The attentions of our hero had hitherto been paid to Mars and Bacchus; in fact, so exclusively, that Venus and Cupid were determined to resent the insult and contempt offered to their power, through the person of Miss Katty Flynn. Miss Katty was of true Hibernian genealogy; her father was a dairyman, and the fair daddles of Katty, it is said, were often employed in churning of butter.
“Most people fall in love some time or other,
’Tis useless, when the flame breaks out, trying it to smother;”
and so it appeared with poor Katty. Amongst her numerous elegant customers was the funny, joking, gay Jack Langan. Katty endeavoured to smother the unruly flame, but all-powerful love prevailed, and upon every succeeding visit at Jack’s crib it increased like an oil-fed blaze. The cream of her dairy was continually offered as a present to our hero to embellish his tea tackle; in addition to which, lots of new-laid eggs, lumps of butter, and oceans of milk; a dietary, according to Lord Byron, of the most dangerous excitement to amatory ideas. Jack’s counsel urged in his defence, that instead of being the seducer, he was the seduced: and it would be a perversion of justice if he was not placed as the payee, instead of the payer, for endeavouring to impart comfort and consolation to the love-stricken damsel. But despite the sophistry of his learned counsel, the jury were ungallant enough to award damages against him of One Hundred Pounds. This circumstance, combined with the treachery of a friend, compelled Jack once more to quit Ireland, and try his luck in England. A few fleeting hours enabled our hero to lose sight of the Pigeon-house, and the charms of Miss Katty Flynn, and he landed in a whole skin at Liverpool, where he was not long before he found himself seated snugly in Bob Gregson’s hostelrie.
Under this friendly roof he rested himself for a few days. Jack then started for Manchester, in which place Pat Crawley had the honour of entertaining the aspiring Irish hero, at the Three Tuns Tavern. At Oldham Jack followed the occupation of a sawyer, and Tom Reynolds, like the celebrated Peter Pindar, who discovered Opie in a saw-pit, found Langan in a similar situation. “Come up, Jack,” says Tom, “and I’ll soon make a top-sawyer of you.” Langan obeyed the summons; and after comparing notes together, and having a small wet, Reynolds and Langan became inseparable friends, setting-to together, both in private and public, for their mutual advantage. Things went on in this way for a few months, when Matthew Vipond, alias Weeping, a Manchester man, well known as a good bit of stuff, entered the lists with the Irish Champion, on Wednesday, April 30, 1823. The celebrity of the pugilists drew together five thousand persons. The battle was fought between Buxton and Bakewell, in a field called Lydia’s Island, and certainly a better place could not be wished for—it was a perfect amphitheatre, and every person was near enough to the ring to have a distinct view of the men, when seated on the ridges of the surrounding eminences. The ring, which was a roped one of twenty-four feet square, being formed, Vipond first entered it, and threw up his golgotha; a few minutes after Langan made his entrée, and hoisted his also in the air. The Manchester man was seconded by two amateurs, the Irishman by Reynolds and Halton. Ned Turner and Bob Purcell also attended. About two o’clock the men peeled, shook each other by the fives, and the mill commenced.
THE FIGHT.
Round 1.—The men came to the scratch with good humour painted on their mugs, and after gathering up and breaking ground for a few seconds, Vipond made play, but was stopped and hit in a style by no means expected. Vipond got in at last, closed, and gave the Hibernian his first welcome to English ground by a sort of cross-buttock.
2.—Vipond came up, bleeding from the left ogle, not quite so confident, but nothing loth, and wishing to pay with interest the favour received; but, alas! he was not the first man disappointed in good intentions, for he was met in so tremendous a manner by Pat’s right hand on the temple, that he was sent to the ground as if kicked by a horse. (Ten to one on Pat.)
3.—The Patlanders in the last and in this round seemed frantic with joy; hats went up in the air, and all roaring out for the darling boy. Bob Purcell called out to Reynolds, “Blow my dickey, Tom, if you don’t keep the Murphy back he will kill his man, and you’ll get lagged.” This had no effect on Tom, for he sent Langan in to Vipond, who was staggering from the effects of the blow in the last round. Paddy brought him to his recollection by a blow at the victualling office, and following it up with another for the box of knowledge, Matthew went down before he received, and Langan fell also from over-reaching himself.
4.—Vipond came to the scratch with far different spirits to those he started with: he was nervous in the extreme, and a person might easily guess that if he had known as much before as he did then he would have left Mr. Irishman for somebody else. Vipond’s ivory box was visited by Pat’s left mawley; by a ditto from the right, on the old sore on the temple, he went down, and the amateurs thought he would not come again. Langan during this round, and, in fact, all the others, was laughing.