FOXY PINSENTV.JAPHRA's GENTLEMAN
I
Visitors to the booths who had stayed late that night went home complaining of the abruptness with which the shows were closed and of the uncouth way in which showmen who had fawned and flattered for their patronage suddenly seemed no more occupied with them than to bustle them off the ground and set their faces townwards.
But visitors were not in the line of communication that flashed that amazing news around the camp:
"Heard it?"
"No!"
"Foxy Pinsent's to fight Japhra's Gentleman in the marquee!"
"What of it?"
"What of it, yer muddy thick? What of it? Not a show—private! Had a scrap and to fight it out!"
"Eh? Fac'? No! When?"
"One o'clock. When the ground's clear." And, with a nod at the sightseers, "Get 'em out, mate! Get 'em out! Stars and stripes! What a knock-out!"
So, as the Fiery Cross among the Highland glens rushed with incredible swiftness, leaving in its wake a trail of mad commotion, the message flashed from mouth to mouth, booth to booth, van to van—received with utter incredulity, grasped with wildest excitement, relished with a zeal that caused every other thought and object to be abandoned, and resulted in a tide of feverish agitation to be at leisure for details and for the business that drove out naphtha flares and visitors alike as it swept across the ground. For there was more in the fight than the rare thrill of fight itself. It was accepted everywhere as the meeting by champion of the two factions; and the bickerings of many months, the final poison of that day's events, rushed a savage zest into the appetites that waited the encounter. Foxy Pinsent was Boss Maddox's party, coat off to put that Stingo crowd properly in its place; Japhra's Gentleman was the Stingo following, girt at last to collect a little on account for much outstanding debt. When, towards one o'clock, the surging crowd outside the marquee made a sudden movement forward and into the tent, it entered with rival cries, taunts, faction jeers—and separated, as a barrier had divided it, into two bodies that faced in mutual mock across the ring that had been formed.
They found preparations at the point of completion, done by half a dozen principles that Boss Maddox had called in, who stood conferring with him now on final arrangements—Stingo, with Ginger Cronk and Snowball White of Japhra's booth; Foxy Pinsent, hands in the pockets of his long yellow coat, with Buck Osborn and others of his Academy of Boxing and School of Arms—Pink Harman, Dingo Spain, Nut Harris. At a little distance Japhra stood with Percival. He had towels on his arm, a sponge in his hand, and as the crowd took up their places he turned and called a single word across the arena to the group within the ring.
"Gloves?" he called.
Pinsent answered him. Pinsent took his hands from the pockets of his coat and curved up two brown fists. "There's no gloves between us," he called back; and at his words the two groups of spectators drew as it were one long breath of relish—"Ah-h-h!" that hardened to murmurs of grim satisfaction, each man to his neighbour—"The raw 'uns!" "The knuckle!" "The knuckle!" "The raw 'uns!" and broke into individual bickerings, cries of derision, across the ring; and thence into a sudden wordless shouting, one party against the other—a blaring vent of old antagonism fermented by new cause that made the animals in the menagerie cages at the end of the arena leap from uneasy slumber to spring against their bars and join their chorus to a chorus brutish as their own.
II
To a renewed outburst of that clamour—the thing was on the tick of beginning—Ima raised the flap that covered the entrance to the marquee and stepped within. Simultaneously the shouting stilled with a sudden jerk that left an immense silence—Foxy Pinsent had stepped into the ring.
She stopped as if the sudden stillness struck her; and she took in the scene, her hands clasped against her breast.
The ring had been contrived within the inner circle that forms the working part of a circus arena. The canvas belt, some two feet high, that surrounded this circle during a performance, had been taken up as to the arc farthest from where she stood and brought forward to the great pole of the marquee. The wide half circle thus bounded was made the ring for the fight. Around the tent the lights above the seats had been extinguished; the great lamp of many burners that encircled the mast enclosed the ring in its arc of clear light. In the surrounding dimness, as Ima paused and watched, were the high tiers of red-draped, empty benches. Within the light's arc she saw the rival crowds on either hand; straight before her the gap that separated the two clusters and declared their enmity. At the centre front of each, against the canvas that bounded the ring, was a little caving-in of the throng where men in their shirt-sleeves knelt. Pinsent had just stepped out from this knot on the one side: in the other she saw Percival seated on her father's knee. A hundred men and more were behind Pinsent, behind Percival forty or fewer; there was significance in how each throng stood closely packed, refusing the accommodation that the ample space between them offered—hatred was deep that preferred the discomfort of jostling and tiptoe standing to easier view at the price of mingling. Every face was beneath a peaked cap or dented bowler hat and above a scarfed neck; a pipe in most caused, as it were, a grey, shifting bank of smoke, cut flat by the darkness above the lamp's reflection, to be swaying above the caps as though they balanced it. Here and there were clumps of colour where women in blouses of red or white clustered together. Sweat, for the place was hot, glistened on this face and on that as if the grey, shifting bank above them exuded drops of water. There was something very sinister, very eerie, in the complete silence that for a moment held the scene; and Ima started to hear a sound of breathing and of restless movement. She looked around. On either hand of where she stood the menagerie cages were banked. Dark or tawny forms were coiled or stretched there; in one cage was a big wolf, head down, nose at the bars, that watched the light as she watched it.
