Part 9

As the church clock struck nine the men came to the scratch, listened to a brief word from the referee and again shook hands. Each in his different way looked strong and well. David’s white body shone in the red sunlight and showed a silky texture over the big muscles. He was shorter in the reach than Bartley Crocker and far sturdier below the waist. Big thews and sinews held him up; but, as he came on guard, he shaped rather awkwardly with his hands and his head was somewhat too far forward. Crocker appeared slighter, taller and more graceful. His brown body seemed somewhat thin about the ribs, but his face was clean and hard and his eyes bright. His legs were not so solid as David’s, but they showed more spring about them. His pose was good: he carried his head well back, and his hands neither too high nor too low. One man obviously possessed greater strength; while the other looked likely to be quicker both on his legs and with his fists. What either had learned about scientific fighting in the short time of preparation remained to be seen. Both were nervous and both were eager to begin.

David dashed out at his man and hit with his right but was parried. Again he tried his right, rather round, and just touched Crocker’s shoulder; whereupon Bartley, hitting straighter, got his left on the other’s face and followed it with his right on the throat. The second blow was heavy and shook David for a moment. They stood apart, then both began to fight desperately, but with little science. Some tremendous counters succeeded and each received a few blows in the face; but Bowden evidently hit harder than the younger man, though he did not get home so often. The little knowledge either possessed belonged to Crocker. He guarded to some purpose with his left and avoided one or two strong, right-handed blows in this manner. Twice Crocker missed his right; then the best blow of the round was struck by him. It fell fairly and full on David’s forehead, and he followed it by another, under the eye. Then Bartley received one on the nose which drew blood. A moment later the men closed and Crocker threw Bowden with an ordinary cross-buttock and fell on him. Both walked to their corners and the round ended with nothing of importance done on either side. First blood was claimed and allowed for David.

Bartley sat on Mr. Shillabeer’s knee, while Mr. Fogo polished him up and poured advice into his ear.

"Keep moving more," he said. "Dance ’Jim Crow’ round the man! make him come after you and blow him a bit. He hits harder than you do; but he’s not as clever and not as long in the arm. Get on to the right eye again. If you can shut that at the start, it’s worth half the stakes."

And elsewhere David reposed on Elias Bowden’s knee while Rhoda, white to the lips, but firm as a rock, sponged his face. He laughed at her.

"It’s all right," he said to his father. "He only hit me once worth mentioning. I’ll soon find his measure. I’m stronger than him."

"Don’t talk," answered the old man. "And get the fall, if you can, next round. Better you drop on him than he drop on you."

The half-minute was over and both came instantly to the scratch. Preliminary nervousness had passed and they were eager to fight. David panted a little; Hartley appeared quite calm. The second round began with Bowden leading off; but Crocker easily jerked his head out of harm’s way and escaped an ugly round hit.

They fell to heavy milling of a scrambling character, with few blows getting home on either side. Presently they stood apart, panting with hands down a moment; then, in response to shouts from partisans, they began to fight again. Crocker now had the best of it until the end of the round. David seemed unable to use his left and Bartley was learning to avoid the swinging round-arm blows delivered by his opponent’s right. Thrice he escaped these attempts and each time countered with his own right. To Mr. Fogo’s satisfaction one of these blows reached the damaged eye with great force and instantly raised a big ’mouse’ beneath it. Then the round ended, almost exactly like the last, by David landing on the other’s nose and drawing a copious flow of blood. Upon this they closed and David tried hard for the crook, but Bartley was the cleverer wrestler and Bowden went down with the other on top of him as before. Again they walked strongly to their corners and their friends did all that was necessary in the space of thirty seconds.

"Fight for his eyes, and even take a bit of risk to get there," said Mr. Fogo. "But, for the love of the Lord, don’t let him land that round-arm hit on your ear. It won’t do you no good. And use your left more."

