Chapter X Some Interviews
Those from whom it was most desired to keep all information of the coming fight were the first to hear of it. Mr. Moses told Mr. Merle, the vicar, and Mr. Merle resented the news bitterly. He decided, indeed, that such a proceeding would disgrace the parish.
“We might as well revive the horrors of our bull-ring,” he said. “It cannot and must not be.”
The good man referred to a considerable tract of ground beneath the southern wall of the churchyard—a region known as the ‘bull-ring’ and authentically connected with obsolete sports.
Ernest Maunder was most unfortunate in the ally that he had expected to win. Sir Guy Flamank, the lord of the manor, though enrolled on the Commission of the Peace, was before all else a sportsman, as he declared at every opportunity. Somehow this gentleman, by means mysteriously hidden, became aware of the little matter in hand on the very morning after the arrangement, and though Ernest called at the Manor House, he found the Justice unable to see him. Thrice he was thus evaded, and when once he met Sir Guy on horseback, Mr. Maunder could not fail to mark how the knight retreated before him with obvious and paltry evasion. That a Justice of the Peace could thus ignore his responsibilities, caused both Mr. Maunder and Mr. Moses much indignant uneasiness.
At breakfast on the day after his undertaking, David Bowden announced the thing he intended to do; and while his mother wept some natural tears, nobody else showed any sorrowful emotion. Indeed Elias was grimly glad.
“Well done thou!” he said. “I’ve long wanted for some son of mine to show me a bit of valour above common, and now ’tis left for the eldest to do it. You’ll trounce him to the truth of music, for there’s a tougher heart in you than that man, and you’ve lived a tougher life.”
“What’ll Madge say?” asked Dorcas.
“She needn’t know about it,” declared David. “We’re to fight in about three weeks, and the day’s to be kept a secret as long as possible.”
“What d’you want to fight for?” asked his mother.
“It’s natural. We can’t be friends no more till we’ve had it out. You see, he was after my Madge, and I bested him, and—besides—I had another crow to pluck with the man.”
A martial spirit awoke at the Warren House and Mr. Bowden frankly revelled in this business, the more so because he believed that his son must win easily. The twins took to sparring from that hour, and Napoleon and Wellington fought their battles over again. Elias sent to Plymouth for a pair of boxing gloves, and Joshua for the good of the cause, albeit not fond of hard knocks, stood up to David for half an hour each day. It was arranged that young Bowden should train at home for a fortnight and then go to Plymouth and put himself in the hands of a professional at that town for some final polish.
The brother and sister had a private talk of special significance soon after the making of the match.
David met Rhoda returning from Sheepstor, and her face was grave.
“I’ve just heard more about that business than you told us, David,” she said. “’Tis as much for what he done to me as anything, that you be going to fight him.”
“No matter the reason. A licking will do him good—if I can give him one.”
“Look here,” she said—impulsively for her—“I must be in this fight. You’re everything to me, David—everything. I can’t keep away and I won’t keep away. You know the sort of pluck I’ve got. Well, I must be in that Ring—me and father—”
David gasped.
“Would you?”
“I tell you I must. Something calls out to me to do it. You can’t fight without me there, and I don’t believe you can win without me. I swear I feel it so. Wouldn’t you rather have me in your corner than any man if it comes to that?”
“Yes,” he admitted, “I would; but you can’t do what’s got to do.”
“I can do all,” she replied. “I talked to Mr. Shillabeer to-day, when I’d made up my mind, and I axed him what the bottle-holder have to do; and he told me. I can do it all—every bit of it.”
“You shall then!” said David.
She flushed with pleasure.
“You won’t regret it. I may help you to win a bit. A woman that can keep her head, like I can, is useful anywhere.”
“’Twill be you and faither—and I suppose that Crocker will have the ‘Dumpling’ and this queer, old, white-headed London man on his side.”
“I’m gay and proud as you can trust me in such a thing,” she said, her breast heaving.
“Yes—and now I think on it—you and me being what we are each to t’other—I will have it so. I couldn’t fight all I know if you wasn’t there, Rhoda. But I warn you, ’tis ugly work. You mustn’t mind seeing my head knocked into a lump of black and blue flesh.”
“That’s nought so long as you win. ’Twill come right again.”
“But I may not win. You never know how the luck will fall.”
“You must win,” she answered. “’Tisn’t in nature that such an evil man as him can beat you.”
“I shan’t stop so long as I can see, or so long as I can stand,” he said. “I think I shall win myself, but it don’t do to brag.”
Then Rhoda told him something that disturbed him not a little.
“Margaret Stanbury knows about it,” she said. “I met Mr. Snell, and he was full of it, and we had a tell. Then he told me that Timothy Mattacott was out Down Tor way, and met Madge, and went and told her. So you’ll have to calm her down somehow.”
“Better you do,” he answered. “’Tis a woman’s job. Get over this afternoon, like a good girl, and just make light of it. Tell her I’m coming across o’ Sunday but can’t sooner.”