She went quickly forward to where she saw her father. Impatient way was made for her. Japhra was talking earnestly to Percival, and they scarcely seemed to notice her. She slipped down beside them, her knees against the canvas, and sat on her heels, her hands clasped at their full extension. She had said she would not come. She had found she must. While she had been with Percival waiting Japhra's return after the scene with Pinsent he had begun the contrition he had come to her to express. She suffered him nothing of it. "That is left where we laid it among the bracken," she told him. "Let it abide there. Look already what has come of it. If I had stayed with thee, this had not happened."
But her leaving him, and why she left, and his following her, and what came then, were of the train of the tricks and chances that shaped for him this day.
III
Boss Maddox spoke. "They're going to fight," he said, taking up a position against the mast and addressing the gathering in his dry, authoritative way—"They're going to fight, and you can count yourselves lucky to see it. If any one interferes—out he goes. Everything's settled. If any one sees anything he don't think right or according to rule he can go outside and look for it—keep his mouth shut while he's going and go quick. Three minute rounds. One minute breathers. Ten count for the knock-out. Stingo 'll stand here with the watch. I'm referee. And I'm boss—bite on that. Come along, Foxy."
Pinsent, who had stepped over the canvas and strolled to the centre of the ring as Ima entered, was still in the long yellow coat, still with his hands in his pockets. He liked to have all those eyes upon him. He liked to give pause and opportunity for the thought that this fine figure standing here had fought in class rings and bore a reputation that gentlemen in shirt-fronts had paid gold to see at battle. He suffered usually a slight nervousness at the first moment of stepping into those class rings: to-night and here he had an exultant feeling, and he carried it with a most effective swagger. He knew Percival could box. He had watched him spar in Japhra's booth. He knew, to express his own thoughts, there 'd be a little bit of mixin' up at the outset; but he knew, as only Japhra among them all also knew, that to his own skill that had put him in a good rank of his weight he added the experience, the craft, the morale of a score and more class fights, and that such a quality is to be reckoned as a third arm against that poor thing—a "novice." "A novice, Boss!" he had said to Boss Maddox an hour before. "A novice—I lay there's more'n a few 'ud stop this fight if they knew what I was fighting. 'Strewth! I'd not do it myself but for what I've been saving up against the whelp!"
What he had been saving up came poisonously to his mind as he stood there, driving away even the flavour of the admiration he felt he was receiving. At last the price for that "Foxy" he had been dubbed and had endured. At last that price! Folk had come to the booths to see Japhra's Gentleman, had they!—A price for that! That smack in the mouth an hour ago!—A price for that! a big price and he would have it to the full!
The foxy smile contracted his mouth and eyes as he began to draw the scarf from his neck, slipped the long yellow coat, and peeled a sweater. A delighted cry went up from his supporters—good old Foxy had done them the honour of appearing in his class ring kit! Japhra, whispering last earnest words in Percival's ear, looked up at the cry, and twisted up his face at what he saw. Naked but for the tight boxing trunks and boxing boots, Pinsent declared himself a rare figure of a fighting machine. Japhra knew the points. Pinsent threw out his arms at right angles to his sides and drew a long breath. Japhra saw the big round chest spring up and expand as a soap bubble at a breath through the pipe—the cleft down the bone between the big chest muscles; the tense, drumlike look of the skin where it swept into waist from the lower ribs; the ridge from neck to shoulder on either side where the head of the back muscles showed; the immense span of the arms, rooted in great hitting shoulders that, at such length and along such well-packed arms, would drive the fists like engine rods. He scaled a shade over ten stone, Japhra guessed. Percival would be little above nine-and-a-half; and in Pinsent's uncommonly long legs—their length accentuated by the brief boxing-drawers—Japhra saw a further and most dangerous quality in his armoury. He swung an arm and side-stepped to his left as Japhra watched; and Japhra's lips twitched. The left leg not slid the foot but lifted it and put it away and down, more with the ease of an arm action than of a leg—as a spider lifts and places; up, two feet away, the body perfectly poised on the right; down, and in a flash the body alert upon it—down, and in a flash the arm extended and back again with the stab of a serpent's tongue. There went up a murmur of applause at the consummate ease of the action, and Japhra turned to Percival with whispered repetition of last words.
