Jack Carstairs of the power house

by Sydney Sandys

CHAPTER XIX

Lost in thought, Carstairs made his way back to the dogcart and Bounce. He climbed in. "Let's go to the village, Bounce, over there."

"Yes, sir." Bounce was all attention to business; he asked no questions, and looked no questions, but his mind was active in a very great wonder.

They drove in absolute silence till the village was reached, then Carstairs spoke.

"I'm staying here the night. Will you take the horse back and come over again in the morning?" He took out his purse and handed Bounce some money. "I haven't seen the girl, I shall see her to-morrow. I've seen her father and her mother. Her father is dying."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir."

"So am I. Good-bye." Carstairs went into the village inn, arranged for a room, got something to eat, and set off to walk to the little town where the girl had gone.

It was a beautiful day and the country was lovely, but Carstairs had no spare thoughts to give to it; he strode on and at a fast pace, observing nothing, till long before he had disentangled the complicated skein of his thoughts he found himself in the little town.

"What the devil am I to do now?" he asked himself. "I'll walk right through the bally show till I come out on the other side, then I'll turn round and come back a different way," So he walked on again and spent the whole afternoon to no purpose except as far as exercise was concerned. It was quite late when he returned to the inn. He got something to eat and then sat in the little private bar smoking and sipping a whisky and soda. Through the thin partition, from the tap room, he heard a huge uproar of gruff voices. It was pay night, and a great concourse of navvies from the water-works were taking their evening beer. Carstairs caught scraps of conversation, and occasionally references to a "toff" who had been "standing" them beer.

He got up and wandered along the country lanes in the dark, then he turned in and went to bed.

Early in the morning, just after he had finished breakfast, Bounce arrived with the dogcart. Carstairs saw him, through the little lattice window, walking the horse up and down the village street. He went out to him.

"Good-morning, Bounce. You're early."

"Yes, sir."

Carstairs got into the cart. "Drive over to the camp," he said.

So they drove away, Bounce enlivening the journey with little anecdotes of his travels.

"I picked up a 'bob' yesterday, sir."

"You're lucky."

"Yes, awful lucky chap I am; always picking up something. Picked up a barrel of beer once, me and a mate."

"Yes, a hogshead, I suppose; been lying on the pavement for hours and nobody happened to notice it till you came along."

Bounce laughed. "Well, there was some other blokes as reckoned they saw it first, but we didn't take no notice of them, furriners, they was, see?"

"I see, didn't you give them a drink?"

"We offered to share out, but they wasn't satisfied with that, so we took the lot. Mind, there was a row about it afterwards."

"I suppose there would be."

"Yes. 'Asty blokes, them furriners. We 'ad to flatten 'em all out before we 'ad any peace. Stiff blokes they was too, some on 'em, but very soft about the ribs, like punching a bladder of lard it was, sort of unsatisfactory like."

"Ah."

"Yes. An' another time we picked up an old toff with a bullet in 'im, that was in Rio. Fine harbour, Rio. Give us ten dollars each 'e did, three on us."

"How did he get the bullet in him, Bounce?"

"Oh, 'aving a bit of a spree, I s'pose, 'e never told us. 'Nother time I picked up a bloke's 'and, cut off at the wrist. In Port Said, that were."

"Nothing in it, I suppose?"

"No, there wasn't, worse luck. It weren't an English 'and, you could see that."

By this time they had reached the camp, and Bounce stopped the recital of his "lucky" incidents. Carstairs got down. "If I'm long, you can drive by yourself to Southville. I don't want to make you late."

"That's alright, sir. I changed-over with my mate to-day. I don't go on till midnight."

"That's very kind of you, Bounce."

"Don't mention it, sir."

Carstairs went across to the caravan. The gipsy woman saw him coming and opened the door to greet him. "She came back and went away again first thing this morning. She'll be back this afternoon."

Carstairs frowned and stared at the woman very severely. He thought she was not telling the truth, but he saw by the light of genuine anger that sprang to her eyes at his frown, that he had misjudged her.

"I'm sorry," he said. "How is your husband?"

She smiled again at once. "About the same. Will you wait?" she asked.

