Here was fine matter for the gossips, and great work for Cunning Murrell:
nothing less than a combined attack of witches on one innocent family,
afflicting it at a swoop with an imp-tortured horse, a fiend-ridden pig, a
doubtful cow, and a bedeviled churn, to say nothing of a bushel of broken
crockery, and wholly disregarding the ringworm. But chief of all, here was Em
Banham “took comical” once more, and worse than ever; biting and snapping at
her mother’s hands, and even at her own.
When at last Mrs Banham and Mag succeeded in finding Cunning Murrell it
was in evening dark, and he was coming up Castle Lane with the accustomed
umbrella over his shoulder, but with a far bigger frail than common hanging
from its handle; a full and bulging frail, too, full of something that seemed
heavy. And he was angry when they rushed upon him, and bade them hold their
tongues and go; though he promised to come to them presently, and kept his
promise.
ROBOSHOBERY DOVE had finished his breakfast, smoked a pipe,
and looked round his garden. He had been hoeing before the meal, and now
nothing remained to do. Every upturned flower-pot on a stick had been emptied
of its entrapped snails and replaced, every dying leaf had been cut away and
buried, and not a growing thing was visible that had not a comforting hoeing
of moist earth heaped about its root. Nothing, dead or alive, was out of its
place, and there was no weed anywhere. Roboshobery Dove stumped along the
narrow paths, bright with broken cockle-shell, in a clean green smock and a
varnished hat that sent a little patch of reflected light dancing, sometimes
on the cottage wall, sometimes among the thick leaves of his best plum tree,
and sometimes into the dazzled eyes of a chance passenger beyond the fence.
There was nothing left to do in the garden—absolutely nothing, even in
Roboshobery’s eyes; the climbing rose that went up beside the cottage door
and spread over the lintel to the right and over a window to the left, clung
close and went everywhere, with an even space between twigs and branches,
like the veins on a butterfly’s wing. Even the blossoms had fallen into an
orderly habit, and every bud seemed to spring at a just distance from its
neighbour, so that the old seaman could nowhere find a spot where another
nail might be driven with advantage, nowhere detect a superfluous twig, and
nowhere discover a mildewed leaf. Even the unruly clematis on the side wall
rose with rigid system ere it broke at last into its luxuriant valance of
dark leaf and purple blossom. For a moment Roboshobery eyed his doorposts and
his front gate, but there was no excuse for another coat of paint in any part
of their perfect whiteness; so he pushed the gate open and came into the
road.
It was a forward year, as one might tell by the nearest cornfield, whose
colour was of August rather than of July. The scent of the bean-fields
thinned and grew subtler, though potent still to fuddle drunken wasps and
tumbling butterflies; and all the air was strong with the breath of a lusty
summer. Dove went—sauntered, as well as a man with a wooden leg
could—toward the four-wont way, there to take observation north, west,
east, and south-west along the cross roads. To the east Hadleigh street
tailed away in the sunlight, and gave little sign of life beyond the merry
ring of quick blows from Lingood’s smithy; west lay the road to London by way
of Bread-and-cheese Hill, and there was nothing but a distant farm waggon
creeping up from Vange; north was the road to Rayleigh, empty to sight save
for the felled log on the wayside grass, whereon the village elders sat for
evening recreation; so that Roboshobery Dove turned to the Bemfleet road, to
walk just so far along it as would bring him to the nearest view of broad
water and the traffic of Thames mouth. For to him this view was something
like the reading of a newspaper; not a speck of humanity crawling and
skipping on the green marshes far below, not a boat pulling through the blue
water, but told some tale of local news to his long-used eyes; and all the
tidings of London port were set before him, with no obscuring medium of
print.
Where the road swung to the right he pushed aside a gate and entered a
meadow. At the gate the Kent hills made a blue horizon, and in twenty yards
one saw the Kent shore; twenty yards more, and many square miles of blue
water lay below, gay with sunlight; and then the meadow fell away in a slope,
and Canvey Island and the marshes lay green and flat below, like a great
map.