"Thou seest that?" he whispered. "Thou must follow, follow; press him; give him no rest. In-fighting, in-fighting, quick as thou canst hit!"
Earnest anxiety was in his voice as he spoke and in his lined face that was all twisted up so that every line became a pucker, as a withered apple that is squeezed in the hand.
"Now bide me a last time," he said. "He hath no bowels for punishment. There is a coward streak in him—I have seen it. That thou must find by following, following—quick as thou canst sling them. Good for thee that he has chosen the knuckle. Thou hast used thy hands. That fox yonder hath been too fine a swell these years to pull and carry, shift and load as thou hast done. He will rue his choice when his knuckles bruise; thine like stone. He will use his tongue on thee, mocking thee. Pay no heed to that. He will use his ring tricks. Watch for them. Up now! they are ready for thee. My life is in this fight, little master—punish, punish, punish; give him no peace—it resteth on that. All the luck!"
He slipped Percival's coat, and Percival stepped across the canvas and went where Pinsent waited him in the centre. He wore the dress in which he boxed in the booth—white flannel trousers, a vest of thin gauze, white canvas shoes with rubber soles. He carried his arms at his sides, twisting up his fingers to make toughest those fists that Japhra had said were like stone. He held his head high, looking straightly at Pinsent; stopped within an arm's length of him and turned his eyes informatively to Boss Maddox, then direct into Pinsent's again.
His covered limbs joined with his few pounds' lesser weight to make him appear the slighter figure of the two. "Going to eat him!" a voice behind Pinsent broke out.
"Going to muddy well eat him!" and Pinsent's mouth and eyes contracted into their foxy smile at the words.
"Ready?" from Boss Maddox. "All right, Stingo. Get along with it."
"Time!" said Stingo's husky whisper; and, as a hand laid to the wire of dancing puppets, the word jerked both figures into movement.
A FIGHT THAT IS TOLD
I
They tell that fight along the road to-day. Old men who saw it want never a listener when the talk turns on boxing and they can say: "Ah, but I saw Japhra's Gentleman and Foxy Pinsent back in Boss Maddox's time."
I tell it as it is told.
Why (the old men say), why, this Japhra's Gentleman, mark me, he was one of the quick-ones—one of the movers, one of the swift-boys, one of the dazzlers, one of the few! He come intic-tac! tic-tac! tic-tac!—quicker'n my old jaws can say it:Left-right! left-right! left-right!—like his two fists was a postman's knock. Pinsent never see nothing like it. He was one of the class ones, this Pinsent—one of the pretty ones, one of the sparrers, one of the walk-rounds, talk-rounds, one of the wait-a-bits; never in no hurry, the class-ring boys—all watching first to see what a man's got for 'em. He muddy soon saw, Foxy! Foxy never see nothing like it. First along, he prop this quick-boy off, an' prop him off, an' prop him off; an' catch him fair and rattle him, an' smash him one and stagger him, an' side-step an' shake him up; but still he come, and still he come, and still he come;tic-tac! tic-tac! tic-tac!ah, he was one of the quick-ones, one of the dazzlers, one of the steel-boys.
Pinsent never see nothing like it. He come back after the first round thinking this was novice stuff—going all out like that from the gong—and laughin' at the bustle of it, an' Buck Osborn an' Nut Harris an' his boys laughin' back at him. Second round he come back an' give a bit of a spit on the ground an' ease up his trunks an' look thoughtful. Third round he step back slowly 's if he'd a puzzle to think about,—third round I mind me Dingo, Dingo Spain, chip him friendly while he pass the sponge over him, and Foxy turn on him like he had the devil in his eyes. "What in hell's that to you?" he give him. "Keep your grins in your ugly mouth," he give him, "lest you want me to wipe it for you!" He was rattled some, that foxy one; not hurted much—one of the tough ones, Foxy—but bothered by it an' not quite sure what to make of it, like a man with a wops buzzin' round his head—that was the like of it with that quick-boy comin' at him, an' comin' at him, an' comin' at him.
Ay, but he was one of the tough ones, Foxy—one of the lie-lows, one of the shifty ones, one of the snaky-boys, one of the cautions! He went out fourth round for to serve it up to that quick-boy with some of his crafty bits. I like a bit o' craft meself. I was a Maddox man, me, an' I set up a holler, an' we all holler, take my word, when we see Foxy servin' of it up to that quick-boy like he lay hisself to do then. Give his tongue to him a treat, he did. Walkin' out to him—tiptoe an' crouchin' at him. "What, you're in a hurry, my gentleman!" he chips him. "You'll make yourself hot, my pretty pet, if you don't steady down," he chips him. "That's not lady's manners, runnin' about like you've been," he chips him.
