Many circumstances rendered the field famous. The mothers of the combatants had fed their sons for the fray like gamecocks; oat-bread and new milk were the staple food which was supposed to give muscle, strength, and endurance.
Shortly before the fight Clarke’s mother, when giving him his last meal before the encounter, said to him, “Sam, my son, may you never get bit or sup from me more, if you do not lick the mongrel.”
This Spartan speech spread through the field like wildfire, and such was the code of honor, on that occasion, that the exhortation was much blamed, and led to a strong current of popularity in favor of Brontë. The word “mongrel,” referring to the fact that her son’s antagonist had had a Catholic mother, was considered unfitting to be used in connection with the noble encounter that was about to take place.
The ring was roped off in the hollow of a green field; the multitude stood on the rising ground around, and all could see the entire ring. Three or four hundred men were enrolled as “special order preservers,” and stood in a circle round the ring, two or three deep. The seconds and referee and umpire were in their places at the opposite sides of the ring.
The hour fixed to begin was twelve o’clock, and prompt to the minute the two combatants strode down leisurely through the crowd, each with his sweetheart leaning on his arm; their mothers already occupied seats of honor outside the ring.
Clarke was an older and maturer man than Brontë, and much bigger. Beside him, Brontë, in his tight-fitting homespun, looked slender and youthful and overmatched.
In consequence of the ungenerous and unguarded words spoken by Clarke’s mother, sympathy, as we have seen, was already on Brontë’s side, and this was greatly increased by the natural feeling that prompts the generous to take the weak side.
As far as I have been able to ascertain, the original cause of the quarrel was wholly lost sight of before the fight began. No one seemed to give a thought to the circumstance that Brontë had got into the affair by espousing the cause of a helpless boy. After listening to an account of the fight, from some old man who had witnessed it, I have often asked what it was about, and I have generally got for answer, “Oh, it was just a fight,” my question being evidently deemed irrelevant, and somewhat silly.
The champions stepped into the ring, and their sweethearts with them. As each stripped he handed his clothes to his future wife, and these two women stood, each with her lover’s garments on her arm, till the matter was decided.