"No thanks, I'll explore the country a bit, and call back again." He was going away when the woman stopped him. "Will you come in just a minute? I'd like to try you with the cards!"

He looked at her enquiringly. "Do you really believe your cards?"

She did not answer, but stepped inside the caravan and produced a pack of cards, quite new and clean. "Shuffle and cut," she said, handing them to him.

He did so, and cut the ace of hearts.

"You're thinking of her."

"That's true. I was thinking of her prophesying in Scotland that I should be a winner."

She looked into his eyes. "So you will," she answered.

Carstairs felt his pulse tingle with an added determination as she spoke.

Taking hold of him by the right wrist, she turned the palm upwards and looked at it intently for a few seconds. "My word! you are a strong man," she said.

"That's piffle," he answered, "those lines are accentuated by gripping a hammer shaft."

She smiled. "Oh no! Cut again, please."

He cut twelve times, and cut hearts every time.

The old woman positively laughed. "Now do you believe?" she asked.

"It's certainly rather a curious coincidence. Hearts infer love, I suppose, and I'm in love, that's true."

"Yes, that's true, but you have a rival, I know. A dark man, perhaps—if he——"

Carstairs frowned. "Good God, that's impossible. Didn't you hear what the old man said? he's her brother."

The old woman looked steadily into his eyes. "You don't know. That's only what you think."

"Lord! Perhaps you're right. By Jove——"

"Cut the cards," she interrupted. "Again and again."

He cut six times, spades every time, the knave four times.

The gipsy was very serious. "There!" she said.

"It's certainly rather curious," he admitted.

"That dark man's very close, closer than you think. Watch him! Watch him!" she repeated, and retreated into her caravan in a strangely perturbed state.

Carstairs returned to Bounce. "No luck," he said.

"Well, Patience is a virtue, sir, so they says. An' you've got to 'ave it with the women, though they ain't got none theirselves."

"You're a man of experience, Bounce."

"Well, I ain't got no more than one missus, an' that's enough for any man, too much for some on 'em."

"You're very virtuous, I'm sure, I hope you get your reward."

"That's true. I do, sir. Not but what I 'ave a' done a bit o' courting now an' then in other parts—before I was married, o' course."

"Of course."

"Yes. An' now my missus gets the benefit of all that experience. I come to 'er efficient, thoroughly efficient, as I sez to 'er on the day that we was married."

"You are a thorough believer in efficiency, Bounce."

"Yes, sir. Do it now, an' do it proper. That's the motto of the navy. Only 'steady,' too. 'Steady does it,' is another motto. The man as ain't never done no courting before 'e gets married, ought to be buried an' not married at all."

"I've just had my fortune told by that gipsy woman."

"That ain't nothing, sir. I've 'ad it done 'undreds of times, an' all different," the little sailor remarked, cheerfully. "When I was in Calcutta——"

So listening to Bounce's wonderful adventures, Carstairs had a very pleasant morning drive. They stopped at a little country public house and got some bread and cheese and beer; Bounce, meanwhile, enlarging on the virtue of beer in general, and that beer in particular.

Then they got into the trap again and completed a circuit of the locality, bringing up finally at the far side of the little common.

"Hullo!" said Bounce. "What's up there?"

They could see a dense crowd of navvies from the water-works moving in the direction of the gipsy camp.

Carstairs looked, anxiously. "Hope there's no row on with the gipsies," he said. They could hear much shouting and singing, but could not distinguish the words. A turn in the road brought the camp full into view: there was much commotion going on, the gipsies were pulling their caravans up together as if to withstand an assault.

"We must stop those chaps, Bounce," Carstairs said, as he whipped up the horse and tore along the road at a furious gallop. They cut across the level strip of green at the acute angle of the common, and raced along the other road. They reached the navvies some three hundred yards from the camp. As they got within earshot they could distinguish what the men were shouting. Carstairs flushed an angry red and set his big jaw tight. "And this is England," he said. "England, in the year of grace 1896, 'England, the eye, the soul of Europe,' as Darwen used to quote."

"What's started them on this devil's game, Bounce?"

"Drink, I expects! Men gets like that sometimes."

Carstairs pulled the horse up dead in front of the advance guard of the men.