That quick-boy come at him an' he slip a bit of craft on him quick as a snake. Side-step, he did, that foxy one; an' duck an' say, "Where's your manners?" an' rake his head across an' butt that quick-boy's stomach so he grunts; an' up an' hook him one, an' follow him an' lash him one, an' "Mind your manners, you bastard!" he says an' half across the ring an' waitin' for him. Three times he butt him so, an' each time hook him one, an' all the time lip-lippin' of him, an' us boys hollerin' an' Stingo's boys hollerin' an' the animals in the cages hollerin' back on us. Holler!—I mind me I was in a fair muck sweat with it.
Back he goes again, next round, that foxy one, an' "Why, dear, dear, you've got some beauty-spots on your face, my pretty gentleman!" he chips him. "Come an' let's paint 'em up a bit for you, my little lady!" he chips him. Ay, that was a round, that one! That Japhra,—a rare one that Gipsy Japhra—had been talkin' to that quick-boy whiles he had him on his knee; an' when he comes in, an' that foxy one goes to rake him with buttin' him again, he step back, that quick-boy, for to cut him as he come out. I see the move—but that foxy one! All craft that foxy one was—one of the snaky ones, one of the tough boys, one of the coves! 'Stead o' swingin' through with his head, he swing up and hook his left 'un with it, an' chin that quick-boy one, an' "Paint!" he says, "There's paint for you, you dog!" an' lash him one where he had a little mouse-lump over his eye; an' true enough, the paint splits across an' comes streaky down that quick-boy's face.
You'd ha' thought—I lay me I know what that foxy one thought. Blood fierce went that foxy one when he see that blood, an' in he goes, fierce after blood, for to finish it; leaved off his craft and went in for to hammer him. He muddy soon goed back to craft again, Foxy! That quick-boy shook his head an' run back; an' draws a breath an' meets him; an' throats him one an' staggers him; an' draws a breath an' follows him; an' pastes him one an' grunts him; an'tic-tac! tic-tac! tic-tac!an' follows him, an' follows him, an' follows him. Like a wops he was—like a bull-tamer he was, an' that foxy one gets all muddled with him, an' runs back puzzled with him, an' then catches hold of hisself, an' stops hisself—I reckon he wondered where 'n hell he'd be soon if he didn't—and puts in that duck an' butt craft again; an' that quick-boy steadies for him like old Japhra bin teachin' of him; an' when that foxy one swings across, that quick-boy smashes up under him—crack!like a stone-breaker with his hammer; an' that foxy one come back to us with his mouth split, an' his chin red; an' while he sit blowin' take a toof out; an' while he sit blowin' get it drip-drop on his chest from where the blood run to his chin.
II
But Percival had suffered under the punishment of these savage encounters, and under the immense exertions of that unceasing in-fighting to which Japhra had urged him. Back on Japhra's knee, "I've dosed him, Japhra," he said. "He's taking all I can give him." There was a sob in his quick breathing as he spoke, and he smiled weakly and leant back against Japhra's shoulder.
Japhra's eyes were sunk in his twisted face to twin points of glistening light. His voice trembled, and his hand as he plied the sponge. "He will not drink much more," he said. "Thou art hot after that coward streak in him. I mark the signs of it. Keep up the dose, master! Never such a fight—and never thy like! never thy like! Follow him, son of mine—follow him! follow him! A last call on thyself! Watch him where he sucks his tender knuckles."
Pinsent knew better than Japhra the tenderness of those bruised knuckles of his: he knew too that he was housing an uneasy feeling beneath his belt, born of the bewildering persistence of his opponent and of the punishing fists which that persistence pressed upon him, giving him no peace. He was sore; he had reached the point when blows were beginning to hurt him—and that was a point beyond which he knew it was dangerous for him to delay proceedings.
Again! He came forward with a trick in his mind that he had seen and that he had once playfully practised on Buck Osborn. Thought of it helped him to his foxy smile that was a grotesque burlesque of itself as he made it with his swollen mouth; but again!—again that steel-springed fury was on him, following him, following him, following him. Pinsent must needs use his fists to try to check its rushes; when he effected a savage blow the jar at his knuckles made him wince. Twice he went backwards round the ring—a third time and feinted a stumble as he moved his feet. It made his chance. Percival, coming too quick, ran full into him. He ducked, then drove up his head with all his force beneath the other's jaw.
