditions of the challenge, and he
agreed that it was all right. They think they have a soft thing on.”
“Well, I can only do my best,” said Montgomery.
They lunched together; a silent and rather nervous repast, for
Montgomery’s mind was full of what was before him, and Wilson had
himself more money at stake than he cared to lose.
Wilson’s carriage and pair were at the door, the horses with blue and
white rosettes at their ears, which were the colours of the Wilson
Coal-pits, well known, on many a football field. At the avenue gate a
crowd of some hundred pit-men and their wives gave a cheer as the
carriage passed. To the assistant it all seemed dream-like and
extraordinary--the strangest experience of his life, but with a thrill
of human action and interest in it which made it passionately absorbing.
He lay back in the open carriage and saw the fluttering handkerchiefs
from the doors and windows of the miners’ cottages. Wilson had pinned a
blue and white rosette upon his coat, and everybody knew him as their
champion. “Good luck, sir! good luck to thee!” they shouted from the
roadside. He felt that it was like some unromantic knight riding down
to sordid lists, but there was something of chivalry in it all the same.
He fought for others as well as for himself. He might fail from want of
skill or strength, but deep in his sombre soul he vowed that it should
never be for want of heart.
Mr. Fawcett was just mounting into his high-wheeled, spidery dogcart,
with his little bit of blood between the shafts. He waved his whip and
fell in behind the carriage. They overtook Purvis, the tomato-faced
publican, upon the road, with his wife in her Sunday bonnet. They also
dropped into the procession, and then, as they traversed the seven miles
of the high road to Croxley, their two-horsed, rosetted carriage became
gradually the nucleus of a comet with a loosely radiating tail.
From every side-road came the miners’ carts, the humble, ramshackle
traps, black and bulging, with their loads of noisy, foul-tongued,
open-hearted partisans. They trailed for a long quarter of a mile
behind them--cracking, whipping, shouting, galloping, swearing.
Horsemen and runners were mixed with the vehicles. And then suddenly a
squad of the Sheffield Yeomanry, who were having their annual training
in those parts, clattered and jingled out of a field, and rode as an
escort to the carriage. Through the dust-clouds round him Montgomery
saw the gleaming brass helmets, the bright coats, and the tossing heads
of the chargers, the delighted brown faces of the troopers. It was more
dream-like than ever.
And then, as they approached the monstrous, uncouth line of
bottle-shaped buildings which marked the smelting-works of Croxley,
their long, writhing snake of dust was headed off by another but longer
one which wound across their path. The main road into which their own
opened was filled by the rushing current of traps. The Wilson
contingent halted until the others should get past. The iron-men
cheered and groaned, according to their humour, as they whirled past
their antagonist. Rough chaff flew back and forwards like iron nuts and
splinters of coal. “Brought him up, then!” “Got t’ hearse for to fetch
him back?” “Where’s t’ owd K-legs?” “Mon, mon, have thy photograph
took--’twill mind thee of what thou used to look!” “He fight?--he’s
nowt but a half-baked doctor!” “Happen he’ll doctor thy Croxley
Champion afore he’s through wi’t.”
So they flashed at each other as the one side waited and the other
passed. Then there came a rolling murmur swelling into a shout, and a
great brake with four horses came clattering along, all streaming with
salmon-pink ribbons. The driver wore a white hat with pink rosette, and
beside him, on the high seat, were a man and a woman-she with her arm
round his waist. Montgomery had one glimpse of them as they flashed
past; he with a furry cap drawn low over his brow, a great frieze coat
and a pink comforter round his throat; she brazen, red-headed,
bright-coloured, laughing excitedly. The Master, for it was he, turned
as he passed, gazed hard at Montgomery, and gave him a menacing,
gap-toothed grin. It was a hard, wicked face, blue-jowled and craggy,
with long, obstinate cheeks and inexorable eyes. The brake behind was
full of patrons of the sport-flushed iron-foremen, heads of departments,
managers. One was drinking from a metal flask, and raised it to
Montgomery as he passed; and then the crowd thinned, and the Wilson
cortege with their dragoons swept in at the rear of the others.
The road led away from Croxley, between curving green hills, gashed and
polluted by the searchers for coal and iron. The whole country had been
gutted, and vast piles of refuse and mountains of slag suggested the
mighty chambers which the labour of man had burrowed beneath. On the
left the road curved up to where a huge building, roofless and
dismantled, stood crumbling and forlorn, with the light shining through
the windowless squares.
“That’s the old Arrowsmith’s factory. That’s where the fight is to be,”
said Wilson. “How are you feeling now?”
“Thank you, I was never better in my life,” Montgomery answered.
