A proverb of large equity, and time-honoured wisdom, declares (with the bluntness of its race) that "sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." This maxim is pleasant enough to the goose; but the gander sputters wrathfully when it comes home to his breast. Polwarth felt it as a heinous outrage, that he had been the victim of his own device. As he faced his rival for the last encounter, a scowl came down upon his noble knobby forehead, his keen eyes glowered as with fire in his chest, and his wiry lips closed viciously. The Devonshire man, endowed with larger and less turbid outlook, perceived that the other's wrath was kindled, and his own duty was to feed the flame.
Accordingly, by quiet tricks, and flicks, such as no man would even feel unless already too peppery, he worked the moral system hard, and roused in the other's ample breast—or brain, if that be the combative part—a lofty disdain of discretion. Polwarth ground his teeth, and clenched his fist, spat fire—and all was up with him. One savage dash he made, which might have swept a milestone backward, breast clashed on breast, he swung too high, the great yellow legs forsook the earth, and the great red ones flashed between them, then the mighty frame span in the air like a flail, and fell flat as the blade of a turf-beater's spade.
"All over! All up! Needn't ask about that. Three times three for Devonshire! Again, again, again! Carnies, what can 'e say to that now?"
Wild triumph, fierce dejection, yearning to fight it out prevailed; every man's head was out of the government of his neck—when these two leading Counties were quenched alike. The great pole of red pine, fit mast for an Admiral, bearing all the structure overhead, snapped, like a carrot, to a vast wild blast. In a weltering squash lay victor and vanquished, man with his fists up, and man eager to go at him, hearts too big to hold themselves for exultation, and hearts so low that wifely touch was needed to encourage them, glorious head that had won fifty shillings, and poor numskull that had lost a pot of beer. Prostrate all, with mouths full of tallow, sawdust, pitch, and another fellow's toes. Many were for a twelvemonth limpers; but nobody went to Churchyard.
CHAPTER XXXVI. A FIGHTING BOUT.
After that mighty crash, every body with any sense left in its head went home. There was more to talk about than Perlycross had come across in half a century. And the worst of it was, that every blessed man had his own troubles first to attend to; which is no fun at all, though his neighbour's are so pleasant. The Fair, in the covered market-place, had long been a dreary concern, contending vainly against the stronger charm of the wrestling booth, and still more vainly against the furious weather. Even the biggest and best fed flares—and they were quite as brisk in those days as they are now—gifted though they might be with rage and vigour, lost all self-control, and dashed in yellow forks, here there and everywhere, singeing sometimes their own author's whiskers. Like a man who lives too fast, they killed themselves; and the poor Cheap-Jacks, the Universal Oracles, the Benevolent Bounty-men, chucking guineas right and left, the Master of Cupid's bower, who supplied every lass with a lord, and every lad with a lady having a lapful of a hundred thousand pounds—sadly they all strapped up, and lit their pipes, and shivered at that terrible tramp before them, cursing the weather, and their wives, and even the hallowed village of Perlycross.
Though the coaches had forsaken this ancient track from Exeter to London, and followed the broader turnpike roads, there still used to be every now and then a string of packhorses, or an old stage-waggon, not afraid of hills and making no fuss about time, but straggling at leisure through the pristine thoroughfares, thwarted less with toll-bars.
Notably, old Hill's God-be-with-us van left Exeter on Tuesdays, with the goodwill of three horses, some few hours in the afternoon, and might be trusted to appear at Perlycross according to the weather and condition of the roads. What more comfortable course of travel could there be for any one who understood it, and enjoyed sound sleep, and a good glass of ale at intervals, with room enough to dine inside if he thought fit, than the God-be-with-us van afforded? For old Hill was always in charge of it himself, and expected no more than a penny a mile, and perhaps the power to drink the good health of any peaceful subject of the King, who might be inclined to come along with him, and listen to his moving tales. The horses were fat, and they rested at night, and took it easily in the daytime; and the leader had three little bells on his neck, looking, when you sat behind him, like a pair of scales; and without them he always declined to take a step, and the wheelers backed him up in that denial. For a man not bound to any domineering hour, or even to a self-important day, the broad-wheeled waggon belonging to old Hill—"Old-as-the-Hills" some flippant younkers called him—was as good an engine as need be, for crossing of the country, when it wanted to be crossed, and halting at any town of hospitable turn.
That same Shrove-Tuesday,—and it is well to mark the day, because Master Hill was so superior to dates—this man who asserted the dignity of our race, by not allowing matter to disturb him, was coming down hill with his heavy drag on, in a road that was soft from the goodness of the soil; when a man with two legs made of better stuff than ours, either came out of a gate across the van, or else fairly walked it down by superior speed behind. "Ship ahoy!" he shouted; and old Hill was wide awake, for he had two or three barrels that would keep rolling into the small of his back—as he called it, with his usual oblivion of chronology—and so he was enabled to discern this man, and begin at his leisure to consider him.