"I say, where are all you chaps going?" he asked.

"Women," they shouted. "Bring out the gipsy women."

"That won't do," he said, sharply. "Go on back about your business."

"Ho, ho, 'ere's Lord Muck," a cockney voice shouted in derision.

"The Earl o' Hell," another one corrected.

They swarmed round the dogcart, and the others coming up stopped to listen.

"How is it you are not at work?" Carstairs asked.

"Saturday afternoon, mister," a gruff, but civil voice replied.

"Well, you'll all get the sack, you know, besides imprisonment, if you go on with this game."

"The sack! Ha! Ha! 'Ere's a bloke going to give us the sack, mates."

"That'll be nine 'undred and ninety-nine times wot I've 'ad the sack, then."

"S'pose we'll 'ave to starve, that's all."

"Same as we did afore, eh, mates? Ha! Ha!"

A man climbed up on to the step. "What say we goes for a drive?" he asked.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when Carstairs' fist took him in the face and knocked him backwards among his fellows.

"Hurray!" they shouted. "Hip, hip, hurray!" Five hundred of them roared it out in chorus.

"That's one for Charlie."

"You ain't going to take it lying down, Charlie?"

"'E's 'ad enough. I allus said Charlie ain't got no guts in 'im."

"'Old the 'orse while I gets at 'im," the man answered.

Two navvies promptly seized the horse, one on each side of his head.

"Up you get Charlie."

Carstairs stood up. "Wait a minute," he said. "I'll come down. Will you give me fair play?"

"That's honest, 'e couldn't say no fairer than that."

"Make a ring, mates."

"I'll 'old yer coat, Charlie."

"'Go's going to second the toff?"

Bounce stood up. "Is there any blokes 'ere wot bin in the navy?" he asked, with great dignity.

"'Blue Marines,' mate," a big, burly man on the outskirts of the crowd answered.

Bounce looked at him closely. "Is that you, Scrapper Hiscocks?"

"That's me, mate."

"Don't you remember Jack Bounce, of the 'Mediterranean'?"

The big man pushed his way up to the trap and held out his hand. "How do! old chum. I thought you was still in the Service."

"So I ought a bin if I 'adn't bin a bleeding fool. This 'ere gentleman is Mister Carstairs, 'e's good, I trained 'im myself. 'E's nephew of Lootenant Carstairs wot was on the 'Mediterranean' with us."

The man promptly saluted, and Carstairs nodded to him. "I shall get a fair show?" he asked.

The ex-marine nodded towards Bounce. "Me an' Bull-dog'll see to that, sir."

"Thanks!" He stood up and addressed the crowd with a smiling countenance. "Look here, you chaps, I'm going to take on your mate here for as many rounds as you like, or to a finish."

"To a finish," they shouted in chorus.

"Alright; to a finish, then, but we may as well have a gamble on it."

"'Ear! 'Ear! That's sporting."

"Well, look here. I'll put my purse containing five pounds in the hands of this gentleman. (He pointed to the marine, who blushed.)

"Mister Hiscocks," some one remarked.

There was a general titter, the navvy is unaccustomed to any sort of a handle to his name.

"That's it. If I lose, that five pounds will be yours to buy drinks with. If I win, will you promise to go back and leave those women alone?"

"That's fair, mates. 'E couldn't say no fairer than that," the marine remarked.

"Ay. 'O's going to watch you an' the five pounds, Bill?"

There was a general laugh.

"What do you say?" Carstairs asked.

"What does Charlie think on it?" a voice asked.

"Yes, let Charlie decide," they chorused.

"Well, mates," Charlie spoke up, "I thinks wot the bloke sez is fair. I'll do my best for you, mates."

Carstairs climbed out of the trap. "That's settled then," he said.

Bounce led the horse on to the green, and tied him up to a little tree. "Let's have a proper ring, and half a dozen stewards to see there ain't no crowding."

They selected a level spot in a little dell surrounded by miniature mountains. "'Cos then everybody can see without shoving," a navvy observed. The six stewards, with an air of very great seriousness, took off their coats and rolled up their shirt sleeves, exposing brawny, sunburnt arms to the daylight. They formed a circle and roughly measured with their eyes. "How's that, Charlie? How'll that do, sir?"