Rhoda bathed the curious blue mark that had leapt into existence under her brother’s eye. His face was puffy round it, but neither she nor her father guessed at the threatened danger. As for David, he was very cheerful and only vexed that he had missed so often with his right.

"I’ve got to get nearer to him," he explained. "Out-fighting’s no good against his long arms. I must go inside ’em and see what I can do then."

The men smiled and nodded at one another as they came up to time.

Bartley began with his left. David threw it off well with the right guard and tried to begin in-fighting. But the taller man danced away before him and hit twice, right and left, on the retreat. Then Bowden, coming with a rush, caught him, and the finest rally of the battle followed. The combatants fought all across the ring with both hands almost entirely at the head. More by good chance than science each stopped some heavy hits and sparred much above their true skill. Immense applause greeted the round, and the ’Dumpling’ bellowed a word of encouragement to his man. Fogo watched every move with his old, keen eyes. He was not entirely pleased with the result of the round. It ended in a scrambling fall with no advantage to either. But both, though blowing heavily, were still strong, and each man rose instantly and got back to his corner without aid.

The little advantage of the rising sun in his opponent’s eyes was now lost to Bowden, for grey clouds had swallowed the morning and already a few stray flakes of snow fell leisurely. Elias, at the end of this round, complained that Crocker was holding some hard substance within his fists, but Fogo with disdain showed that they carried paper only.

Some marks of the last bout were visible when ’time’ brought the men to the scratch. Bartley had a cut on his forehead and another on his cheek-bone, while his nose and lips had swollen and become distorted; the eyelids of Bowden’s right eye were puffed and bulged. His face and breast were mottled with red; but Crocker, on the contrary, was as pale as a parsnip. David led off right and left, just touching with the first but missing with the latter. They countered heavily and then, in obedience to orders, Crocker got in suddenly, caught David’s head in chancery, and before the elder, by sheer strength, broke loose, fibbed him thrice. Mr. Fogo rolled in an ecstasy. The blows had reached David’s sound eye and done some damage. In getting away David fell and Bartley immediately went to his corner. The round had been much in his favour.

Rhoda worked hard to reduce the swelling on her brother’s face, but it was not possible. He continued strong, cheerful and impatient to repay a little of Crocker’s attention in the last round.

Yet from this point the fight went steadily in favour of the younger man. He was naturally quicker, neater and straighter in his hitting. The next round was a long one. David got to work first and lashed out as usual with his right, but was short. Then Bartley retreated until he had his enemy on the move, whereupon he stood and let fly both right and left at the head. Both told, though the blows were light. David slipped on to one knee but was up again instantly, and a moment later, for the first time since the beginning of the battle, he got his right home on Crocker’s ear. The hit fairly staggered Bartley but did not drop him. He recovered before Bowden could repeat the blow and some furious fighting brought the men into Bartley’s corner, where David had the worst of the rally. Crocker at last closed and might have gone far to end the fight, for he had his enemy on the ropes and was about to punish him in that position. His instinct, however, prevented it. He had raised his right and Bowden was for the moment defenceless; then the younger drew back and shook his head. "Nay, David," he said, "I’ll not take advantage of thee."

A hearty cheer greeted this sportsmanlike act; but in his corner at the end of the round, Mr. Fogo took occasion to caution his man against further display of such a spirit.

"You haven’t got him beat yet," he said. "’Tis all very well to play to the gallery when you’re safe, but not sooner. He’s harder than you and will take a lot of knocking out. You had it in your power then to give him pepper, and you ought to have done it till he dropped. Fight for his eyes and don’t let’s have no softness. You mind there’s a lot of money going to change hands over this job, and you’ve no right to throw away half a chance."

In answer Crocker showed temper.

"I’ll fight fair and be damned to you and your London ways," he said; but Mr. Fogo permitted himself no retort.

A great deal of tedious sparring occurred in the next round and Bowden got his second wind. He was strong and still confident, but the sight of his right eye grew much impaired. After a time the pace quickened, but when they began to fight in earnest, the round was Hartley’s own. David received all the hits, and one on the mouth nearly floored him. At the end they closed and Bowden was thrown. Both still went to their corners without help.

