Charley and I were always great friends; we had seen so much together, especially of what is called "the world," which I use in a different sense from that in which we were now to seek adventures. We had seen so much of its good and evil, its lights and shades, and had so many memories in common, that they formed the groundwork of a lasting friendship.
He was the only son of an almost too indulgent father, who was the very best example of an old English gentleman of his day you could ever meet. He also had seen a good deal of life, and was not unfamiliar with any of its varied aspects. He was intellectual and genial, and dispensed his hospitality with the most winning courtesy.
To me he was all kindness, and I have a grateful feeling of delight in being able in these few words to record my affectionate reverence for his memory. It was at his house in Pall Mall that I met John Leech and Percival Leigh.
But I digress as my mind goes back to these early dates, and unless I break away, Charley and I will not reach Newmarket in time for the first race. It happened that when we made this memorable visit I had an uncle living at The Priory at Royston, which was some five-and-twenty miles from Newmarket, where the big handicap, I think the Cesarewitch, was to be run the following day, or the next--I forget which.
But an interesting episode interrupted our journey to the Heath.
To our surprise, and no little to our delight, there was to be an important meeting of the "Fancy" to witness a great prize-fight between Jack Bra.s.sy and Ben Caunt.
Ben Caunt was the greatest prize-fighter, both in stature and bulk, as well as in strength, I ever saw. He looked what he was--then or soon after--the champion of the world.
Bra.s.sy, too, was well made, and seemed every whit the man to meet Caunt. The two, indeed, were equally well made in form and shape, and as smooth cut as marble statues when they stripped for action.
The advertis.e.m.e.nts had announced that the contest was to come off at, "or as near thereto as circ.u.mstances permitted" (circ.u.mstances here meaning the police), the village of Little Bury, near Saffron Walden.
At the little inn of the village some of the magnates of the Ring were to a.s.semble on the morning of the fight for an early breakfast, to which Charley and I had the good fortune to be invited by Jack Bra.s.sy"s second, Peter Crawley, another noted pugilist of his day.
It was different weather from that we enjoyed in the early morning, for the rain was now pouring down in torrents, and we had a drive of no less than fifteen miles before us to the scene of action. Vehicles were few, and horses fewer. Nothing was to be had for love or money, as it seemed. But there was at last found one man who, if he had little love for the prize-ring, had much reverence for the golden coin that supported it. He was a Quaker. He had an old gig, and, I think, a still older horse, both of which I hired for the journey--the Quaker, of course, pretending that he had no idea of any meeting of the "Fancy" whatever. Nor do I suppose he would know what that term implied.
If ever any man in the world did what young men are always told by good people to do--namely, to persevere--I am sure we did, Charley and I, with the Quaker"s horse. Whether he suspected the mission on which we were bent, or was considering the danger of such a scene to his morals, I could not ascertain, but never did any animal show a greater reluctance to go anywhere except to his quiet home.
Your happiness at these great gatherings depended entirely upon the distance or proximity of the police. If they were pretty near, the landlord of the inn would hesitate about serving you, and if he did, would charge a far higher price in consequence of the supposed increased risk. He would never encourage a breach of the peace in defiance of the county magistrates, who were the authority to renew his licence at Brewster Sessions. So much, then, if the officers of justice were _near_.
If they happened to be absent--which, as I have said, occasionally occurred when a big thing was to come off--there was then a dominant feeling of social equality which you could never see manifested so strongly in any other place. A gentleman would think nothing of putting his fingers into your pockets and abstracting your money, and if you had the hardihood to resent the intrusion, would think less of putting his fist into your eyes.
We were by no means certain, as I learned, that our fight would come off after all, for it appeared the magistrates had given strict and specific instructions to the police that no combat was to take place in the county of Ess.e.x. Consequently the parties whose duty it was to make preparations had fled from that respectable county and gone away towards Six Mile Bottom, just in one of the corners of Cambridgeshire, as if the intention was that the dons of the University should have a look in. Constables slept more soundly in Cambridgeshire than in Ess.e.x. Moreover, the Ess.e.x magistrates would themselves have a moral right to witness the fight if it did not take place in their county.
Thus we set out for the rendezvous. Charley soon discovered that our steed was not accustomed to the whip, for instead of urging him forward it produced the contrary effect. However, we got along by slow degrees, and when we came up with the crowd--oh!