The trick succeeded better than when he had seen it and marked it for future use. Jarred to the point of unconsciousness, Percival staggered back, his arms wide. At the exposed throat Pinsent drove his left fist with all the driving power his body and legs could give it; with the dullwup!of a wet sheet beaten on stone Percival went his full length and full length lay.
"Time!" throated Stingo; and at the word the facing crowds, that as one man had caught their breaths, went into two tumults of jostling figures, tossing arms, and of brazen throats before whose thunders, beating the air like thunder's self, Japhra, Ginger Cronk, Snowball White, and One Eye bent their heads as they came rushing forward.
"Time!" Japhra snarled at Pinsent. "Out of this, thou foul-play fox!"
"Out you!" Pinsent shouted. He stood over the prostrate form, breathing quick, one arm curved back as if it held a stabbing sword: "Out you! Enough o' this! Private between him an' me now. Stand out and let him up for me! Out!"
"Boss! Boss!" Japhra called, and dropped on his knees by Percival, dizzily rising on an elbow. "Boss! Boss! What's this? Order him out! Have him out!"
"Play fair!" "Fight fair!"—with cries and oaths the Stingo men pressed to the canvas, shaking fists aloft; with cries and oaths and tossing fists were answered. A Stingo man put his leg over the canvas and half his body into the ring: a leg and flushed face struck out on the other side. Then in a rush men broke across the canvas, poured into the ring, and met in two raging, foul-mouthed banks that strained about the boxers.
Boss Maddox thrust his way forward. "Ge' back! Ge' back! I'll have 'ee out the tent, every man of 'ee! Ge' back! Ge' back! By God, I'll have the lamp out!" And he fought his way back to the mast and stretched his hand to the chain that released the extinguishers upon the burners.
A Stingo and a Maddox man, catching each the other's eye as the two sides bayed and jostled, made private cause of the common brawl, and closed with clutching hands. Another pair engaged, and now another—whirled in that tossing mob, and flung the crowd this way and that in their furious grappling, like fighting tigers in a stockade breaking in pieces at their violence.
Boss Maddox's iron throat like a trumpet across the din: "The light goes! The light goes!"
It flickered; savage hands tore at the fighters, savage feet kicked furious commands; flickered again—and suddenly the immense clamour went to a cry, to a broken shout, to peace.
Pinsent pushed his way to the front. "Easy, Boss—I want that light. I've a job to finish," he said; and in the laugh that went up, added, "The boys 'll be all right." He threw his arms apart in gesture of command. "Out o' the ring!" he cried. "You're robbin' me of it. Gettin' his wits back! I'd ha' cut him out by now!"
Three parts supporting Percival, Japhra with Ginger Cronk and the rest had taken him back through the mob and supported him while they tended him.... The tumult gave him five minutes, and he was sitting up as the men returned growling to their places. He looked at Ima, crouching by him, read the entreaty in her eyes, and answered it and at the same time answered Japhra's trembling "How of it, master?" by shaking his head. "No!" he said, "No!" and felt Japhra's arms tighten about him.
Another heard him and pressed forward. It was Egbert Hunt, tears running down his face.
"You ain't going on?" he cried. "You ain't going on! Stop it, Mr. Japhra! Stop this murder!"
Japhra's left arm was about Percival's body, his right hand used the sponge. Those near him for the first and only time heard him use a coarse expression. As he were some tigress above a threatened cub, he drew Percival closer to him and turned savagely up at Egbert's pallid face. "Shut thy bloody, coward mouth!" he cried at him. "Men's work here! Quit thee, thou whelp!"
The ring was clear. Pinsent came out, sucking a fist. Percival got to his feet, stood a moment, the blood that had dripped to his chest the red badge of courage flying there—then walked forward.
Somewhere in the crowd a woman's voice shot up hysterically: "God love yer, Gentleman!" it shrilled—"Y're pluck! Pluck!"