Five and six to one were betted on Crocker, and even Fogo felt sanguine. But he had time to take close stock of his man and noticed that Crocker was weaker.

In the next round the men closed almost instantly and went down, David undermost.

"All Dartmoor to a lark-sod on our chap!" said Mr. Shillabeer. "Go in and finish him, Bartley. Only get on his left peeper again and the shutters will be up. The right’s done for."

"I can do it, but I’m frightened to--might blind him for life," answered the fighter; and ’Frosty-face’ was frantically expostulating at this mistaken sentiment at the call of ’time.’

Heavy counter hits were exchanged in this round and Bartley’s left ear was again visited. Blood sprang from it in answer to the blow and for a moment he was dazed; then he hit David heavily on the neck and jaw. A rally followed and Bartley used his legs and got away. At the end Crocker hit out with his left and caught David on his sound eye. The blow was well timed and Bowden nearly fell. A moment later they closed and wrestled long for the fall. Neither won it decisively, but they went down together. Both were weak after this round and both, for the first time, were carried to their corners. Rhoda and her father lifted David swiftly and neatly.

Bowden began the next round and hit Bartley with right and left on the chest, but he made no impression though the blows were hard. Crocker, on the contrary, while lacking much force, yet planted one hit to purpose on Bowden’s left eye. This stroke evidently caused great pain for, despite himself, David’s hands went up to his face. Then it seemed that he began to realise his peril, for he fought desperately and showed tremendous energy and renewed strength. A blow on the ribs made Bartley wince, but others as heavy missed him and his returns went over David’s shoulder. Towards the end of the round, however, Crocker, catching the other as he advanced, and timing his right better than usual, sent Bowden clean off his legs with a flush hit on the mouth. It was the first knock-down blow in the battle, and Fogo waited with desperate anxiety and fervent hope that Bowden might not come up to time. But Rhoda and her father achieved the feat. Within the regulation eight seconds after time was called, David stood at the scratch. He was very shaky, but cheerful. He grinned out of his distorted features as Bartley approached and said, "Now I’m going to get some of my own back, Crocker."

Fogo, during the respite, had given his man brandy and implored him to try and finish before his strength was gone. The opportunity to administer a final blow had come. Bowden was shaken, and for the moment very weak. Alive to the situation, Crocker did his best; but now the man’s own nature came between him and the necessity of execution. As he grew more feeble a vein of sheer sentimentality in his character asserted itself. For the moment he could not strike the bruised, bloody and defenceless eyes of the enemy. His gorge rose at the act. Between the rounds he had been watching Rhoda with a sort of vague, unreal interest. In his increased weakness, the whole business appeared like a dream out of which only Rhoda clearly stood. He admired her immense courage and pictured her secret emotions as round succeeded round, and she saw David’s face being battered from all semblance of humanity.

Nevertheless, Crocker began this--the tenth round--with a determination to let it be the last. He hit out of distance but eventually struck Bowden on the nose. The blow was not heavy, but David went down and was carried to his corner.

Bartley stared across at his foe, while Fogo attended to him. He saw Rhoda sponge the other’s face and speak to him. Then David laughed. The expression of amusement was hideous on his countenance in its present condition. Fogo kept speaking, but when he stood at the scratch Crocker quite forgot the last advice he had received. It was clear now that David was fighting for strength, and each round in the next five saw him go down at the least legal provocation. Some shouted scorn at him, but he paid no heed. He was hit several times during these rounds and did little in return; but once he visited Bartley’s damaged ear, and once he got a good cross-buttock and fell heavily on his man.

Seeing Elias and Rhoda busy with David’s hand after the thirteenth round, Shillabeer whispered that the enemy’s left was gone; but he erred as the sequel proved. Bowden had only cut himself on Bartley’s teeth.