“By Gad, I like your nerve!” said Wilson, who was himself flushed and
uneasy. “You’ll give us a fight for our money, come what may.
That place on the right is the office, and that has been set aside as
the dressing and weighing room.”
The carriage drove up to it amidst the shouts of the folk upon the
hillside. Lines of empty carriages and traps curved down upon the
winding road, and a black crowd surged round the door of the ruined
factory. The seats, as a huge placard announced, were five shillings,
three shillings, and a shilling, with half-price for dogs. The takings,
deducting expenses, were to go to the winner, and it was already evident
that a larger stake than a hundred pounds was in question. A babel of
voices rose from the door. The workers wished to bring their dogs in
free. The men scuffled. The dogs barked. The crowd was a whirling,
eddying pool surging with a roar up to the narrow cleft which was its
only outlet.
The brake, with its salmon-coloured streamers and four reeking horses,
stood empty before the door of the office; Wilson, Purvis, Fawcett and
Montgomery passed in.
There was a large, bare room inside with square, clean patches upon the
grimy walls, where pictures and almanacs had once hung. Worn linoleum
covered the floor, but there was no furniture save some benches and a
deal table with an ewer and a basin upon it. Two of the corners were
curtained off. In the middle of the room was a weighing-chair.
A hugely fat man, with a salmon tie and a blue waistcoat with bird’s-eye
spots, came bustling up to them. It was Armitage, the butcher and
grazier, well known for miles round as a warm man, and the most liberal
patron of sport in the Riding. “Well, well,” he grunted, in a thick,
fussy, wheezy voice, “you have come, then. Got your man? Got your man?”
“Here he is, fit and well. Mr. Montgomery, let me present you to Mr.
Armitage.”
“Glad to meet you, sir. Happy to make your acquaintance. I make bold
to say, sir, that we of Croxley admire your courage, Mr. Montgomery, and
that our only hope is a fair fight and no favour, and the best man win.
That’s our sentiments at Croxley.”
“And it is my sentiment, also,” said the assistant.
“Well, you can’t say fairer than that, Mr. Montgomery. You’ve taken a
large contrac’ in hand, but a large contrac’ may be carried through,
sir, as anyone that knows my dealings could testify. The Master is
ready to weigh in!”
“So am I.”
“You must weigh in the buff.” Montgomery looked askance at the tall,
red-headed woman who was standing gazing out of the window.
“That’s all right,” said Wilson. “Get behind the curtain and put on
your fighting kit.”
He did so, and came out the picture of an athlete, in white, loose
drawers, canvas shoes, and the sash of a well-known cricket club round
his waist. He was trained to a hair, his skin gleaming like silk, and
every muscle rippling down his broad shoulders and along his beautiful
arms as he moved them. They bunched into ivory knobs, or slid into
long, sinuous curves, as he raised or lowered his hands.
“What thinkest thou o’ that?” asked Ted Barton, his second, of the woman
in the window.
She glanced contemptuously at the young athlete. “It’s but a poor
kindness thou dost him to put a thread-paper yoong gentleman like yon
against a mon as is a mon. Why, my Jock would throttle him wi’ one hond
lashed behind him.”
“Happen he may--happen not,” said Barton. “I have but twa pund in the
world, but it’s on him, every penny, and no hedgin’. But here’s t’
Maister, and rarely fine he do look.”
The prize-fighter had come out from his curtain, a squat, formidable
figure, monstrous in chest and arms, limping slightly on his distorted
leg. His skin had none of the freshness and clearness of Montgomery’s,
but was dusky and mottled, with one huge mole amid the mat of tangled
black hair which thatched his mighty breast. His weight bore no
relation to his strength, for those huge shoulders and great arms, with
brown, sledge-hammer fists, would have fitted the heaviest man that ever
threw his cap into a ring. But his loins and legs were slight in
proportion. Montgomery, on the other hand, was as symmetrical as a
Greek statue. It would be an encounter between a man who was specially
fitted for one sport, and one who was equally capable of any. The two
looked curiously at each other: a bulldog, and a high-bred clean-limbed
terrier, each full of spirit.
“How do you do?”
“How do?” The Master grinned again, and his three jagged front teeth
gleamed for an instant. The rest had been beaten out of him in twenty
years of battle. He spat upon the floor. “We have a rare fine day
for’t.”
“Capital,” said Montgomery.
“That’s the good feelin’ I like,” wheezed the fat butcher. “Good lads,
both of them!--prime lads!--hard meat an’ good bone. There’s no
ill-feelin’.”
“If he downs me, Gawd bless him!” said the Master.
