CHAPTER XXV

The little Botallack man and Eli Penhale shook hands, tucked the slack of their wrestling jackets under their left armpits and, crouching, approached each other, right hands extended.

The three judges, ancient wrestlers, leaned on their ash-plants and looked extremely knowing; they went by the title of “sticklers.”

The wrestling ring was in a grass field almost under the shadow of St. Gwithian church tower. To the north the ridge of tors rolled along the skyline, autumnal brown. Southward was the azure of the English Channel; west, over the end of land, the glint of the Atlantic with the Scilly Isles showing on the horizon, very faint, like small irregularities on a ruled blue line.

All Gwithian was present, men and women, girls and boys, with a good sprinkling of visitors from the parishes round about. They formed a big ring of black and pink, dark clothes and healthy countenances. A good-natured crowd, bandying inter-parochial chaff from side to side, rippling with laughter when some accepted wit brought off a sally, yelling encouragement to their district champions.

“Beware of en’s feet, Jan, boy. The old toad is brear foxy.”

“Scat en, Ephraim, my pretty old beauty! Grip to an’ scandalize en!”