III
That foxy one (the old men say) he come out sucking his fistses that were gone more like messy orindges than any fistses ever I see. He see that quick-boy rockin' a bit on his feet where he stood, an' he spit his fist out his mouth an' he run slap down at him for to knock him off his legs by runnin' into him. He run at him hard as he could pelt, that foxy one; an' that quick-boy stan' 's if he was dreamin' an' never see nothin' of him. Ah, but that quick-boy could have fought if he was asleep, I reckon me! He slip aside, squeeze aside, twist aside jus' as that foxy one reach him; so quick he twist, us what was watchin' the ground for to see him go there never see him move. I reckon that foxy one never did neither. He muddy soon knowed, though, Foxy! He go sprawlin' by, an' as he go that quick-boy clip him one an' help him go an' stumble him. Round he come, that foxy one, savage with it; an' that quick-boy dreamin' there again; an' rush him for to rush him down again; an' this time that quick-boy, too tired for to shift by the look of it, let him have it as he come fair under the eye, an' Foxy jus' swing him one on the cheek, an' that shift him like he shift hisself before; an' he clip that foxy one the other fist a clip you could ha' heard far as yonder tree; an' clip that same eye again; an' us see the blood run up into Foxy's peeper; an' that foxy one shake his head, an' shake his head, like he was blinded with it. He shake a muddy lot more, Foxy, afore he was through! He set in for to do the rushing then, like that quick-boy had done first along; an' that quick-boy's turn, dreamin' there, for to do the proppin' off. But he not rush like that quick-boy rush. He shake his head an' have a go at him; an' that quick-boy prop him off an' wait for him; an' he shake his head an' walk round a bit, an'ur!he go, an' rush at him; an' that quick-boy wake hisself an' prop him off; an' he suck his fist an' wipe his eye, an'ur!he come again: and that quick-boy twist hisself an' give him one—crack!my life, his fistses was like stones, that quick-boy's!
Ah, my word! my word! then they got at it. That old Japhra—a rare one, that Gipsy Japhra!—sing out "Cut in! Cut in! little master!" and that quick-boy gives a heave of hisself an' they meet, those two, slapper-dash! slapper-dash! this way! that way! punchin', punchin'! an' they fall away, those two, an' breathe theirselves, an' pant theirselves; an' that foxy one has his mouth all anyhow an' fair roarin' of his breath through it; an' his head all twisty-ways with only one eye for watchin' with; an' they rush those two—my life! they were rare ones! Hit as they come, those two—an' that put the stopper on it. Like stones—crack!like stones—my word on it, their fists met, an' Foxy drop his left arm like it was broke at the elbow. Then he takes it! Like a bull-tarrier!—like a bull-tarrier, my word on it, that quick-boy lep' at him.One!he smash him an' heart him, an' I see that foxy one glaze in his eye an' stagger with it.Two!that quick-boy drive him an' rib him, an' I hear that foxy one grunt an' see him waggle up his hanging arm an' drop it.Three!that quick-boy smash him an' throat him, an' back he goes, that foxy one; an' crash he goes! an' flat he lies—an', my life! to hear the breathing of him!
Life of me! there was never a knock-out like it; never one could do it like that quick-boy done it! Never no one as quick as that quick-boy when first along he cometic-tac! tic-tac! tic-tac!left-right! left-right! left-right! Never one could come again after he was bashed like that quick-boy come. Never his like! One of the rare ones, one of the clean-breds, one of the true-blues, one of the all-rights, one of the get-there, stop-there, win-there—one o' the picked!
IV
Quivering in silence the facing crowds stood while the count went.
"Nine!" throated Stingo—scarcely a whisper.
Stillness while perhaps five seconds passed. Then Boss Maddox opened his hands towards the ring in an expressive gesture.
Then men came rushing to Pinsent and shook him: "Up, Foxy! Up!" Then Pinsent drew up his knees, groaned, and seemed to collapse anew. Then, then the storm burst in a bellow of sound, in a rush of figures. All, all of clamour that had gone before—of exultation, hate, defiance, blood-want, rage—seemed now to bind up in two clanging rolls of thunder that in thunder went, in thunder thundered back, and thundered on again. Percival turned and saw Japhra running towards him, an arm's length in advance of the mob that followed. He fell into Japhra's arms, felt himself pressed, pressed to Japhra's heart, heard in his ears "Never thy like! Son of mine, never thy like!" He knew a driving mob behind his back, before, and all about him—heard curses, grapplings, blows. Heard Japhra's cry "Up with him! Up!" felt himself borne aloft and dimly was conscious that his bearers were staggered this way and that by the flood that surged about them.... Sudden darkness, and sudden most delicious air and sudden most delicious rain was his next impression—they had got him outside the tent.... At his next he was in the van, on his couch, smiling at those who bent above him.
THE STICKS COME OUT—AND A KNIFE
I
"How dost thou go?" Japhra asked.
"Why, my face is sore," Percival said—"sore! it feels as if I had only a square inch of skin stretched to cover the lot. I'm right as rain otherwise. That was a fight, Japhra!"
"Never its like!" Japhra answered him huskily—"never its like! Thou art the fighting type, my son. Long ago I said it. This night hath proved me!"
Percival sighed most luxuriously. Pleasant, pleasant to be lying there—bruised, tired, sore, but weariness and wounds bound up with victory. He put up a hand and took Ima's fingers that touched his face with ointment. "That's fine, Ima!" he smiled at her. "I saw you crying. You oughtn't to have been there. Did you think I was done for?"
She shook her head; tears were still in her eyes.