"Alright, mates," Charlie said.

"Very nicely, thanks," Carstairs replied.

They stepped inside the circle, and Bounce and Hiscocks assisted Carstairs to disrobe, while five hundred statuesque navvies crowded round the tiers of the natural theatre, five hundred hard, strong faces; high cheek-boned, square-jawed, steady-eyed. Many of them were exceedingly handsome, in a massive, rough-hewn sort of way; mahogany browned, ear-ringed, coarse skinned. They were gathered there for a brutal, coarse purpose, perhaps, but the dawning of a great truth was uppermost, resolute and steadfast, in the minds of most. They were going to see fair play, "fair play" with all it meant when all the passions of envy, hatred, fierce anger, and the lust of gain were aroused. They were sportsmen, these men, and the term always seems to me synonymous with gentlemen as understood in England. The germ of a desire to do right was firmly fixed in their hearts, and this absorbed through many generations from the force of the precept and example of their leaders, the aristocrats of England. They had no religion, these men, and no politics, but the spirit of the prize ring and the Queensberry rules was deeply implanted in their souls. Their fathers before them had imbibed these rules from constant practical demonstration. Those drunken, dissolute, Georgian noblemen had given these men a code of morals that they could understand, and firmly rooted it in their breasts by consistent example. And every day England reaps the fruit of that seed. Truly it seems to me that England owes more to the sportsman than to the statesman: and although the middle class swamp, by a vast majority, all other classes in the number of great men they have produced: yet the aristocracy, like the head boys of a school, are responsible for the "tone" of the nation, and the "tone" of England is surpassing good. What these men had started out to do that day was due to their mental limitation, not to their wilful vice. Woman, particularly that type of woman, was to them an inferior animal, as she is to most working men; yet the majority treat their female relations, and the women they consider worthy of it (and the working man is not easily deceived by fine clothes and fine manners), with astonishing respect, real and true respect, not superficial mannerisms. The big majority of English working men, in my experience, are sportsmen, and possessed of the instincts of gentlemen, ineradicably stamped into their hard, true natures. And you young men, the budding engineers, who are lost in the intricacies of elementary algebra, or unravelling those painful problems in strength of material; the Tensile stresses in the rims of flywheels, and the elastic limit of steel plates, etc.: it is yours to see that you also understand the elastic limit of human nature, the inherent instincts of the working man, and the durability of your own emotions; this is what you learn in the "shops": it is yours to solve the unemployed problem and see that the English workman gets a chance to develop the fine qualities that are in him; for this (unemployment) is an engineering problem; the reduction of a sine curve to a straight line, the modification of a wave, the control of a tide: it is yours to know that the working man does not want a mouth in Parliament, but a fair show at his work. Watch what he does, and not what he says, as he will watch what you do, and not what you say; then you will see that he is (mostly) a sportsman, and you will learn to understand that it is better that the accent should be on the "man" than on the "gentle"—yet do not forget that a clean mind is the basis of all true force of character, and is inherently respected by every Englishman, foul-mouthed though he be. And you, fond Mammas, who desire your dear boys to be engineers, see to it that their biceps are good, for this is the underlying principle of all work; and when dear Willie comes home from the "shops" with his face punched into a many-hued polyhedron, be not alarmed, this is no doubt the result of scientific research into the specific resistance of the fitter's mate; it is also conceivable that occasions may arise when it is good that Willie should stand in the police court dock, charged with breaking a man's head with a hammer. All these things must come to pass before the steel enters thoroughly into Willie's soul; then he will take a very high polish and be very reliable, yet he will be very flexible and very keen; for this is the age of steel—hard, keen, true steel.

Carstairs stripped to the waist and tied his trousers round with a scarf that Bounce lent him. He stepped into the middle of the ring and looked at his opponent: slightly shorter, but more massive than himself, his face was remarkably hard looking, with a short, clipped moustache, and light china blue eyes with a roving, happy-go-lucky look in them; even now, as Carstairs faced him, there was an element of a grin on his face. (It is written somewhere in the Book of Fate that the British navvy shall fear no man on this earth.) His neck was like the trunk of an oak tree and sloped grandly on to his massive shoulders; in his hands, Carstairs observed, Nature had endowed him with a pair of very formidable weapons, the knuckles were enormous. Altogether Jack Carstairs recognised that he was up against one of the stiffest propositions he had ever tackled in his life.

