Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (475 page)

“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 neutralised, 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 brutalise 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 realised 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.