Fogo, however, still felt satisfied, because it seemed clear that even if Crocker could not finish his task, he would be able to stay until Bowden went blind. David’s right eye had long since closed and the left was beginning to vanish. Another blow would probably complete the work of obliteration and leave Crocker with victory. Both men’s faces were much swollen and disfigured, but both were still game and both were cheerful. Bartley, however, began to get slow and his ear was causing him much dizziness. It had swollen to horrible dimensions.

Snow now fell briskly and the ring had become very slippery.

The sixteenth bout found David busiest. He rushed in right and left, and a good ding-dong round was fought in which advantage only came to Bartley at the end. Then, after receiving some heavy body-blows, he got on to Bowden’s lip, split it and drenched the man’s face with blood. In the close they both went down, David, as usual, undermost. Both were carried to their corners and both were weak.

In the next round David tried to upper-cut Crocker, but missed, and was knocked down by a blow on the throat.

Elias asked his son if all was well with him, and David nodded. Rhoda gave him the brandy bottle and he rinsed his mouth, but did not drink any. Fogo did all that his knowledge suggested for Bartley, but knew that he was growing weak very rapidly. It remained to be seen whether Crocker’s strength or David’s eyesight would last longest.

In the eighteenth round Bartley began the fighting and with immense impetuosity dashed in right and left on the face. He tried for the eye, but just missed it and caught heavily on the body. And then fortune smiled in earnest on David, and as the other came again to finish his enemy at any cost, Bowden caught him with crushing force on the left cheek. Chance timed the blow to perfection. It was by far the heaviest hit in the fight, and the effect at this juncture proved terrific. The tremendous blow seemed to go all over the side of Crocker’s face. It brought the blood gushing from his mouth and nose; and it dropped him in a heap.

A shout of consternation rose from the younger man’s friends, and Mr. Fogo and Shillabeer picked up Bartley, while David, cheered by the yells of his supporters, walked, with Rhoda guiding him, to his corner. It was now the turn of the Bowdens to wait the call of time with anxiety; but Fogo got his man to the scratch, though all fight was out of him. David could still see but he had lost the power of calculating distances. He struck thrice in the air; then he hit Crocker, where he stood dazed with his hands down, and dropped him.

The crisis had come and Mr. Fogo kept back Bartley till the last available moment, while on the other side Rhoda led David to the scratch, for he could no longer see it. A blow now was likely to settle the matter; but the one man was too weak to strike, the other too blind to make sure of hitting. Two more rounds were fought in this manner and Fogo fancied that Bartley had a little recovered from the effects of his terrible punishment; but the return of strength did not serve him. In the twenty-second and final round Bowden--fortune still smiling--hit Crocker heavily with a round arm on the ear and the younger man fell unconscious. Fogo and Shillabeer picked him up and did what they could, but Bartley knew nothing. His head had swollen in an extraordinary manner from the smashing stroke in the eighteenth round, and it was that blow which had put ’paid’ to his account. David walked to the scratch with Rhoda’s help and waited to hear time called. He had, it seemed, snatched victory at the last moment and now it was his battle as surely as it had been Bartley’s after the ninth round. The referee cried ’time,’ the eight seconds crawled past, and ’Frosty-face,’ with a word not to be chronicled, threw up the sponge. Bartley Crocker was deaf to the call. Indeed, he remained unconscious for another five minutes.

The fight had lasted about three quarters of an hour.

Then a roar rose round the ring and a hundred men and boys crowded in upon it. Many hastened away at once to avoid possible future trouble. Rhoda threw her emotions into one kiss that she pressed upon her brother’s mangled mouth; then, rosy as her name, she walked up to the colours, unfastened them with unshaking, ensanguined hands, and tied them round David’s neck. Many cheered her; and some fell in love with her from that moment. David, for his part, asked to be led to Bartley, and when, with the referee’s assistance, the beaten man had recovered consciousness, Bowden held out his hand and Crocker took it.