"Are you ready, sir?" he asked, with quite a genial smile.

"Yes," Carstairs answered.

"Three minute rounds," Bounce said, taking out the fine, half-hunter watch that had been presented to him for rescuing a drowning man.

The two combatants agreed.

"Shake hands, then." They reached out and gripped each other with a strong, hearty grip, and five hundred heads nodded grave approval.

"Now! Time!"

As soon as the word was out of Bounce's mouth, the navvy sprang at Carstairs like a tiger. The royal light of battle was in his eyes, there was positive joy written large and bold over all his countenance.

Carstairs was serious, very serious, and quite calm; he ducked the man's furious left and right straight drives, and got in a useful stop hit with his left in the face, then broke ground. But the navvy was on him again like a whirlwind, while five hundred gruff voices shouted.

"One for the toff. First blood for the toff. 'Is nose is bleeding. Don't forget that five pound, Charlie. Mind, your mates is watching you."

Carstairs felt the huge, bony fists whistle past his ears, and he ducked and ducked again to the furious straight drives. He began to smile, too; the pleasure of it was entering into him, the important issue was slipping away from his mind. He hit the navvy heavily about the face, and received one or two glancing blows himself.

When time was called, they stood and looked at each other for a second or so like two newly found friends.

"That was good, wasn't it, sir?" the navvy said.

"You do make the pace," Carstairs answered, with genuine admiration.

The man stroked his nose tenderly. "Same to you, sir," he said, with a grin.

Their seconds came and took them away to their corners and sat them down on one man's knees while another fanned them with big, red pocket handkerchiefs.

"'It 'im in the body," Bounce whispered. "You could 'it 'im in the clock all day, an' 'e'd on'y think you was tickling of 'im."

"Time" was called, and the navvy held out his hand again just to show that they were still on the best of good terms. Carstairs grasped it warmly, and again the five hundred heads nodded strong approval. They stepped back a pace and the navvy said: "Are you ready?"

Carstairs said "Yes," and promptly the man sprang in, letting drive furiously right and left. There was a sameness about his methods, and he swung his shoulders freely and openly before each hit, so that Carstairs knew exactly where and when they were coming, and dodged them easily; he ducked low to the left, and got in a swinging right on the short ribs. The man grunted, his breath had been short before. He stopped and took a deep breath, Carstairs magnanimously standing clear of him; then he rushed again, and Carstairs got him in the same place; again he took a deep breath and rushed, exhaustion was making him slower. Carstairs ducked to the right this time, and got in a beautiful left, fairly and squarely on the solar plexus. The man dropped like a log, and lay gasping.

THE MAN DROPPED LIKE A LOG

There was a wild uproar, several of the men tried to break into the ring to pick him up, but the stewards thrust them roughly back. "Don't break the ring," they said. Bounce stood over him, watch in hand, and counted out the seconds. "He's beat," he said at the end of the tenth, as the man lay there helpless.

Carstairs picked him up. "Never mind," he said. "That five pounds is yours, anyway."

The navvies shouted uproariously, and crowded round Carstairs congratulating him in their rough but sincere fashion. In the midst of it all he heard an old familiar voice that drove the smile from his face.

"That really was damn good, old chap."

He turned and beheld Darwen, smiling, genial, standing at his elbow.

"How the devil did you get here?" he asked, frowning severely.

The navvies near listened in open curiosity and wonder.

"'E bin down 'ere weeks, off an' on, standing us beer down at the village," a navvy explained.

"So this was some of your devil's work, eh? You were going to resort to force when fair means failed, you damned skunk."

The navvies listened in silent wonder.

Darwen shrugged his shoulders with easy unconcern. "The forces of Nature, dear boy," he answered. He turned to the navvies. "I came down to see the fun," he said. "The gipsies are going to put up a scrap, I see, they're out with sticks and guns and God knows what."

