The Yellow Admiral Page 6

  Much of their talk, which was really not fit for mixed company because of its profoundly nautical character, was conducted as they walked over the common with guns or sat in hides either side of the mere, according to the direction of the wind; duck had grown more plentiful, mallard for the most part but also the occasional teal. They always invited Stephen for the dawn and evening fighting, but he rarely went: although he would eagerly shoot specimens and of course bring birds home for the pot when they were called for, he was not fond of killing; and since young Philip took care of Brigid and George entirely, he lapsed back into that contented solitude of an only child, going his own way, in silence, without reference to anyone at all. It was a natural way of life and it suited him very well. Sometimes he went driving with Diana, but although he greatly admired her skill - the four bays were likely to be the best-drilled, best behaved, best-paced team in the county quite soon - her concentration on speed distressed him. Natterjacks were common in no part of the world - he had seen comparatively few - and now in one drive he had been swept past four. Shrews were another of his present studies, and Diana could not be brought to like them very much, having learnt as a child that every time you touched or even saw a shrewmouse you aged a full year; and then, as everybody knew, they gave you the most excruciating rheumatism and made in-calf heifers abort.

  He had hoped to interest Brigid if not in shrews then at least in what flowers were still abroad and the more usual birds; but in this he was disappointed, since both children were wholly taken up with admiring Philip, Jack Aubrey's half-brother, the just legitimized son of the late General Aubrey by a dairy-maid at Woolcombe House, at present a long-legged midshipman in Captain Dundas' ship. He was indeed a very likeable young fellow, fresh-full of youth and good-nature, and he was very kind to the little creatures, showing them how to lay aloft in the coach-house with haywain ropes for shrouds, made fast to the topmast beams, whirling them to extraordinary heights on swings, teaching them the rudiments of fives, and carrying them to all manner of curious places in the attics (bats by the hundred), cellars and elsewhere, for he had been born at Woolcombe and he knew the house and its even older buildings through and through.

  Sometimes, if Philip would come too, they drove out with Diana, and on shopping days Sophie joined them, but only as far as the village, or Dorchester at the utmost. She was not a cowardly woman - fortitude and courage in plenty, on occasion - but she disliked driving fast; and childhood falls, hard-mouthed froward ponies and inept, sometimes cruel masters had made her reluctant to ride; and on the whole she disliked horses. Clarissa was Diana's most usual companion, apart from the necessary groom and boy.

  Stephen took his disappointment philosophically. After all, he had himself reached nearly seven years of age before he paid really serious attention to voles; and shrews, in spite of the fine crimson teeth that some possessed, had certain unfortunate characteristics: not quite the best mammal to begin with. There was time and to spare for shrews; and in any event Catalonia, where he hoped she would spend much of her time once peace was restored, was much, much richer in species. While as for botany, that would necessarily come with the return of spring.

  He therefore wandered alone, much as he had done when he was a boy, peering into the water-shrew's domain (the streams on the common held scores) and making a rough inventory of the resident birds: he also read a good deal in Woolcombe's noble but utterly neglected library, where a first folio Shakespeare stood next to Baker's Chronicle and a whole series of The Malefactor's Bloody Register mingled with Blackstone's Commentaries. Yet some of his time he spent at the Hand and Racquet or the Aubrey Arms on the little triangular green, watching the slow, regular sequence of agricultural life and sipping a pot of audit ale. He was taken very much for granted, it being known that he was Captain Jack's surgeon, and people would sometimes come for a whispered consultation. They treated him kindly, as a person known to be on their side, like the Captain himself, and they did not conceal their opinions when he was there. He was esteemed not only for his connexions and his pills, but for dividing his custom, trifling though it was, between these two houses and for avoiding the Goat and Compasses, a more pretentious place run by one of Griffiths' partisans; and although in each house he heard or was directly told quite different things the general burden was the same - intense opposition to the inclosures, hatred of Griffiths and his gamekeepers, who were represented as hired bullies, and of his new intruding tenants, settled on what had been Woolcombe Common, together with a great affection for Captain Aubrey, but a very anxious doubt about his ability to do anything to prevent the destruction of their whole way of life.

