Guy Livingstone | Page 9

the wind of a ball; there was a dull, crashing sound close at my ear; the grasp on my neck relaxed all at once; I felt something across my feet, and saw a dark blue mass, topped by the ruin of a shiny hat, lying there quite still; an arm was round my waist like the coil of a cable, and I heard Guy's voice laughing loud,
"My dear Frank," he said, as he dragged me away toward the inn, "the centre of a row, as usual. _Que, diable, allait il faire dans cette bagarre?_"
I hardly heard him, for my senses were still confused; but in thirty seconds I was under the archway of "The George." As the heroines of the Radcliffe romances say, "I turned to thank my preserver, but he was gone."
When I recovered my breath, I went up to a balcony on the first floor and looked out. The tide of the affray was surging gradually back into the wide open space before the inn, and very shortly this was filled with a chaos of furious faces and struggling arms. The University were evidently recoiling, pressed back by the sheer weight of their opponents; but soon came a re-enforcement of grooms and stable-men, lightweights, active and wiry; and these, with their hunting-crops and heavy cutting-whips used remorselessly--like C?sar's legionaries, they struck only at the face--once more re-established the balance of the battle.
Suddenly the _mel��e_ seemed to converge to one point--the mid-eddy, as it were, of the whirlpool; then came a lull, almost a hush; and then fifty strong arms, indiscriminately of town and gownsmen, were locked to keep the ground, while a storm of voices shouted for "A ring!"
In that impromptu arena two men stood face to face under the full glare of the gas-lamps--one was Guy Livingstone; the other a denizen of the Potteries, yclept "Burn's Big 'un," who had selected B---- as his training quarters, in preparation for his fight to come off in the ensuing week with the third best man in England for ��100 a side.
They made a magnificent contrast. Guy, apparently quite composed, but the lower part of his face set stern and pitiless; an evil light in his eyes, showing how all the gladiator in his nature was roused; his left hand swaying level with his hip; all the weight of his body resting on the right foot; his lofty head thrown back haughtily; his guard low. The professional, three inches shorter than his adversary, but a rare model of brute strength; his arms and neck, where the short jersey left them exposed, clear-skinned and white as a woman's, through the perfection of his training; his hair cropped close round a low, retreating forehead; his thick lips parted in a savage grin, meant to represent a smile of confidence. So they stood there--fitting champions of the races that have been antagonistic for four thousand years--Patrician and Proletarian.
Suddenly there was a commotion at one corner of the ring, and I saw a small, bullet-headed man, with a voice like a fractious child, striving frantically to force his way through. "Don't let 'em fight!" he screamed: "it's robbery, I tell you. There's hundreds of pounds on him for Thursday next, I'm his trainer; and I daren't show him with a scratch on him."
A great roar of laughter answered his entreaties, and twenty arms thrust the little man back; but his interesting charge seemed to ponder and hesitate, when a drawling nasal voice spoke from the opposite corner: "Ah! you're right; take him away; don't show his white feather till you're druv to it." That turned the wavering scale. The Big 'un ground his teeth with blasphemy, and set-to.
I need not go through the minuti? of the fight; it was all one way. The professional did his best, and took his punishment like a glutton; but he could do nothing against the long reach of his adversary, who stopped and countered as coolly as if he had only the gloves on.
It was the beginning of the sixth round; our champion bore only one mark, showing where a tremendous right-hander had almost come home--a cut on his lower lip, whence the bright Norman blood was flowing freely. I will not attempt to describe the hideous changes that ten minutes had wrought in his opponent's countenance; but I think I was not the only spectator who felt a thrill of fear mingling with disgust as the Big 'un made his despairing effort, and fought his way in to the terrible "half-arm rally." In truth, there was something unearthly and awful in the sight of the maimed and mangled Colossus; his huge breast heaving with wrath and pain; his one unblinded eye glaring unutterably; his crushed lips churning the crimson foam. It was the last rash of the