Rodney Stone - The Fight In The Coach-House - (1)

THE curt announcement was followed by a moment of silent surprise, and then by a general shout of laughter.  There might be argument as to who was champion at each weight; but there could be no question that all the champions of all the weights were seated round the tables.  An audacious challenge which embraced them one and all, without regard to size or age, could hardly be regarded otherwise than as a joke—but it was a joke which might be a dear one for the joker.
    “Is this genuine?” asked my uncle.
    “Yes, Sir Charles,” answered the landlord; “the man is waiting below.”
    “It’s a kid!” cried several of the fighting-men.  “Some cove is a gammonin’ us.”
    “Don’t you believe it,” answered the landlord.  “He’s a real slap-up Corinthian, by his dress; and he means what he says, or else I ain’t no judge of a man.”
    My uncle whispered for a few moments with the Prince of Wales.  “Well, gentlemen,” said he, at last, “the night is still young, and if any of you should wish to show the company a little of your skill, you could not ask a better opportunity.”
    “What weight is he, Bill?” asked Jem Belcher.
    “He’s close on six foot, and I should put him well into the thirteen stones when he’s buffed.”
    “Heavy metal!” cried Jackson.  “Who takes him on?”
    They all wanted to, from nine-stone Dutch Sam upwards.  The air was filled with their hoarse shouts and their arguments why each should be the chosen one.  To fight when they were flushed with wine and ripe for mischief—above all, to fight before so select a company with the Prince at the ringside, was a chance which did not often come in their way. Only Jackson, Belcher, Mendoza, and one or two others of the senior and more famous men remained silent, thinking it beneath their dignity that they should condescend to so irregular a bye-battle.
    “Well, you can’t all fight him,” remarked Jackson, when the babel had died away.  “It’s for the chairman to choose.”
    “Perhaps your Royal Highness has a preference,” said my uncle.
    “By Jove, I’d take him on myself if my position was different,” said the Prince, whose face was growing redder and his eyes more glazed.  “You’ve seen me with the mufflers, Jackson!  You know my form!”
    “I’ve seen your Royal Highness, and I have felt your Royal Highness,” said the courtly Jackson.
    “Perhaps Jem Belcher would give us an exhibition,” said my uncle.
    Belcher smiled and shook his handsome head.
    “There’s my brother Tom here has never been blooded in London yet, sir. He might make a fairer match of it.”
    “Give him over to me!” roared Joe Berks.  “I’ve been waitin’ for a turn all evenin’, an’ I’ll fight any man that tries to take my place.  ’E’s my meat, my masters.  Leave ’im to me if you want to see ’ow a calf’s ’ead should be dressed.  If you put Tom Belcher before me I’ll fight Tom Belcher, an’ for that matter I’ll fight Jem Belcher, or Bill Belcher, or any other Belcher that ever came out of Bristol.”
    It was clear that Berks had got to the stage when he must fight some one. His heavy face was gorged and the veins stood out on his low forehead, while his fierce grey eyes looked viciously from man to man in quest of a quarrel.  His great red hands were bunched into huge, gnarled fists, and he shook one of them menacingly as his drunken gaze swept round the tables.
    “I think you’ll agree with me, gentlemen, that Joe Berks would be all the better for some fresh air and exercise,” said my uncle.  “With the concurrence of His Royal Highness and of the company, I shall select him as our champion on this occasion.”
    “You do me proud,” cried the fellow, staggering to his feet and pulling at his coat.  “If I don’t glut him within the five minutes, may I never see Shropshire again.”
    “Wait a bit, Berks,” cried several of the amateurs.  “Where’s it going to be held?”
    “Where you like, masters.  I’ll fight him in a sawpit, or on the outside of a coach if it please you.  Put us toe to toe, and leave the rest with me.”
    “They can’t fight here with all this litter,” said my uncle.  “Where shall it be?”
    “’Pon my soul, Tregellis,” cried the Prince, “I think our unknown friend might have a word to say upon that matter.  He’ll be vastly ill-used if you don’t let him have his own choice of conditions.”
    “You are right, sir.  We must have him up.”
    “That’s easy enough,” said the landlord, “for here he comes through the doorway.”
    I glanced round and had a side view of a tall and well-dressed young man in a long, brown travelling coat and a black felt hat.  The next instant he had turned and I had clutched with both my hands on to Champion Harrison’s arm.
    “Harrison!” I gasped.  “It’s Boy Jim!”