Rhoda obeyed and later in the day saw Madge. David’s sweetheart was tearful and much perturbed.
“’Tis all my fault,” she said. “Oh, Rhoda, can’t nothing be done to stop it? Such terrible strong men—they’ll kill each other.”
“No, they won’t; and ’tisn’t all your fault,” answered the elder. “It had to come off afore they could be friends again. ’Tis to be a fair, stand-up fight; and the best man will win; and that’s our David. Don’t take on and make a fuss afore him, if you want to keep friends with him. David’s like faither, all for valour. He’ll be vexed if you cry about it. Time enough for us to cry if he’s worsted. But he won’t be.”
“’Tis hard for me, because I know ’em both so well,” said Margaret.
“And ’tis easy for me, because I know ’em both so well,” answered Rhoda. “No man ever wanted his beastly nature cooled down with a good hiding more than what Bartley Crocker does. And, be it as ’twill, ’twas Crocker that made the fight, not David.”
“I shall go mad when the day comes,” said Margaret.
“No, you won’t, because you won’t know the day. ’Tis to be kept a dark secret. And I’m going in the Ring to look after my brother.”
“Rhoda!”
“I am, though. He wants it. He will have it so.”
“Be you made of iron?”
“Yes, where David’s good is the matter. He wants me there—and there I shall be.”
“The men will hoot you—’tis an unwomanly thing.”
“D’you think I care for that, so long as I know it isn’t?”
“If any woman’s to be there, ’tis his future wife, I should think,” said Madge; but Rhoda laughed.
“You! You’d faint when—but there, don’t think no more about it. Men will be men, when they’re built on the pattern of David. I come from him to tell you not to fret, so mind you don’t.”
“‘Fret!’ I shall fret my hair grey, and so will mother,” said the promised wife. “To think of his beautiful face all smashed about—and Bartley too—both such good-looking, kindly chaps! What ever do they want to fight about? Can’t they settle their quarrels no other way?”
“You should know ’em better. ’Tis a deeper thing than a quarrel. If they are to be friends, they must hammer one another a bit first. Why not? You puzzle me. Do ’e want ’em to have their minds full of poison to each other for evermore? Better fight and let it out.”
“I shall pray David, if ever he loved me, not to do it.”
“Don’t,” said Rhoda. “Don’t be a fool, Madge. I know David better than what you do; and, if you’re that sort, you never will know him as well as I know him; because you’ll vex and cross him and he’ll hide himself from you. He’s a strong, hard man and straight as sunlight. If you’re going to be soft and silly over this, or over anything, you won’t make him love you any the better. Take my advice and try to feel like I do—like a man about it. It’s got to be, and if you are against it and come to him with a long face and silly prayers not to fight for your sake, and all that stuff, you won’t choke him off fighting, but you may choke him off—”
“‘Off me’ you were going to say. Well, that’s where I know him better than you do, for all you know him so well, Rhoda. But don’t think I’m a fool. ’Tis natural I don’t want the dear face I love to be bruised by another man’s fist; but if ’tis to be—’tis to be. I only ask to know why ’tis to be. I suppose David can tell me that?”
“We’ll leave it so then, since you don’t know why,” said the other. “How’s the pup? Have it settled down?”
But if Margaret Stanbury viewed this battle with dismay, her emotions were trivial compared with those of Bartley Crocker’s mother and Bartley Crocker’s aunt.
In vain did the fighter try to keep his great secret from them. It was impossible, and Mr. Moses laid every detail of the proposed encounter before Nanny two mornings after he had heard about it.
Bartley was from home when Charles Moses arrived, and the shoemaker harrowed and horrified his two listeners at leisure. Such palpitation overtook Mrs. Crocker, that the very cotoneaster on the outer walls seemed to throb to its berried crown; while as for Aunt Susan Saunders, having once grasped the nature of the things to be, her heart quite overcame her and she wept. But the mother of Bartley wept not: she panted—panted with wrath till her expansive bust creaked. Her anger flowed forth like a tide and swallowed first Mr. Shillabeer and the low characters he encouraged at ‘The Corner House’; next, David Bowden and his family; next, the Stanburys, who doubtless were deeply involved in this contemplated crime; and lastly, the aged stranger, Mr. Fogo, concerning whose bloodthirsty and blood-stained career Charles Moses had dropped some hints. Her son Mrs. Crocker blamed not at all. She scoffed at the notion of her innocent and amiable boy seeking to batter any man.
“Bring me my salts, Susan, and don’t snivel,” said the mother. “For Bartley to be up in arms like this here—why, I never will believe it! And me a bailiff’s daughter, as everybody knows, and him with the blood of the Saunders family in his veins. They’ve harried him into it along of his pluck and courage; but it shan’t be if I can put my bosom between him and bloodshed. Bartley to be struck and assaulted by a warrener, and a common man at that! Wasn’t it enough thicky, empty-headed wench at Coombeshead chose that yellow-haired Bowden, when she might have had a Crocker? And now, if you please, the ruffian, not content with getting the girl, wants to fight my boy!”