  All this was confirmed by his slow perambulations of the common and the village with old Harding, who told him the exact nature and tenure of each small holding and cottage (often merely customary, tolerated by indulgence long, long since, but with no formal, written grant) together with its rights on the common. Neither Harding nor Stephen had sentimental, misty views of rural poverty: they both knew too much about the squalor, dirt, idleness, petty thieving, cruelty, frequent drunkenness and not uncommon incest that could occur to have any idyllic notion of a poor person's life in the country. 'But,' said Harding, 'it is what we are used to; and with all its plagues it is better than being on the parish or having to go round to the farmer's back door begging for a day's work and being turned away. No, it ain't all beer and skittles but with the common a man is at least half his own man. And without the common he's the farmer's dog. That's why we are so main fond of Captain Jack.'

  They were indeed. At all times they were kind and civil, but as the day for the committee's meeting in London came nearer, so they grew more articulate. 'Bless you, Squire: you will never let them do us down.' General cries of 'Good old Captain Jack!' 'No inclosures!' and 'Down with Black Whiskers' accompanied his progress through Woolcombe, and those villagers who were now Captain Griffiths' tenants moved quickly out of the way: jostling and harsh words were not unknown, even among cousins - in fact the village was full of ill-feeling and potential violence.

  This was particularly marked one day when Stephen was sitting outside the Hand and Racquet, sorting a handkerchief-full of mushrooms he had gathered. He heard the greetings and blessings some way along Mill Street and before he saw Captain Aubrey and heard him say, 'Thankee, William; but where the Devil is my coxswain? Where is Bonden?'

  'Why, sir,' said William, hesitant, rather frightened, looking about his friends in the vain hope that they might tell. 'Why, sir, he has gone into the Goat. Which one of Captain Dundas's men wanted to look at the pretty barmaid.'

  He had gone in, sure enough. Now he came out, together with Dundas' men, violently propelled by a hostile band, with Griffiths' head gamekeeper foremost.

  'What the devil is this?' roared Captain Aubrey. 'Belay there. D'ye hear me, there? If you want a proper mill, have a proper mill, not a God-damned pothouse brawl.'

  The gamekeeper was in too scarlet a passion to answer coherently but his long thin neighbour, Griffiths' clerk, said, 'By all means, sir. Whenever you choose. Wednesday evening in the Dripping Pan, for a ten-pound purse, if your man will stand?'

  Bonden nodded contemptuously. 'Very well,' said Jack. 'Now get you home. Not another word, or I shall commit you for a breach of the peace.'

  Chapter Three

  The sun, distinctly later now, rose over Simmon's Lea, and penetrating into the lanes it lit up Ahab, the Woolcombe mule, with George on the double sack that served for a saddle, Harding on the left side, with the halter in his hand, and Brigid on the right, trotting along and uttering a very rapid series of observations that tumbled over one another like the babbling of a swallow. George was carrying not only the paper, as was his duty, but also the Woolcombe post-bag, as he explained when they came to the breakfast-room window.

  'Good morning, Mama,' he began, beaming through the window, 'Good morning, Cousin Diana, good morning, sir, good morning, sir, good morning sir,' to each of those within. 'We ove
rtook Bonden and Killick just before Willet's rickyard. The gig had somehow run into Willet's slough, and they were puzzled to get it out.'

  'I told them that my Mama would have it on the road in a moment,' cried Brigid, on tip-toe.

  'So we have brought the letters too' - holding up the bag.

  'I carried them part of the way, but they happened to drop. Oh please may we come in? We are so hungry and cold.'

  'Certainly not,' said Stephen. 'Go round to the kitchen and beg Mrs Pearce to give you a piece of bread and a bowl of milk.'

  It was usual at Woolcombe to read one's letters at table, and Jack opened the bag with an anxious heart, dreading to see a lawyer's seal or an official mark of any sort. There was nothing of that kind for him or for any of the women, but he did notice the black Admiralty wax on one of the covers he handed to Dundas.