Tide was low, and at the causeway from Bemfleet to the island an uncommon
black patch was moving. It lengthened out in the wetter parts, and showed
itself to be a crowd of men. The foremost were scarce high and dry on the
island ere Dove, as much by induction as by his keen eyesight, perceived the
purpose of the gathering.
“‘Tis a prize-fight!” he said. “From Lunnon!” And instantly scrambled back
at his best pace for the gate.
It was two miles to the causeway by the road, and there was no time to
waste, or he would lose much of the fight ere he could come up with it. It
might even be over if they were quick and it were a bad match. On the other
hand it were a mean thing to rush off alone and tell none of his friends.
Distracted between his two minds, he clapped hand to jaw and roared “Prentice
ahoy!” in the direction in which Prentice’s kitchen chimney was just visible,
away in the village. The shout might have been heard at Beggar’s Bush, but
there came no answer, and at that moment Roboshobery perceived a boy grubbing
for dandelion roots under the hedge. “Here, younker!” he called, “run an’
tell Master Prentice, an’ Master Lingood, an’ Master Fisk, an’—an’
anybody else yow see, there’s a Lunnon prize-fight down to Canvey!” And
instantly hurried off down the Bemfleet road.
Now Roboshobery Dove’s enthusiasm had caused him to forget the penny that
would have sent the boy back on the errand without hesitation. As for the
boy, he reflected that while he was carrying the news about the village he
would be losing a deal of the fight himself; and a careful balancing of the
advantage and consideration of being the bearer of important news before the
event, against that of bringing home the tale of a prize-fight that nobody
else had seen, led in a very few seconds to his stuffing into the hedge the
old table-knife he was using, and hastening through the gate into the meadow;
to gain Canvey Island by a direct route down hill-faces and over wet marsh,
easy and quick enough for a boy, but not to be contemplated by anybody with a
wooden leg. So that nobody from Hadleigh saw the fight but Roboshobery Dove
and his truant messenger.
As for Dove, he stumped along with steady haste down the lane to Bemfleet.
This was not the first fight, by many, that had come off on Canvey Island,
and now that the railway was brought down almost to Bemfleet, the island was
grown an uncommonly convenient spot.
The lane wound, ever descending, under the shade of tall trees, sometimes
deep between banks, sometimes on the open hillside. At the first clear drop
on the left, where water and marsh came in view again, Dove could see the
crowd making briskly for the middle of the island, men carrying the ropes and
stakes not far from the leaders; and then a little wood sprang on the
hillside, and shut all out.
Presently, on the right, the hill fell away wholly, and left the road,
descending still, to top its last ridge; throwing wide a great picture where
Essex lay broad and fecund below, dotted with a score of hamlets, richly
embushed with trees, motley with fields of many colours, and seamed with
hedges. But Roboshobery’s face was turned the other way, over the water and
the island, where the crowd was a less conspicuous mark now that it was seen
from behind rather than from above. It was plain, however, that the
battle-field had been reached, for a white spot in a meadow by Kibcaps Farm
presently rose to a point, and was clearly a tent. Roboshobery reflected that
the choice of ground was a good one, since the hay had lately been cut from
that meadow, and the turf was springing again, fresh and short.
The road took a steeper pitch and a turn between high banks which allowed
only an occasional peep over the open, waterwards: a peep that now included
the stout square tower of Bemfleet Church, with its little wooden spire. Dove
kept his pace at a steady thump, till he came on level ground at last by the
church itself, and went on past the old carved wooden porch, whose posts were
nailed thick with stoats and polecats; still with his eyes fixed ahead.
Nothing was visible of the crowd now, for all to be seen of Canvey Island
was the low line of sea-wall across the Ray; though stragglers were still
crossing, and several labourers from the new railroad were in view, who had
flung down pick and shovel and were now making their best pace for the
causeway. Dove picked his way with care over the rotten wood and wet stones,
over the mud bank alive with little staggering crabs, and so gained the low
road, confined by sea-wall on each side. There was still a mile to walk to
the fight, though the way was level—the island, indeed, was everywhere
flat as the water about it.