“It’s my duty to tell you, ma’am, that your son’s quite as set on it as t’other,” declared Mr. Moses.
“No doubt; and a good whipping he’d give the man if it came to it; but it mustn’t come to it. We’re in a Christian land, and this firebrand, that’s crept among us with his wicked rhymes, ought to be taken up and led behind the cart-tail and flogged out of the parish.”
“I’m glad you take such a high, womanly view,” said the shoemaker; “because you’m another on our side, and will be a tower of strength. They are to fight in about three weeks’ time—afore Christmas. That is, if we, on the side of law and order—namely, his reverence, and me, and you, and Ernest Maunder, can’t prevent it. I’m sorry to say everybody else wants to see them fight—even Sir Guy—more shame to him!”
“I’ll have the place by the ears rather than it should happen,” said Mrs. Crocker. “I’ll have Bartley took up rather than he should have his face touched by that—that rabbit-catching good-for-nought up to Ditsworthy. Why, I’ll even go up there myself and talk to Elias Bowden. This thing shan’t be—not if a determined woman can prevent it.”
Mr. Moses retired comforted in some sort, for he felt that Mrs. Crocker was probably stronger than the policeman and the vicar put together. But meantime, on the other side, matters developed steadily. Shillabeer and ‘Frosty-faced Fogo’ had taken charge of Bartley Crocker, and he prepared for battle with the benefit of all their immense experience. From the first, rumours of interference and interruption were rife; but Fogo treated them with disdain.
“Leave all that to me,” he said. “I’ve been evading the ‘blues’ and the ‘beaks’ ever since I came to man’s estate, and if I can’t hoodwink you simple bumpkins—parsons and all—well, I’ll pay the stakes myself.”
For stakes there were, and Mr. Fogo, who insisted on seeing all things done decently and in order, arranged that five pounds a side should be posted to bind the match and five pounds more paid in the day before the battle. Mr. Bowden found the money for David, and no less a worthy than Sir Guy Flamank himself, having first commanded terrific oaths of secrecy from Mr. Fogo and Mr. Shillabeer, produced ten pounds for Bartley Crocker. He was young and had never seen a fight.
A great many local sportsmen evinced the keenest interest in the proceedings, but with British hypocrisy strove hard to conceal that interest, out of respect to the people who were not sportsmen. As for the combatants, to their surprise they found themselves rapidly developing into men of renown. Even the hosts of the lesser Bowdens were received with respect among their friends, in that they happened to be actual brothers of a hero. It might have been remarked that while most people at first expected Bowden to win, the larger number coupled the prophecy with a hope that they would be mistaken. From the beginning Bartley was the more popular combatant; and when certain opinions respecting him left the narrow lips of Mr. Fogo at ‘The Corner House,’ a little betting opened and ruled at two to one on the younger man.
Mr. Shillabeer set to work to teach Bartley the rudiments, but he found himself too slow and scant of breath to be of any service. A young boxer from Plymouth was therefore engaged—he who in Mr. Fogo’s skilful hands had won a recent battle—and he swiftly initiated Crocker.
And then it was that the Londoner pronounced this raw material in many respects above the average, and declared that Bartley, among his other qualifications, had some unsuspected talent for milling. He was quick and very active on his legs. He hit straight naturally, not round. His left promised to be very useful and he had a vague idea of hitting on the retreat and countering—arts usually quite unappreciated by the novice. In fact, Mr. Fogo, from an attitude of indifference, presently developed mild interest in the coming battle and was often at hand when Bartley donned the mittens. He also superintended his training, and bore him company, for a part of the distance, on some of those lengthy tramps prescribed by Mr. Shillabeer.
Upon one of these occasions, however, Bartley was alone and chance willed that he should meet Margaret returning from Ditsworthy. She was depressed and he asked her why.
“For fifty reasons; and you know most of ’em,” she answered. “I’ve just been eating dinner to the Warren House. Somehow it always makes me wisht. There’s that young fellow, by the name of Billy Screech, running after Dorcas, and none of ’em like him or will hear of such a thing. And then the silence! They won’t talk afore me. You can hear every pair of teeth working and every bite and sup going down. But that’s not what’s on my mind. ’Tis this awful fight. Oh, Bartley, can’t you make it up?”
“We have, long ago. We’re quite friendly. ’Tis no more now than a sporting fixture for ten pounds a side. There’ll be twenty pounds more for furniture for your new home, Madge—if I’m licked.”
“Don’t talk like that. ’Twould always be covered wi’ bloodstains in my eyes. Can’t you use the gloves? Why do you want to knock your poor noses crooked for? ’Tis like savage tigers more than Christian men.”
“Don’t you worry. The colours be coming Monday. Of course I can’t ask you to wear mine; but they’re prettier far than David’s. ’Twas Mr. Fogo’s idea. I shall have the same as the mighty champion, Ben Caunt, once had.”
“I don’t want to hear nothing about it, and I pray to God every night on my knees that it may be stopped.”
“Well, you’ll be proud of one of us,” he said. “I can’t expect you to 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.