The Amateur Gentleman | Page 3

seen inside the Ring or out. Ah, Barnabas!" sighed his father shaking his head at him, "you was a promising infant, likewise a promising bye; me an' Natty Bell had great hopes of ye, Barnabas; if you'd been governed by me and Natty Bell you might ha' done us all proud in the Prize Ring. You was cut out for the 'Fancy.' Why, Lord! you might even ha' come to be Champion o' England in time--you 're the very spit o' what I was when I beat the Fighting Quaker at Dartford thirty years ago."
"But you see, father--"
"That was why me an' Natty Bell took you in hand--learned you all we knowed o' the game--an' there aren't a fighting man in all England as knows so much about the Noble Art as me an' Natty Bell."
"But father--"
"If you 'd only followed your nat'ral gifts, Barnabas, I say you might ha' been Champion of England to-day, wi' Markisses an' Lords an' Earls proud to shake your hand--if you'd only been ruled by Natty Bell an' me, I'm disappointed in ye, Barnabas--an' so's Natty Bell."
"I'm sorry, father--but as I told you--"
"Still Barnabas, what ain't to be, ain't--an' what is, is. Some is born wi' a nat'ral love o' the 'Fancy' an' gift for the game, like me an' Natty Bell--an' some wi' a love for reading out o' books an' a-cyphering into books--like you: though a reader an' a writer generally has a hard time on it an' dies poor--which, arter all, is only nat'ral--an' there y' are!"
Here John Barty paused to take up the tankard of ale at his elbow, and pursed up his lips to blow off the foam, but in that moment, observing his son about to speak, he immediately set down the ale untasted and continued:
"Not as I quarrels wi' your reading and writing, Barnabas, no, and because why? Because reading and writing is apt to be useful now an' then, and because it were a promise--as I made--to--your mother. When--your mother were alive, Barnabas, she used to keep all my accounts for me. She likewise larned me to spell my own name wi' a capital G for John, an' a capital B for Barty, an' when she died, Barnabas (being a infant, you don't remember), but when she died, lad! I was that lost--that broke an' helpless, that all the fight were took out o' me, and it's a wonder I didn't throw up the sponge altogether. Ah! an' it's likely I should ha' done but for Natty Bell."
"Yes, father--"
"No man ever 'ad a better friend than Natty Bell--Ah! yes, though I did beat him out o' the Championship which come very nigh breaking his heart at the time, Barnabas; but--as I says to him that day as they carried him out of the ring--it was arter the ninety-seventh round, d' ye see, Barnabas--'what is to be, is, Natty Bell,' I says, 'an' what ain't, ain't. It were ordained,' I says, 'as I should be Champion o' England,' I says--'an' as you an' me should be friends--now an' hereafter,' I says--an' right good friends we have been, as you know, Barnabas."
"Indeed, yes, father," said Barnabas, with another vain attempt to stem his father's volubility.
"But your mother, Barnabas, your mother, God rest her sweet soul!--your mother weren't like me--no nor Natty Bell--she were away up over me an' the likes o' me--a wonderful scholard she were, an'--when she died, Barnabas--" here the ex-champion's voice grew uncertain and his steady gaze wavered--sought the sanded floor--the raftered ceiling--wandered down the wall and eventually fixed upon the bell-mouthed blunderbuss that hung above the mantel, "when she died," he continued, "she made me promise as you should be taught to read an' cypher--an' taught I've had you according--for a promise is a promise, Barnabas--an' there y' are."
"For which I can never be sufficiently grateful, both to her--and to you!" said Barnabas, who sat with his chin propped upon his hand, gazing through the open lattice to where the broad white road wound away betwixt blooming hedges, growing ever narrower till it vanished over the brow of a distant hill. "Not as I holds wi' eddication myself, Barnabas, as you know," pursued his father, "but that's why you was sent to school, that's why me an' Natty Bell sat by quiet an' watched ye at your books. Sometimes when I've seen you a-stooping your back over your reading, or cramping your fist round a pen, Barnabas, why--I've took it hard, Barnabas, hard, I'll not deny--But Natty Bell has minded me as it was her wish and so--why--there y' are."
It was seldom his father mentioned to Barnabas the mother whose face he had never seen, upon which rare occasions John Barty's deep voice was wont to take on a hoarser note, and his blue