"That's off, Mister," a navvy answered.

"Off? Ha! Ha! You've let this chap with his little fight divert you?"

"That was part of the stakes," Carstairs said, shortly. "And these men will stick to their bargain."

They gave a low murmur of assent.

Darwen laughed. "Well, you are mugs, you've let this chap diddle you. This skilled fighter against poor old plucky, but unskilled Charlie."

They began to cast suspicious glances at Carstairs.

"Charlie didn't get one good one on him. You could see that for yourselves."

"It was a fair fight," they said, gruffly. "An' a bet's a bet."

"That's right; fair is fair all the world over," he was talking to them in their own language, "but it isn't fair for a trained man, practising every day, to take advantage of a plucky sort of chap like Charlie, now is it?"

There was silence.

"A bet is a bet," he repeated, "but it's not sporting to bet on a cert. 'All bets off' in that case is the rule," he said.

Carstairs was slowly dressing; he stopped with his collar in his hand. "That man is a rogue and a liar," he said, "he doesn't know the meaning of the term sport."

"Ha! Ha! Hear that. Ask him if he'd take me on the same terms that he took Charlie on?"

"Yes, here and now," Carstairs answered, starting to undress again. "And glad of the chance."

The navvies cheered. "'Ear. 'Ear. That's a toff, that's sport. Clear the ring, mates. Let the two toffs set to."

The stewards cleared the ring again, the navvies stepped back in expectant silence, they expected something exceptional this time. Charlie stepped up to Carstairs. "I'll be your second, mister. Let this yer bloke (pointing to Bounce) be referee." He was as brisk and lively as ever again.

"Thanks," Carstairs said. "You and I must have a drink together before I go back."

Charlie grinned with real pleasure. "Thank ye, sir," he said.

Darwen stripped with alacrity, his big brown eyes gleamed with abnormal joy: there was sufficient of the Gaul in him to make him "More than man before the fight. Less than woman afterwards." He was attended to by two navvies; a tall red-headed man and a slender dark man with rather a thoughtful, melancholy cast of countenance. A young gipsy youth, slouch-hatted, slovenly, wandered up to the group, and stood beside Darwen for a minute or two; his piercing eyes moved with a quick alert expression under the wide drooping brim of his hat; his face was very dirty and his hands thrust deep into his trousers' pockets. The navvies took no notice of him, and he wandered nonchalantly across the ring and took up a position near Carstairs.

"How many rounds?" he asked.

"To a finish," Bounce answered.

"I'll put a bob on this 'un, he's got the look of a winner," he growled out in a surly, gruff voice.

Carstairs glanced up at him quickly, but he turned round and sauntered off.

"Get ready."

They stepped out into the ring, two splendid specimens of English manhood. Darwen six feet in his socks, and Carstairs half an inch shorter. They were in the pink of condition, and both of them full of steam. Somewhere near at hand was the girl they both wanted, and they had this in mind. Darwen, for the first time in his life, was in love, really in love, with all the ardour of his passionate nature.

"Shake hands," Darwen's seconds called, but Carstairs took no notice, and the five hundred spectators settled themselves to witness a battle of real hatred.

"Time," Bounce called.

Promptly Darwen sprang in with a realistic feint, then, smiling, broke ground and worked round his antagonist. Carstairs watched him, keeping the centre of the ring, pivoting slowly on his own axis. Darwen sprang in again with another feint, but still Carstairs gave no opening, then quick as a flash Darwen gave a left lead and followed up with a heavy right swing; both got home, though not with their full effect.

Darwen was at the zenith of a strong man's powers; his head was singularly clear, and his speed almost supernatural. There was a sort of feline fascination about him, his eyes, too, were something catlike, or snakey; there was an undulating ease in his movements that was beautiful, fascinating; he had risen to the sort of hysterical height which the Latins seem capable of, and still the English blood in him kept him cool. As he stood, that day, he was almost the perfect, scientific fighter. He feinted with wonderful expression, he "drew" Carstairs' leads with extremely skilful acting, and timed his counters marvellously. At the end of the round, Carstairs was battered and bruised, but Darwen was as fresh as a daisy.