  'It is just a friendly note from my brother,' said Dundas after a moment, 'saying that if he had known I was to stay ashore so long he would have asked me over for a day or two with the partridges at Fenton, but he dares say that it would be too late now: the Admiral is sure to summon us the minute Berenice can swim, and you perhaps earlier still. I do wish he would give me a decent ship: the Berenice is so old and frail she crumples like a paper nautilus. What is the point of having a brother First Lord, without he gives you a decent ship?'

  No one could discover the answer to this, but Sophie said it was a shame, Diana thought downright shabby, and Clarissa, coming in rather late, made a generally sympathizing murmur.

  After a while Jack said, 'So long as the Admiral don't summon me before Friday, when the committee sits, he may do as he damn well pleases: and give me a duck-punt for a tender, too.' This was an oblique reference to the Bellona's true tender, the Ringle, an American schooner of the kind called a Baltimore clipper, Jack's private property, much coveted by the Admiral for her fast sailing and her outstanding weatherly qualities.

  After breakfast Stephen went to see Bonden in his quarters over the coach-house. He was sitting with his hands in a basin and he explained that he was pickling his fists against Wednesday's fight. 'Not that I can ever get them real hornyleathery by then,' he said, 'but it is better than going in raw-handed, like a fine lady, or a dairy-maid, soft with the butter and cream.'

  'What is your liquor?' asked Stephen.

  'Well, sir, vinegar, very strong tea and spirits of wine, but we put in a little tar-bark and dragon's blood as well. And barber's styptic, of course.'

  'Little do I know of prize-fighting, though I have always had a curiosity to see a right match; but I had supposed that nowadays gloves were used.'

  'Why, so they are, sir, for light sparring and teaching gentlemen the noble art, as they say; but for a serious boxingmatch, for a genuine prize-fight, it is always the bare mauleys, oh dear me, yes.' He turned his fists in the basin, quite amused.

  'Will you tell me the first principles, now?'

  'Anan, sir?'

  'I mean, just how a prize-fight is conducted - the rules - the customs.'

  'Well, first you have to have two men willing and proper to fight - that is to say a fairly well-matched pair - and someone to put up a purse for the winner. And then you have to find a right place, meadow or heath, where there is plenty of room and no busy-body magistrate likely to come down on you for unlawful assembly or breach of the peace. With all that settled you either mark out a ring with posts and ropes or you leave it to the members of the fancy: they link their arms and stand in a circle. I prefer the ring myself, because if you are knocked down or flung down under the feet of the other man's friends you may get a very ugly kick, or worse.'

  'Is it a brutal sport, then?'

  'Why, truly it is not for young ladies. But no gouging, kicking or biting is allowed, nor no hitting beneath the belt or striking a man when he is down. To be sure, that still leaves a good deal of room for rum capers, such as getting your man's head in chancery, as we call it - pinned under your left arm - and hammering away with the other fist till he can neither see nor stand. Another great thing is grappling close and then throwing your man down with a trip and falling whop on to him as hard as ever you can, accidentally done-a-purpose, if you understand me, sir. Oh, and I was forgetting. Another of the capers used to be to catch your man by the hair and batter him something cruel with his head held down: which was reckoned fair. That is why most bruisers are cropped short nowadays and I shall tie my pigtail up uncommon tight in a bandage. Which Killick will make it right fast again after every round.'

  'You would not consider being cropped yourself, I suppose? I do not like to think of that fellow seizing you by the queue and whirling you about to your destruction.'

  'What?' cried Bonden, jerking the long heavy plait on the table. 'Cut off the best tail in the barky? A ten-year tail that I can sit on, without a lie? And then think of that cove in the Bible, and his bad luck when he was cropped. Oh sir.'

  'Well, you must be the judge. But tell me, how does it all begin?'