Such a scene I had never witnessed in my life, nor could have conceived it possible anywhere on this earth or anywhere out of that abyss the full description of which you will find in "Paradise Lost."
It was a procession of the blackguardism of all ages and of all countries under heaven. The s.e.xes were apparently in equal numbers and in equal degrees of ugliness and ferocity. There were faces flat for want of noses, and mouths ghastly for want of teeth; faces scarred, bruised, battered into every shape but what might be called human.
There were fighting-men of every species and variety--men whose profession it was to fight, and others whose brutal nature it was; there were women fighters, too, more deadly and dangerous than the men, because they added cruelty to their ferocity. Innumerable women there were who had lost the very nature of womanhood, and whose mouths were the mere outlet of oaths and filthy language. Their shrill clamours deafened our ears and subdued the deep voices of the men, whom they chaffed, reviled, shrieked at, yelled at, and swore at by way of _fun_.
Amidst this turbulent rabble rode several members of the peerage, and even Ministerial supporters of the "n.o.ble art," exchanging with the low wretches I have mentioned a word or two of chaff or an occasional laugh at the grotesque wit and humour which are never absent from an English crowd.
As we approached the famous scene, to which every one was looking with the most intense antic.i.p.ation, the crowd grew almost frenzied with expectancy, and yet the utmost good-humour prevailed. In this spirit we arrived at Bourne Bridge, and thence to the place of encounter was no great distance. It was a little field behind a public-house.
Every face was now white with excitement, except the faces of the combatants. They were firm set as iron itself. Trained to physical endurance, they were equally so in nerve and coolness of temperament, and could not have seemed more excited than if they were going to dinner instead of to one of the most terrible encounters I ever witnessed.
To those who have never seen an exhibition of this kind it was quite amazing to observe with what rapidity the ropes were fixed and the ring formed; nor were the men less prompt. Into the ring they stepped with their supporters, or seconds, and in almost an instant the princ.i.p.als had shaken hands, and were facing each other in what well might be deadly conflict. There were ill.u.s.trious members of all cla.s.ses a.s.sembled there, members probably of all professions, men who afterwards, as I know, became great in history, politics, law, literature, and religion; for it was a very great fight, and attracted all sorts and conditions from all places and positions. Nothing since that fight, except Tom Sayers and the "Benicia Boy," has attracted so goodly and so fashionable an audience and so fierce an a.s.sembly of blackguards.
But in the time of the latter battle the decadence of the Ring was manifest, and was the outcome of what is doubtless an increasing civilization. At the time of which I am now speaking the Prize Ring was one of our fashionable sports, supported by the wealthy of all cla.s.ses, and was supposed to contribute to the manliness of our race; consequently our distinguished warriors, as well as the members of our most gentle professions, loved a good old-fashioned English "set-to,"
and n.o.body, as a rule, was the worse for it, although my poor brother Jack never recovered his half-crowns.
We had been advised to take our cushions from the gig to sit upon, because the straw round the ring was soddened with the heavy rains, and I need not say we found it was a very wise precaution. The straw had been placed round the ring for the benefit of the _elite_, who occupied front seats.
The fight now began, and, I must repeat, I never saw anything like it.
Both pugilists were of the heaviest fighting weights. Caunt was a real giant, ugly as could be by the frequent batterings he had received in the face. His head was like a bull-dog"s, and so was his courage, whilst his strength must have been that of a very Samson; but if it was, it did not reside in his hair, for that was short and close as a mouse"s back.
At first I thought Bra.s.sy had the best of it; he was more active, being less ponderous, and landed some very ugly ones, cutting right into the flesh, although Caunt did not appear to mind it in the least.
Bra.s.sy, however, did not follow up his advantage as I thought he ought to have done, and in my opinion dreaded the enormous power and force of his opponent in the event of his "getting home."
With the usual fluctuations of a great battle, the contest went on until nearly a _hundred rounds_ were fought, lasting as many minutes, but no decisive effect was as yet observable. After this, however, Bra.s.sy could not come up to time. The event, therefore, was declared in Caunt"s favour, and his opponent was carried off the field on a hurdle into the public-house, where I afterwards saw him in bed.
Thus terminated the great fight of the day, but not thus my day"s adventures.
The sport was all that the most enthusiastic supporters of the Ring could desire. It no doubt had its barbarous aspects, regarded from a humanitarian point of view, but it was not so demoralizing as the spectacle of some poor creature risking his neck in a performance for which the spectator pays his sixpence, and the whole excitement consists in the knowledge that the actor may be dashed to pieces before his eyes.
