Scarcely had the cheers died away which greeted the West Cumberland man's victory, when Louis Nanny of Haltwhistle—an enthusiastic frequenter of wrestling rings—offered to back the Knarsdale man in a match against Cass for a hundred pounds. Todd thought this sum too much to risk even handed, against such a powerful antagonist; but was willing to be backed, and contend at all hazards, for half that amount. The two east countrymen, however, had it all their own way, so far as the challenge was concerned. At that time, Cass being new to the Carlisle ring, and almost unknown as a wrestler, no one seemed bold enough to stand forward on his behalf; and, moreover, like a quiet, inoffensive man, he was perfectly content to rest upon the laurels he had just gained.
This year Weightman—"aw ower his oan daft nonsense"—was thrown by Fearon of Gilcrux, in the first round, for the principal prize at Carlisle. Not being eligible, on this account, for entry in the second day's competition, Tom Todd stood on one side for him; when Weightman, in order to retrieve lost ground, took pains, and threw his men as fast as he came to them. "Talk aboot russlin'!" exclaimed an eye witness, "Wey, man, he just went thro' them like th' wind!"
As time passed on, and Weightman came more prominently to the fore, Tom Todd found himself absolutely nowhere in the giant's grasp; he therefore thought it wiser and more prudent to retire from the ring, without making any further efforts to carry off first honours.
When Todd was a young man, he kept a tight well-made little trail-hound, trained to the name of "Stand back," but which was entered at the different trails as "Towler." Harry Kirkby of Kirkhaugh, the clergyman's lame son, used to tell a tale about Todd and himself taking the hound one year to Melmerby Rounds. When the dogs were coming in, they looked to the spectators, "aw iv a cluster," as they neared the winning post. At this crisis, Todd roared out in a loud voice: "Standback! Standback!" apparently appealing to the crowd, and ran fussing about immediately in front, with his arms flying in the air. "An' dar bon!" said the priest's son, "the dog com' in like stooar, an' wan easily!"
This artful trick has been often practised since, if not earlier than that time, at dog-trails—successfully on more than one occasion by the late Richard Gelderd of Ulverston, a keen dog-trailer. He had a "Standback," and at the Flan and other neighbouring sports, was trained to rush forward to the winning post, when the crowd were ordered in a stentorian voice: "Standback! Standback! an' let t' dogs cum in—can't ye!"
At the great northern fight, between Carter and Oliver, at Gretna, in 1816, John Slack of Carlisle, shoemaker, then a young man in his teens, was thrown to the ground by the surging of the immense crowd, and might easily have been trampled to death. Seeing the impending danger, Tom Todd, and John Barnes, the constable, both powerful men, elbowed their way through the crowd, and succeeded in rescuing the fallen man, before he was seriously injured. On lifting him from the ground, Todd exclaimed, "Marcy, Jwohn! is that thee? My faiks! but thoo'd a narrow squeak for thy life theear!"
Some time after the year 1822, Todd left the north of England, and went into the Highlands of Scotland, where he became gamekeeper to Sir Charles Ross of Belnagowan Castle, Ross-shire, and continued in that capacity for something like twenty-four or twenty-five years.
Returning again to his native district, he settled upon the farm rented by his brother John, at Moscow, near the fashionable watering-place of Gilsland. A few years before he died, he gradually lost his sight, and at times grew "varra canker't an' twisty." Once when one of these fits was upon him, his denunciation of wrestlers and wrestling rings was hurled about in such unqualified language, that one was apt to think the transgressions committed in the Carlisle ring of 1816, still haunted his waking dreams—not probably for anything done personally, but for being made a cat's-paw at that time, by his principal backer.
In the month of September, 1875, Todd, then in his eighty-fourth year, went to the house door, beckoned to the farm-workers that dinner was ready, and immediately after passed quietly away. From the fact of the Knarsdale athlete having attained this great age—and he was only one of many who did—we may draw pretty conclusive evidence, that the northern pastime of wrestling does not, as a rule, shorten life.