"Well, it's over now," he said affectionately. "Dry those eyes, Ima!"
She gave a catch at her breath. "Well, I am a woman," she told him, and her gentle fingers anointed his face again.
Their caress assisted him into drowsiness. Without opening his eyes he inquired presently:
"What's all that row? There's a frightful noise somewhere, isn't there?"
Japhra, who was looking through the forward window into the early dawn of the summer morning, turned to Ima and shook his head. She took his meaning and answered Percival: "It rains heavily. There is a storm coming up."
He dropped into slumber.
II
But the noise he had heard was heavier than the rain that streamed upon the van's roof; there raged outside a fiercer storm than the thunder-clouds massing up on the wind. It had been many seasons brooding; it was charged to the point of bursting when the two factions came shouting from the marquee after the fight. Swept up with arrogant glee, the Stingo men paraded with hoots and jeers before the Maddox vans. A stone came flying through the gloom and cracked against a tall man's cheek. He stooped for it with a curse, sent it whistling, and the crash of glass that rewarded his aim was the signal for a scramble for stones—smashing of windows, splintering of wood.
There came a wild rush of men from behind the Maddox vans. Japhra, watching from his window, turned swiftly and took up the stout limb of ash he commonly carried. He gave it a deft twirl in a tricky way that spoke of the days when single-stick work figured at the fairs, and looked at Ima with his tight-lipped smile.
"The sticks are out!" he said grimly. "I knew it would end thus;" and as he opened the door and dropped to the ground there came to him from many throats the savage cry—glad to the tough old heart of him that once had told Percival, "Ay, a camp fight with the sticks out and the heads cracking is a proper game for a man"—of "Sticks! Sticks!"; and one that came running past him toward the press shouted to him: "Japhra? Good on yer! The sticks are out! The ——s ha' come at us with sticks!"
It was Snowball White. "This way with it, boy," Japhra told him as they ran. "Thy stick thus—with a hand at each end across thy head. Crack at a pate right hand or left when thou seest one—then back to overhead to guard thine own again. I have been out with the sticks. I know the way of it."
III
Weight of numbers had told their tale when Percival got a glimpse of the fierce work.
"I'm fit—I'm absolutely fit, I tell you!" he had told Ima when, awakened by the sounds that now had raged close to the Stingo vans, and recognising them for what they were, he had shaken off her protests and entreaties and had come to the scene.
"Lie here while they're fighting us! Why, you'd be ashamed of me, you know you would!" he had cried; but when he was outside, and had gone a few steps in the rain that now was sheeting down, he was informed how weak he was, and was caught and spun dizzily back by a sudden mob of men driven towards him, and was held dizzy and fainting by the panting breaths and by the reek of sweating bodies that wedged him where he stood.
He was packed in a mob of his Stingo mates, half of whom could not free their arms for use and about three sides of whom the Maddox mob were baying, driving them further and further back against the vans with sticks that rattled on sticks and on heads like the crackling of trees in a wood fire. Two forms, taller than the rest, upstood clearly—near Percival old Stingo, hatless, blood on a cheek, and throating "Hut! Hut, boys! Hut!" with each stroke he made; further away Boss Maddox, pale, grim and iron of countenance as ever even in this fury, and using his long reach to strike with deadly precision at heads half a dozen men in front of him.
The two were working towards one another, Percival could see, and a sudden surge of the crowd brought him almost within reach of Boss Maddox's stick. It was at that moment that he felt a jostling at his ribs as of someone burrowing past him from behind, looked down and recognised Egbert Hunt—shut in by accident and trying to escape, Percival guessed.
"Hullo! You're going the wrong way to get out," he told him.
Egbert Hunt thrust up and filled his lungs as a diver might rise for air. He peered in the direction of Boss Maddox, and went down again. "I know which way I'm going," he said, and squirmed ahead—feeling and thrusting with his outstretched left hand, his right in the pocket of his coat.
Stingo and Maddox met. Each stood high above those about them and each had a cry of challenge for the other as their sticks joined. "Hut!" grunted Stingo and slashed to Boss Maddox's shoulder.
Percival saw the stick caught where it had slipped from its mark and gone into the press; saw Boss Maddox shake himself for freer action and the crowd give way from about him; saw him swing up his arm and poise his stick a dreadful second clear above Stingo's unprotected head—then saw him give an awkward stagger, saw the raised stick slip down between his fingers, heard him grunt and saw him drop down and disappear as a man beneath whose feet the ground had opened.
There arose almost simultaneously, high above the din of sticks and oaths, a scream of shocking sound and horrid meaning—"A knife! A knife!" the scream shot up—"A knife! Some bastard 's used a knife!"