It was time now to leave the scene, so Charley and I went to look for our gig (evidence of gentility from the time of Thurtell and Hunt"s trial for the murder of Mr. Weare).
Alas! our respectability was gone--I mean the gig.
In vindication of the wisdom and foresight of Charley and myself, I should like to mention that we had entrusted that valuable evidence of our status to the keeping of a worthy stranger dressed in an old red jacket and a pair of corduroy trousers fastened with a wisp of hay below the knees.
When we arrived at the spot where he promised to wait our coming, he was gone, the horse and gig too; nor could any inquiries ascertain their whereabouts.
Whether this incident was a judgment on the Quaker, as Wright suggested, or one of the inevitable incidents attendant on a prize-fight, I am not in a position to say; but we thought it served the Quaker right for letting us a horse that would not go until the gentleman in the red jacket relieved us of any further trouble on that account.
Mistakes are so common amongst thieves that one can never tell how the horse got away; but if I were put on my oath, knowing the proclivities of the animal, I should say that he was backed out of the field.
We were now, as it seemed, the most deplorable objects in creation: without friends and without a gig, wet through, shelterless, amidst a crowd of drunken, loathsome outcasts of society, with only one solitary comfort between us--a pipe, which Charley enjoyed and I loathed. Drink is always quarrelsome or affectionate, generally the one first and the other after. When the tears dry, oaths begin, and we soon found that the quarrelsome stage of the company had been reached.
Amidst all this excitement we had not forgotten that this little matter of the prize-fight was but an incident on our journey to Newmarket. We knew full well that our present appearance would have found no recognition in the Mall. But we cared nothing for the Mall, as we were not known by the fashion in the racing world; and as for the others, we should like to avoid them in any world.
You will wonder in these circ.u.mstances what we did. We waited where we were through the whole of that wet afternoon, and then, on a couple of hacks--how we obtained them I don"t know; I never asked Charley, and nothing of any importance turns upon them--we arrived at our comfortable Royston quarters about eight o"clock, tired to death.
We were received with a hearty welcome by my uncle, who was much entertained with our day"s adventures. He liked my description of the fight, especially when I told him how Bra.s.sy "drew Caunt"s claret,"
and showed such other knowledge of the scientific practice that no one could possibly have learnt had he not read up carefully _Bell"s Life_ for the current week.
I am sure my uncle thought I was one of the best of nephews, and I considered him in reality "my only uncle." Long, thought I, may he prove to be; and yet I never borrowed a penny from him in my life.
On the next day, fully equipped, and with all that was necessary for our distinguished position, we set out for Newmarket Heath, even now the glory of the racing world, not forgetting Goodwood, which is more or less a private business and fashionable picnic.
I shall not attempt to describe Newmarket. No one can describe, the indescribable. I will only say it was not the Newmarket which our later generation knows. It was then in its crude state of original simplicity. There were no stands save "the Duke"s," at the top of the town, and one other, somewhat smaller and nearer to the present grand stand. Those who could afford to do so rode on horseback about the Heath; those who could not walked if they felt disposed, or sat down on the turf--the best enjoyment of all if you are tired. We did all three: we rode, walked, and sat down. At last, after a thoroughly enjoyable outing, such as the Bar knows nothing of in these respectable times, we returned to our business quarters in the Temple.
CHAPTER VII.
AN EPISODE AT HERTFORD QUARTER SESSIONS.
Hearsay is not, as a rule, evidence in a court of justice. There are one or two exceptions which I need not mention. If you want, therefore, to say what Smith said, you cannot say it, but must call Smith himself, and probably he will swear he never said anything of the sort.
The Marquis of Salisbury, in the early days that I speak of, was a kind-hearted chairman, and would never allow the quibble of the lawyer to stand in the way of justice to the prisoner. In those days at sessions they were not so nice in the observances of mere forms as they are now, and you could sometimes get in something that was not exactly evidence, strictly speaking, in favour of a prisoner by a side-wind, as it were, although it was not the correct thing to do.
It happened that I was instructed to defend a man who had been committed to Hertford Quarter Sessions on a charge of felony. The committing magistrates having refused to let the man out on bail, an application was made at Judges" Chambers before Mr. Baron Martin to reverse that decision, which he did.