  'The two men come into the ring with their seconds and bottle-holders; the referee introduces them, like "Gentlemen, this is Joe Bloggs of Wapping, and this here is the Myrtle Bough of Hammersmith. They are to fight for a prize of - whatever it is - and may the best man win." Then the friends of each chap whistle and cheer and call out, and sometimes the two shake hands before the referee sends them back to the corners where their seconds sit, reminds them of the rules and the agreed time between the rounds, alf a minute usually though some call for three quarters- scratches the mark in the middle of the ring and says "Come on when I say start the mill and fight away until one of you can't come up to the scratch before time is called."'

  'I do not quite gather the force of the words time and round. Is the contest set to last for a certain period - for so many glasses, as it were?'

  'Oh no, sir: it can go on till Kingdom Come if both men have the strength and pluck. It only comes to an end when one cannot come up to the scratch after a round, whatever his second may do to revive him, either because he is dead, which sometimes happens, or because he is too stunned and mazed to stand, or because an arm is broke, and that happens too, or because he don't choose to be punished any longer.'

  'Pray let us come back to this concept of a round, which puzzles me yet.'

  'Which I must have explained it badly, because it is as simple as kiss my hand. A round is when one man is knocked down, or thrown down, or flings himself down in missing his blow - I mean that is the end of the round, and it may have lasted a great while or only a minute. Then they must go back to their corners and come up to the scratch when the time-keeper calls time.'

  'I see, I see: so it is as indefinite as a game of cricket, where a truly dogged batsman can tire down the sun. But tell me, what is the usual length of a bout?'

  'Why, sir, if it were another gent as asked,' said Bonden, with his singularly winning gap-toothed smile, 'I should say, as long as a piece of marline. But being it is your honour, I will answer that three or four rounds or say a quarter of an hour is usually enough for young fellows new to the game, fellows with some pluck but with little wind and no science; but with right bruisers, fighting for a handsome prize or from a grudge against the other cove or both, right game bruisers, with plenty of bottom, it can last a great while. Even in just Navy fighting, I saw Jack Thorold of the Lion and Will Summers of the old Repulse knock one another about for forty-three rounds in just over an hour; and talking of myself, it took me sixty-eight rounds and an hour and twenty-six minutes to beat Jo Thwaites for who should be champion of the Mediterranean.'

  'Barrett Bonden, you astonish me. I had supposed it was a five or ten minutes affair, like a bout with the small-sword.'

  'It does seem a long time; but the London fancy are used to even longer battles. Gully fought the Game Chicken for two hours and twenty minutes - the sixth round alone lasted a quarter of an hour - and Jem Beicher and Dutch Sam went on near as long before their seconds agreed to call it a draw. Both men were still game, bu
t they could barely stand, neither could see, and their mothers would not have recognized them.'

  'Oh Papa,' cried Brigid, shrill as a bat in her anguish. 'Come quick! Come quick! George is bleeding terribly.' She broke into her still somewhat easier Irish, panting as they ran, and explained that she had only given him a little small push to show how prize-fighters did it, and now he was bleeding like a holy martyr. '0, if George should die, the sorrow and woe, 0, the black grief of the world...'

  'Why, child,' said Diana, meeting them, 'never be so distressed. You only tapped his claret. It is all over now. I have mopped him up and put his shirt to soak - always remember, my dear, cold water is the only thing for blood - and he is eating sillabub in the kitchen. If you run very fast, you may get some too. Stephen, my dear, Jack is in a great rage. He has been waiting almost five minutes to take you to see the mere. I was coming to fetch you.'

  'God love you, sweetheart,' cried Stephen, kissing her, 'I had forgotten it entirely.'

  On their way out to the great mere, where an osprey had been seen that summer and where hard winter might bring down the odd great northern diver, they saw Captain Griffiths riding along his former track and peering about. He wheeled his horse on catching sight of them emerging from the bushes. 'Damn it all,' said Jack. 'We shall have to speak to the fellow again.'

  'Good morning, Aubrey,' said Griffiths, touching his hat to Stephen, who responded. 'Have you any news from the squadron?'

  'Not a word.'