“An’ if we down him, Gawd help him!” interrupted the woman.
“Haud thy tongue, wench!” said the Master, impatiently. “Who art thou
to put in thy word? Happen I might draw my hand across thy face.”
The woman did not take the threat amiss. “Wilt have enough for thy hand
to do, Jock,” said she. “Get quit o’ this gradely man afore thou turn
on me.”
The lovers’ quarrel was interrupted by the entrance of a newcomer, a
gentleman with a fur-collared overcoat and a very shiny top-hat--a
top-hat of a degree of glossiness which is seldom seen five miles from
Hyde Park. This hat he wore at the extreme back of his head, so that
the lower surface of the brim made a kind of frame for his high, bald
forehead, his, keen eyes, his rugged and yet kindly face. He bustled in
with the quiet air of possession with which the ring master enters the
circus.
“It’s Mr. Stapleton, the referee from London,” said Wilson.
“How do you do, Mr. Stapleton? I was introduced to you at the big fight
at the Corinthian Club in Piccadilly.”
“Ah! I dare say,” said the other, shaking hands. “Fact is, I’m
introduced to so many that I can’t undertake to carry their names.
Wilson, is it? Well, Mr. Wilson, glad to see you. Couldn’t get a fly
at the station, and that’s why I’m late.”
“I’m sure, sir,” said Armitage, “we should be proud that anyone so well
known in the boxing world should come down to our little exhibition.”
“Not at all. Not at all. Anything in the interests of boxin’. All
ready? Men weighed?”
“Weighing now, sir.”
“Ah! Just as well that I should see it done. Seen you before,
Craggs. Saw you fight your second battle against Willox. You had
beaten him once, but he came back on you. What does the indicator
say?--163lbs.--two off for the kit--161lbs. Now, my lad, you jump. My
goodness, what colours are you wearing?”
“The Anonymi Cricket Club.”
“What right have you to wear them? I belong to the club myself.”
“So do I.”
“You an amateur?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you are fighting for a money prize?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you know what you are doing? You realise that you’re a
professional pug from this onwards, and that if ever you fight again--”
“I’ll never fight again.”
“Happen you won’t,” said the woman, and the Master turned a terrible eye
upon her.
“Well, I suppose you know your own business best. Up you jump. One
hundred and fifty-one, minus two, 149--12lbs. difference, but youth and
condition on the other scale. Well, the sooner we get to work the
better, for I wish to catch the seven o’clock express at Hellifield.
Twenty three-minute rounds, with one-minute intervals, and Queensberry
rules. Those are the conditions, are they not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good, then--we may go across.”
The two combatants had overcoats thrown over their shoulders, and the
whole party, backers, fighters, seconds, and the referee filed out of
the room. A police inspector was waiting for them in the road. He had
a note-book in his hand--that terrible weapon which awes even the
London cabman.
“I must take your names, gentlemen, in case it should be necessary to
proceed for breach of peace.”
“You don’t mean to stop the fight?” cried Armitage, in a passion of
indignation. “I’m Mr. Armitage, of Croxley, and this is Mr. Wilson, and
we’ll be responsible that all is fair and as it should be.”
“I’ll take the names in case it should be necessary to proceed,” said
the inspector, impassively.
“But you know me well.”
“If you was a dook or even a judge it would be all the same,” said the
inspector. “It’s the law, and there’s an end. I’ll not take upon
myself to stop the fight, seeing that gloves are to be used, but I’ll
take the names of all concerned. Silas Craggs, Robert Montgomery,
Edward Barton, James Stapleton, of London. Who seconds Silas Craggs?”
“I do,” said the woman. “Yes, you can stare, but it’s my job, and no
one else’s. Anastasia’s the name--four a’s.”
“Craggs?”
“Johnson--Anastasia Johnson. If you jug him you can jug me.”
“Who talked of juggin’, ye fool?” growled the Master. “Coom on, Mr.
Armitage, for I’m fair sick o’ this loiterin’.”
The inspector fell in with the procession, and proceeded, as they walked
up the hill, to bargain in his official capacity for a front seat, where
he could safeguard the interests of the law, and in his private
capacity to lay out thirty shillings at seven to one with Mr. Armitage.
Through the door they passed, down a narrow lane walled with a dense
bank of humanity, up a wooden ladder to a platform, over a rope which
was slung waist-high from four corner-stakes, and then Montgomery
realised that he was in that ring in which his immediate destiny was to
be worked out. On the stake at one corner there hung a blue-and-white
streamer. Barton led him across, the overcoat dangling loosely from his
shoulders, and he sat down on a wooden stool. Barton and another man,
both wearing white sweaters, stood beside him. The so-called ring was a
square, twenty feet each way. At the opposite angle was the sinister
figure of the Master, with his red-headed woman and a rough-faced friend
to look after him. At each corner were metal basins, pitchers of water,
and sponges.
