‘After about fifteen minutes neither cock could stand straight; at a distance you’d have said they was both as drunk as my lord; both were drippin’ blood; Stingo had lost an’ eye, an’ neither o’ t’other’s were much use to him, bein’ bunged up wi’ bruised flesh. They staggered aboot here an’ there; knocked up against each other in a blind-man’s “beg-pardin” sort o’ way. Every noo and again the Moonlight cock would pull himself together, hop feebly into the air, an’ strike wiv his spurs, but as often as not the air was all he hit, for, his eyesight bein’ aal askew, he couldn’t aim straight, an’ doon he would flop on his tail end, coughin’ an’ choakin’ wi’ blood—powerless, yet mad to gan on fightin’.
‘At the finish he gets Stingo pinned up against the cockpit bars, an’, thinkin’ he has him noo, gies a feeble craw, lifts hissel’ into the air, an’ claps for his heart wiv his spurs.
‘There was a bit clash in the held-breath stillness of the place, then a tiny moan, an’, by Gox! there was Moonlight lyin’ flat on his back on the sawdust wiv one leg broke in two an’ danglin’ wiv its spur like a watch-chain on his breast.
‘Such a hullaballoo as there was, grandfeythor yellin’ like an Injun! “Pick up yo’r bird,” he cries, “he’s a dead un!” for there was Stingo a-top o’ Moonlight peckin’ at what was left ov his head-piece like a blackbird at a snail.
‘Stevison never moved, but his gills went flutterin’ like those ov a dyin’ fish; he couldn’t speak, but I b’lieve he was prayin’ for his favouryte.
‘A minute passed, then Moonlight comes to; he beats wiv his wings, struggles, crawls an inch or two, manages to shake off Stingo, then hoistin’ hissel’ up once again wiv his one leg an’ wings slashes wiv his spur, and by the damn’dest luck lands it in Stingo’s eye.
‘Doon in a motionless heap they falls, an’ when they’re separated Stingo’s dead as a leg o’ mutton.
‘The rest o’ the comp’ny yells and shouts; some says Moonlight’s a dead un, too, an’ it’s a drawn battle, an’ grandfeythor, he swears his bird can still fight, while Stevison, unable to find his voice, picks up Moonlight, an’ finally claps a great kiss on to the middle ov his back, an’ when he sets him doon again wiv a drop brandy in his mouth he sets up a feeble craw of defiance, plainly axin’, “Who the deevil says I’s a dead un?”
‘After that it was all up wi’ grandfeythor; the stuffin’ seemed knocked oot o’ him an’ his cocks by the loss ov his favouryte, an’ in the next battle another of his best birds had his heart squashed oot, like a ripe gooseberry, at the vary first encounter.
‘It was a black day that for grandfeythor, but, as I was sayin’ at the start, he never gies in, an’ he comforts hissel’ wi’ thinkin’ he’d make matters square up an’ a bit to spare by the shootin’ match which was to follow in a fortnight’s time.