By this time the winner was stone blind. His party stopped on the ground only a few minutes, during which Mr. Fogo, as became a poet and a man of imagination, insisted on shaking hands with Rhoda Bowden.

"Woman," he said, "you’re a wonder. I’ve never seen the like in seventy years; and I hope I never shall again."

Then David was led to the cart and, with his sister, three of his brothers and his father, drove off to Ditsworthy. A cheering mob of fifty men and boys accompanied him half way; the Stanburys--father and son--walked for some distance beside the vehicle, while one or two energetic spirits ran on ahead with tidings of victory for Mrs. Bowden and her daughters, Sophia and Dorcas.

Snow fell heavily now and detail was vanishing under it.

Mr. Fogo had no difficulty in explaining the defeat to the Fancy. He threw light upon the situation, while Mr. Shillabeer and others carried Bartley to ’The Corner House’ in a large wheelbarrow and put him to bed.

"’Twas just such a hit as the Tipton gave Tass Parker in their last fight--to compare small things with great," said Fogo. "When a man’s shaky, a smack like that is a receipt in full. A pretty finish, but it ought never to have come to it. Bowden was beat half an hour ago, and if our chap hadn’t been so milk-hearted, he’d be the winner this minute. If he’d had a bit of the other’s kill-devil in him, ’twould have been all over long ago. He fought better and wrestled better; but there it was--the human nature in him couldn’t punish, though the fight depended on it and t’other man was blind. He was never meant for a fighting man--more the dancing master turn of mind."

"Very fond of the ladies, I believe," said Timothy Mattacott.

"So I’ve found; and if that amazing girl with the chin had been in his corner with me instead of the ’Dumpling,’ I believe that Crocker would have won," declared ’Frosty.’

At this moment there hastened frantically down a hill from the south certain devoted peacemakers. Bartley’s relatives had learned at the vicarage that Mr. Merle and others were gone at break of day to the pike by Ringmoor Down, and they had struggled upward with the fatal truth. Now it happened that these deceived upholders of the law came full upon Mr. Fogo and a select company, on their way to the inn. Whereupon the clergyman thrust among them and stood before Mr. Fogo, his face dark as a mulberry with rage.

"You infamous scoundrel!" he shouted. "What is the meaning of this?"

The old man stared blankly and unknowingly before him. Not a spark of recognition lighted his eagle features.

"I don’t quite understand," he answered; then he turned to his friends.

"Who may these snowy gentlemen be?" he asked. "His reverence seems to be a little put out. But he’s got a kind expression of countenance. If they wanted to see the mill, they ought to have started a bit earlier."

But then Mr. Fogo saw Mrs. Crocker approaching and he did not hesitate to run with his bodyguard about him.

Snow began to fall in earnest at last. Heavier and heavier it came, until Sheepstor and the churchyard and the bull-ring, with hills and valleys round about, vanished under a silent, far-flung cloth of silver. After all the riot and life, noise and blood-letting, peace fell like a pall at noon. The folk kept their cottages. Only at ’The Corner House’ persisted a mighty din and clatter of tongues, while the larder and many bottles were emptied, the barrels were heavily drawn upon and the battle was fought and lost again a dozen times before nightfall.

*BOOK II*

*CHAPTER I*

*’MEAVY COT’*

On a day in summer, David Bowden wandered up the higher valleys of Meavy and stopped in a little dingle where the newborn river tumbled ten feet over a great apron of granite into a pool beneath. In four separate threads the stream spouted over this mossy ledge, and then joined her foaming forces below. Grey-green sallows thronged the top of this natural weir and the wind flashed a twinkle of silver into their foliage as the leaves leapt and turned. Low hills sloped to this spot and made a natural nest. Black Tor and Harter ascended at hand, and on the horizon northerly Princetown’s stern church tower rose against the sky. Beside the pool, wherein Meavy gathered again her scattered tresses, an old ruin stood; and round about the dwelling-places of primæval man glimmered grey upon the heath.