It swept across the struggling men, stopped them, and was cried from throat to throat as though through the night there jarred some evil bird circling with evil cry: "A knife! A knife! Some one's knifed!"
And then again that first voice screamed: "Boss Maddox's knifed! The Boss is murdered!"
And another, most beastly: "Christ! it's pourin' out of 'im. Boss! Boss! 'Oo's done it on yer?"
And a third: "Boss! Boss! God ha' mercy!—he's dead! dead!"
And one that sprung up in panic and smashed a panic blow at the man behind him: "Dead! Dead! Gi' us room, blast yer!"
And one that sprung upright, held in his hand aloft that which caught the dull morning gleam, and screamed "Here y'are! Here's what done it! Blood on the haft!"
IV
A thud of hoofs broke into the silence in which the crowd stood held. A jingle of accoutrements; a sharp voice that called: "What's up? What's wrong here? Who called murder?" a breaking away right and left of the mob; and into the lane instinctively formed to where the body lay a mounted constable rode, pulled up his horse and cried again: "What's up? What's wrong here?"
He was answered. Scarcely the fearful whisper "Police! Police!" had run to the outskirts of the crowd, when one that had knelt sprung raving to his feet, tossed aloft two hands dark with blood, and shouted: "I called murder! There's murder here! Boss Maddox 's got a knife in him!" His shouting went to a scream: "One o' they's done it!" he screamed. "One o' they! One o' Stingo's bastards!"
There had been mutterings of thunder and swiftly gathering darkness that submerged the summer morning's gleam. Tremendous upon that accusing scream there now broke out of heaven great reverberating rolls of sound as of heaven demanding answer to that cry. The sheeting rain burst with a torrent's fury—a great stab of lightning almost upon the very camp; then pitchy black and thunder's roll again.
To the Stingo crowd it gave the last effect to the mounting panic that had mounted in them on successive terrors of "A knife!" "Boss Maddox's knifed!" "Boss Maddox 's dead!" "Police! Police!" and "One o' they! One o' they! One o' Stingo's bastards!"
Murder had been done. The Blue Boys were out. With one of their own number lay the guilt. There cried to them "Away! Away!", all the instinct that, since first law came on the land, has bade roadmen, gipsies, outlaws, take immediate flight from trouble. "Away!" it screamed; and by common impulse there was a break and a rush to their vans of the Stingo men; and in the pitchy blackness and in primeval shudder at every roll of thunder, drenched by the streaming downpour, lit as the lightning snatched up the cloak of night, there were panic harnessing and panic cries: "One o' us! One o' us done it! D'yer see the Blue Boy on his 'orse?—more of 'em coming! 'Old still!—still, blast yer! Up wi' that shaft!—up! Hell take this buckle! Are yer fixed? One o' us! One o' us!"
A van, speedier ready than its neighbours, rolled off, its driver flogging the horse from the forward platform. A blinding torch from heaven flamed down about it. The constable, giving directions by the prone figure—"He's not dead; knot those scarves together; lift, and bind 'em so"—shaded his eyes from the glare; then jumped for his horse. "Stop that van! None's to leave here! Stop 'em! stop 'em!"
Away! Away!—thundering hoofs; rocking wheels; a van overturned, and groans and curses; pursuers driven down or smashed at where they climbed the steps; the constable surrounded by those who ran beside the van he followed, dragged from his saddle, hurled aside, and his horse sent galloping.
Away! Away!—blindly into the night.
And in the night, two miles afield, one that ran with streaming face and labouring chest and that muttered "I done it on 'im—me, served like a dog before 'em all—I done it on him, the tyrang!"
V
Percival was changing his dripping clothes. Complete exhaustion had him. The bruises on his face had hardened to ugly colours, and Japhra, chiding him for having left the van, saw with concern an uglier colour yet that burned behind the bruises and whose cause made his wet body burning to the touch.
"Bed for thee!—no changing!" he said; and was answered by Percival: "Japhra! I saw him pitch and drop!"
"I have helped bear him to his van.... I saw him struck."
There had never left Percival's mind him that went thrusting past in the press, right hand in pocket. His eyes questioned Japhra and were answered by Japhra's. Then he said, "Egbert Hunt?"
"Egbert Hunt."
"What's going to happen now, Japhra?"
Strange how tricks and chances go! All that day's chain of tricks, all its train of chances, had brought Percival straight to the import of Japhra's words.
"This night hath ended this life, master. Stingo sells his stock and back to his brother near thy home. To-morrow, new roads for me."
Percival scarcely heard him. Japhra made an exclamation and caught him in his arms.
"Ima!"
She came from where she had waited behind her curtain.
"Help me here—then to Boss Maddox's van where they bring a doctor. This night hath struck down this heart of ours."