    And yet somehow the possibility and even the probability of it had occurred to me from the beginning, and I believe that it had to Harrison also, for I had noticed that his face grew grave and troubled from the very moment that there was talk of the stranger below.  Now, the instant that the buzz of surprise and admiration caused by Jim’s face and figure had died away, Harrison was on his feet, gesticulating in his excitement.
    “It’s my nephew Jim, gentlemen,” he cried.  “He’s not twenty yet, and it’s no doing of mine that he should be here.”
    “Let him alone, Harrison,” cried Jackson.  “He’s big enough to take care of himself.”
    “This matter has gone rather far,” said my uncle.  “I think, Harrison, that you are too good a sportsman to prevent your nephew from showing whether he takes after his uncle.”
    “It’s very different from me,” cried Harrison, in great distress.  “But I’ll tell you what I’ll do, gentlemen.  I never thought to stand up in a ring again, but I’ll take on Joe Berks with pleasure, just to give a bit o’ sport to this company.”
    Boy Jim stepped across and laid his hand upon the prize-fighter’s shoulder.
    “It must be so, uncle,” I heard him whisper.  “I am sorry to go against your wishes, but I have made up my mind, and I must carry it through.”
    Harrison shrugged his huge shoulders.
    “Jim, Jim, you don’t know what you are doing!  But I’ve heard you speak like that before, boy, and I know that it ends in your getting your way.”
    “I trust, Harrison, that your opposition is withdrawn?” said my uncle.
    “Can I not take his place?”
    “You would not have it said that I gave a challenge and let another carry it out?” whispered Jim.  “This is my one chance.  For Heaven’s sake don’t stand in my way.”
    The smith’s broad and usually stolid face was all working with his conflicting emotions.  At last he banged his fist down upon the table.
    “It’s no fault of mine!” he cried.  “It was to be and it is.  Jim, boy, for the Lord’s sake remember your distances, and stick to out-fightin’ with a man that could give you a stone.”
    “I was sure that Harrison would not stand in the way of sport,” said my uncle.  “We are glad that you have stepped up, that we might consult you as to the arrangements for giving effect to your very sporting challenge.”
    “Whom am I to fight?” asked Jim, looking round at the company, who were now all upon their feet.
    “Young man, you’ll know enough of who you ’ave to fight before you are through with it,” cried Berks, lurching heavily through the crowd. “You’ll need a friend to swear to you before I’ve finished, d’ye see?”
    Jim looked at him with disgust in every line of his face.
    “Surely you are not going to set me to fight a drunken man!” said he. “Where is Jem Belcher?”
    “My name, young man.”
    “I should be glad to try you, if I may.”
    “You must work up to me, my lad.  You don’t take a ladder at one jump, but you do it rung by rung.  Show yourself to be a match for me, and I’ll give you a turn.”
    “I’m much obliged to you.”
    “And I like the look of you, and wish you well,” said Belcher, holding out his hand.  They were not unlike each other, either in face or figure, though the Bristol man was a few years the older, and a murmur of critical admiration was heard as the two tall, lithe figures, and keen, clean-cut faces were contrasted.
    “Have you any choice where the fight takes place?” asked my uncle.
    “I am in your hands, sir,” said Jim.
    “Why not go round to the Five’s Court?” suggested Sir John Lade.
    “Yes, let us go to the Five’s Court.”
    But this did not at all suit the views of the landlord, who saw in this lucky incident a chance of reaping a fresh harvest from his spendthrift company.
    “If it please you,” he cried, “there is no need to go so far.  My coach-house at the back of the yard is empty, and a better place for a mill you’ll never find.”
    There was a general shout in favour of the coach-house, and those who were nearest the door began to slip through, in the hope of scouring the best places.  My stout neighbour, Bill Warr, pulled Harrison to one side.
    “I’d stop it if I were you,” he whispered.
    “I would if I could.  It’s no wish of mine that he should fight.  But there’s no turning him when once his mind is made up.”  All his own fights put together had never reduced the pugilist to such a state of agitation.
    “Wait on ’im yourself, then, and chuck up the sponge when things begin to go wrong.  You know Joe Berks’s record?”
    “He’s since my time.”
    “Well, ’e’s a terror, that’s all.  It’s only Belcher that can master ’im. You see the man for yourself, six foot, fourteen stone, and full of the devil.  Belcher’s beat ’im twice, but the second time ’e ’ad all ’is work to do it.”