The navvies maintained a glum silence; this feinting and drawing savoured, to them, of deceit, and the way Carstairs took his punishment, melted their hearts. The ex-marine whispered in his ear: "steady does it, stick to 'im."

The young gipsy reappeared from the crowd. "My money's still on this 'un," he said.

Next round, Carstairs attacked, persistently, all the time; his wind was good and he knew it; from his earliest infancy he had led a spotlessly clean and wholesome life, and he was sound as a bell from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot; he was alert and quick too, but it was the staccato briskness of the terrier, and his eyes were the eyes of an Englishman, an engineer. With a fine disregard of punishment, he hustled Darwen through the whole of the round.

The navvies buzzed with excitement, and the young gipsy had to be turned out of the ring by the stewards.

Darwen's seconds performed their office enthusiastically, but their sympathies were really with the other man.

For four rounds Carstairs took all the punishment steadily. He bored in all the time, attacking persistently, never once had he feinted or tried to keep away. Darwen's smile began to fade, he was getting angry. This man was such a fool that apparently he could not see that he was beaten. There was a devilish gleam of temper in his eyes as they faced each other for the fifth round.

Carstairs' left foot and left fist moved in the old, old way. Instead of steadily countering as he had been doing, Darwen dashed in to hustle matters to a close. Next minute Bounce was standing over him counting out the seconds. For the first time in the fight Carstairs had feinted—and successfully.

The navvies cheered fervidly.

At the seventh second, Darwen jumped up furiously and sprang at Carstairs like a fiend incarnate. "You devil," he screamed, "I'll kill you."

But he didn't. Carstairs knocked him down again, and he lay like a log. Still he was up again before the last second was counted. It was astonishing where he got the power from, but he rushed in again like a whirlwind.

Carstairs, cool and precise, but very quick, his grey eyes hard as steel, jabbed him off, and off, and off, till he saw what he wanted, then his wide shoulders swept a half circle in the air, swinging cleanly from the hips; his great, strong, right leg, trailing to the rear like a stay, braced itself suddenly rigid; and the right fist, tightly clenched at the moment of impact, shot out clean and true in a perfectly straight line to the point of Darwen's eagerly extended jaw: it was a perfect blow, showing a beautiful, smooth ripple as one muscle after the other took up its task; then remaining rigid like a statue for one second, with lips firmly closed, and the eyes—the entire expression of the face, full of definite, resolute purpose; Carstairs for that second seemed more than a man. None but a man with his long record of clean living and strict training could have risen to such a blow after receiving such a pounding as he had.

Darwen dropped for the last time.

There was a tense silence as Bounce stood over him, the tenth second was called and still he lay there; his seconds picked him up and dabbed his face with a wet handkerchief; slowly the light of intelligence returned to his eyes. He sat up and looked round. There was a subdued cheer; the navvies were unusually moved, they felt, somehow, that this was more than an ordinary fight, every one was still for fully a minute, the silence was oppressive. God knows what was passing in those five hundred rugged minds. Carstairs himself was strangely impressed; in after life he never forgot it. He felt, he said, as though he had come suddenly to the last peak of a majestic mountain, and saw a wondrous valley spread out below him.

Darwen's seconds stood behind him holding up his shoulders. They were quite still, they said no word as he looked slowly and vacantly round; then, without warning, he bent his head forward into his hands and wept like a child.

A beaten man is the most pathetic sight in all Nature: these men were used to death, they had seen their bosom chums killed, squashed flat by falling rocks, buried alive in the earth, mangled by machinery; but when Darwen wept they turned their heads.

The young gipsy moved up to Carstairs, as he stood alone, and whispered in his ear: "I knew you'd win. You'll always win, win whatever you want." A small hand reached out and dropped an emerald ring on to the little heap of his clothes over which he was bending; as he put out his hand to pick it up, he felt the pressure of warm, soft lips on his cheek. He started up in amazement, but the gipsy had melted into the crowd like a shadow. One or two of the navvies who had seen it grinned from ear to ear, and Carstairs blushed from his forehead to his neck.

"That was a girl," a navvy said. "I thought he was slim like, too."

Carstairs said nothing, but dressed very quickly.