In the Name of the People

by Arthur W. Marchmont

She was a good-looking woman and her face attracted the attention of a drunken brute of a bully who shouldered his way up and with a coarse oath tried to put his arm round her waist to kiss her. Without a second’s consideration of her own risk, the girl thrust herself in his way and pushed him back with all her little strength, and stood guarding the woman like a young lioness at bay.

The beast swore viciously, glared at her and raised his hand for a blow; then his look changed, his eyes blazed with animal passion and he tried to seize her, swearing he would kiss her instead of the woman.

I shouldered my way to her rescue, but before I could reach her, the big woman intervened. She grabbed the brute from behind and dragged him off, with a voluble torrent of language which, “ministering angel” as she afterwards proved, had very little of the minister and nothing of the angel in it.

The drunken bully, powerful though he was, had much difficulty in shaking her off, and by the time he had succeeded, I had reached the girl and stood in front of her. Finding a man to deal with and one much slighter than himself, he elbowed himself clear of the throng round him and prepared to knock me into the next world. But I knew how to use my fists and he did not; and as he struck at me I easily parried the blow and gave him an undercut on the jaw which sent him staggering back, a very much surprised bully indeed.

A fight being a welcome recreation for the prisoners, we were immediately surrounded by a yelling, oathing crowd, and a sufficient space was cleared for us to settle matters. It is no credit to batter a half-drunken man, and I would gladly have avoided the thing if it had been possible. But it was not. My antagonist was regarded as a sort of champion by those who knew him; and as they were anxious to see me mauled, they hounded him on with shouts and cheers of encouragement. Five minutes finished it; and established a reputation for me which proved of infinite value for the rest of that terrible night.

His friends led him away to the other end of the place; and when I turned to go back to my corner, I found that the girl and her big companion had taken possession of it for the benefit of the other women. They had cleared a sufficient space to enable the women to lie down; and by some magic of womanhood had comforted and soothed them until comparative quiet had been restored.

Nor was that all. Such of the men as were sober and decent had drifted to our end and stood in line as a guard over the women. A space of very few feet divided us from the rowdies; and as they still persisted in keeping up a racket, I determined to use the authority with which my victory had invested me, to try and stop some of the din.

I picked out three of the strongest men near me, told them what I meant to do, and asked their help. We were, of course, heavily handicapped in numbers; but we were sober and capable of concerted action, whereas the others were mostly drunk and at loggerheads even with one another.

Four of us crossed the dividing line and without a word seized four of the noisiest of the crowd, dragged them from the midst of the throng, shook and cuffed them soundly, and then ordered them to stop their yelling and oathing.

They slunk off cowed and beaten; but a number of the others broke out with volleys of curses and threats and showed fight. At this, the other men from my corner came forward, and the manœuvre was repeated on a larger scale. This time I took care to punish my man severely; and when we shoved them reeling away and looked for fresh ones, we looked in vain.