    “Well, well, we’ve got to go through with it.  You’ve not seen Boy Jim put his mawleys up, or maybe you’d think better of his chances.  When he was short of sixteen he licked the Cock of the South Downs, and he’s come on a long way since then.”
    The company was swarming through the door and clattering down the stair, so we followed in the stream.  A fine rain was falling, and the yellow lights from the windows glistened upon the wet cobblestones of the yard. How welcome was that breath of sweet, damp air after the fetid atmosphere of the supper-room.  At the other end of the yard was an open door sharply outlined by the gleam of lanterns within, and through this they poured, amateurs and fighting-men jostling each other in their eagerness to get to the front.  For my own part, being a smallish man, I should have seen nothing had I not found an upturned bucket in a corner, upon which I perched myself with the wall at my back.
    It was a large room with a wooden floor and an open square in the ceiling, which was fringed with the heads of the ostlers and stable boys who were looking down from the harness-room above.  A carriage-lamp was slung in each corner, and a very large stable-lantern hung from a rafter in the centre.  A coil of rope had been brought in, and under the direction of Jackson four men had been stationed to hold it.
    “What space do you give them?” asked my uncle.
    “Twenty-four, as they are both big ones, sir.”
    “Very good, and half-minutes between rounds, I suppose?  I’ll umpire if Sir Lothian Hume will do the same, and you can hold the watch and referee, Jackson.”
    With great speed and exactness every preparation was rapidly made by these experienced men.  Mendoza and Dutch Sam were commissioned to attend to Berks, while Belcher and Jack Harrison did the same for Boy Jim. Sponges, towels, and some brandy in a bladder were passed over the heads of the crowd for the use of the seconds.
    “Here’s our man,” cried Belcher.  “Come along, Berks, or we’ll go to fetch you.”
    Jim appeared in the ring stripped to the waist, with a coloured handkerchief tied round his middle.  A shout of admiration came from the spectators as they looked upon the fine lines of his figure, and I found myself roaring with the rest.  His shoulders were sloping rather than bulky, and his chest was deep rather than broad, but the muscle was all in the right place, rippling down in long, low curves from neck to shoulder, and from shoulder to elbow.  His work at the anvil had developed his arms to their utmost, and his healthy country living gave a sleek gloss to his ivory skin, which shone in the lamplight.  His expression was full of spirit and confidence, and he wore a grim sort of half-smile which I had seen many a time in our boyhood, and which meant, I knew, that his pride had set iron hard, and that his senses would fail him long before his courage.
    Joe Berks in the meanwhile had swaggered in and stood with folded arms between his seconds in the opposite corner.  His face had none of the eager alertness of his opponent, and his skin, of a dead white, with heavy folds about the chest and ribs, showed, even to my inexperienced eyes, that he was not a man who should fight without training.  A life of toping and ease had left him flabby and gross.  On the other hand, he was famous for his mettle and for his hitting power, so that, even in the face of the advantages of youth and condition, the betting was three to one in his favour.  His heavy-jowled, clean-shaven face expressed ferocity as well as courage, and he stood with his small, blood-shot eyes fixed viciously upon Jim, and his lumpy shoulders stooping a little forwards, like a fierce hound training on a leash.
    The hubbub of the betting had risen until it drowned all other sounds, men shouting their opinions from one side of the coach-house to the other, and waving their hands to attract attention, or as a sign that they had accepted a wager.  Sir John Lade, standing just in front of me, was roaring out the odds against Jim, and laying them freely with those who fancied the appearance of the unknown.
    “I’ve seen Berks fight,” said he to the Honourable Berkeley Craven.  “No country hawbuck is going to knock out a man with such a record.”
    “He may be a country hawbuck,” the other answered, “but I have been reckoned a judge of anything either on two legs or four, and I tell you, Sir John, that I never saw a man who looked better bred in my life.  Are you still laying against him?”
    “Three to one.”
    “Have you once in hundreds.”
    “Very good, Craven!  There they go!  Berks!  Berks!  Bravo!  Berks! Bravo!  I think, Craven, that I shall trouble you for that hundred.”
    The two men had stood up to each other, Jim as light upon his feet as a goat, with his left well out and his right thrown across the lower part of his chest, while Berks held both arms half extended and his feet almost level, so that he might lead off with either side.  For an instant they looked each other over, and then Berks, ducking his head and rushing in with a handover-hand style of hitting, bored Jim down into his corner. It was a backward slip rather than a knockdown, but a thin trickle of blood was seen at the corner of Jim’s mouth.  In an instant the seconds had seized their men and carried them back into their corners.