When at last he came again in sight of the crowd the fight was going
merrily, and a tide of yells rolled back and forth across the field. Already
the tent was demolished, having first been abandoned as a superfluous luxury
once the men were stripped, and since having collapsed under the weight of
unreasoning enthusiasts who in their efforts to find some commanding pitch on
the dead flat of the meadow, had desperately stormed the canvas and clutched
the pole at the top. But its mere presence was a sign that this was an
important fight, furnished with uncommon elaboration, for Dove could not
remember another fight hereabout to the use whereof a tent had been brought.
And steadily under the broken surge of shouts ran the unceasing current of
offered bets.
“I’ll back the little’un!” sang out Roboshobery Dove, swinging up
impetuously. “I’ll back the little’un!” For backing the little one was a
principle of his chivalry, which he was ever ready to uphold at any
sacrifice, and which he now proclaimed, in his fervour, without staying to
ascertain if there were any little one engaged.
It took a few minutes’ steady struggle to find out. It might at first be
supposed that a man with a wooden leg would contend with a crowd at a serious
disadvantage; but the point of that wooden leg with the most of fourteen
stone weight above it, resting upon the live toes of a neighbour, would do
much toward dispelling the opinion; and it will be perceived that if only you
get far enough into a sufficiently thick crowd, you cannot be knocked down;
indeed, in a crowd with anything of pugilistic tastes and education, there
would be something more than reluctance to knock down a man who had lost a
leg. So that, by one advantage and another, and not least by an energetic use
of the stout arms still remaining to him, Roboshobery Dove presently found
himself in a position to see the fight pretty clearly.
He was puzzled to guess which might be the little one. Near the centre of
the square enclosed by the eight stakes and the two ropes the two men
sparred, matched to a hair, or at any rate seeming so thus early in the
encounter. Plainly they had fought just long enough to learn a little of each
other’s reach and style, and each had learned enough to decide him that
nothing was to be gained by recklessness just yet. There was scarce a stain
of grass on their white breeches, and the affable grin on each face was
marred by nothing worse than a smear of blood and a highly coloured eye. As
for the men themselves, there seemed not a pound of weight to choose between
them, and whether each was nearer twelve or eleven stone it would have been
hard to say. A yellow silk handkerchief hung over a corner post, and a red
one with white spots over that at the opposite angle; and two men were
pushing through opposite parts of the crowd, one with a bundle of yellow
handkerchiefs and the other with a bundle of red and white. But customers for
the colours were few just now, and the pushing and shouting and flourishing
went for little profit.
“A shade of odds I’ll take!” cried a man in a white hat. “A shade of odds
on either man!”
Instantly half a dozen turned toward him. “What’ll you take on the
Bricky?” For it happened that the Bricky had finished the last round on
top.
“Three to one,” answered the man in the white hat, who was out on
business.
“Gr-r-r! A shade of odds! A shade! Enough shade to sit under with a
bloomin’ tea-party!” Plainly most of the crowd were Londoners.
But now the Bricky was taking rather than giving, having “napped” a double
left, in consequence of being a trifle shorter in reach than Paddington
Sharp, his opposite. But he milled in, and soon made matters seem even again.
Truly it was a very good fight. Good men, well trained—their skins were
like pink ivory—fighting their best, and losing no chance by haste or
ill-temper. Roboshobery cheered both impartially, and raked his pocket with
the view of backing his fancy as soon as he had decided what it was.
But four rounds went, and still he could not make up his mind. For with
him the reasonable desire to back the probable winner was tempered by a
Quixotic impulse, regardless of shillings, to back the resolute hero holding
on against the odds of ill-fortune. This fact alone was apt to breed
indecision; but here the chances hung now this way and now that, with so
regular a swing that it was difficult to distinguish which man should be
favoured by sympathy and which by commercial prudence.
The Bricky was picked up and taken to his corner with his grin unspoiled,
though one ear was thrice the size of the other, and needed a touch of the
penknife. A large and red-faced man in a white overcoat—the weather
notwithstanding—who stood just before Dove, opened a newspaper to seek
information as to odds on a race; and Roboshobery, by twisting his neck, was
just able to read a headline: “Latest News of the War.” But he had scarce
deciphered the capitals when the red-faced man doubled the column under, the
better to read what he wanted.