During the hubbub and uproar of the entrance Montgomery was too
bewildered to take things in. But now there was a few minutes’ delay,
for the referee had lingered behind, and so he looked quietly about him.
It was a sight to haunt him for a lifetime. Wooden seats had been built
in, sloping upwards to the tops of the walls. Above, instead of a
ceiling, a great flight of crows passed slowly across a square of grey
cloud. Right up to the topmost benches the folk were banked--broadcloth
in front, corduroys and fustian behind; faces turned everywhere upon
him. The grey reek of the pipes filled the building, and the air was
pungent with the acrid smell of cheap, strong tobacco. Everywhere among
the human faces were to be seen the heads of the dogs. They growled and
yapped from the back benches. In that dense mass of humanity, one could
hardly pick out individuals, but Montgomery’s eyes caught the brazen
gleam of the helmets held upon the knees of the ten yeomen of his
escort. At the very edge of the platform sat the reporters, five of
them--three locals and two all the way from London. But where was the
all-important referee? There was no sign of him, unless he were in the
centre of that angry swirl of men near the door.
Mr. Stapleton had stopped to examine the gloves which were to be used,
and entered the building after the combatants. He had started to come
down that narrow lane with the human walls which led to the ring.
But already it had gone abroad that the Wilson champion was a gentleman,
and that another gentleman had been appointed as referee. A wave of
suspicion passed through the Croxley folk. They would have one of their
own people for a referee. They would not have a stranger. His path was
stopped as he made for the ring. Excited men flung themselves in front
of him; they waved their fists in his face and cursed him. A woman
howled vile names in his ear. Somebody struck at him with an umbrella.
“Go thou back to Lunnon. We want noan o’ thee. Go thou back!” they
yelled.
Stapleton, with his shiny hat cocked backwards, and his large, bulging
forehead swelling from under it, looked round him from beneath his bushy
brows. He was in the centre of a savage and dangerous mob. Then he
drew his watch from his pocket and held it dial upwards in his palm.
“In three minutes,” said he, “I will declare the fight off.”
They raged round him. His cool face and that aggressive top-hat
irritated them. Grimy hands were raised. But it was difficult,
somehow, to strike a man who was so absolutely indifferent.
“In two minutes I declare the fight off.”
They exploded into blasphemy. The breath of angry men smoked into his
placid face. A gnarled, grimy fist vibrated at the end of his nose.
“We tell thee we want noan o’ thee. Get thou back where thou com’st
from.”
“In one minute I declare the fight off.”
Then the calm persistence of the man conquered the swaying, mutable,
passionate crowd.
“Let him through, mon. Happen there’ll be no fight after a’.”
“Let him through.”
“Bill, thou loomp, let him pass. Dost want the fight declared off?”
“Make room for the referee!--room for the Lunnon referee!”
And half pushed, half carried, he was swept up to the ring. There were
two chairs by the side of it, one for him and one for the timekeeper.
He sat down, his hands on his knees, his hat at a more wonderful angle
than ever, impassive but solemn, with the aspect of one who appreciates
his responsibilities.
Mr. Armitage, the portly butcher, made his way into the ring and held up
two fat hands, sparkling with rings, as a signal for silence.
“Gentlemen!” he yelled. And then in a crescendo shriek, “Gentlemen!”
“And ladies!” cried somebody, for, indeed, there was a fair sprinkling
of women among the crowd. “Speak up, owd man!” shouted another. “What
price pork chops?” cried somebody at the back. Everybody laughed, and
the dogs began to bark. Armitage waved his hands amidst the uproar as
if he were conducting an orchestra. At last the babel thinned into
silence.
“Gentlemen,” he yelled, “the match is between Silas Craggs, whom we
call the Master of Croxley, and Robert Montgomery, of the Wilson
Coal-pits. The match was to be under eleven-eight. When they were
weighed just now, Craggs weighed eleven-seven, and Montgomery ten-nine.
The conditions of the contest are--the best of twenty three-minute
rounds with two-ounce gloves. Should the fight run to its full length,
it will, of course, be decided upon points. Mr. Stapleton, the
well-known London referee, has kindly consented to see fair play.
I wish to say that Mr. Wilson and I, the chief backers of the two men,
have every confidence in Mr. Stapleton, and that we beg that you will
accept his rulings without dispute.”
He then turned from one combatant to the other, with a wave of his hand.