“I don't believe a word o' the story,” replied Harry;—“but I'll hear it out.”
“I did not ask you to believe it,” said Creese; “but there's special evidence on your head, as well as on your cousin's, that you played at it, long and lustily.”
“And which won?” enquired Ralph.
“Both of you lost blood, as well as temper, at last,” replied Creese; “but, I remember, Harry gave you the first broken head.”
“Never!” replied Ralph, “it never lay in his shoes: he may be as good a wrestler, or better; but scores of men, that my cousin Harry have often and often given his head to, never could touch me.”
“Well! be that as it may,” said the landlord, “he certainly had you last night, Ralph, or I'm out of my senses. Why, I remember it as well as if it was but a minute ago:—you broke open the glass buffet, in which the two sticks my uncle and father won the grand match with—Wilts against Somerset—was stuck up, among the china, with silver mountings, and decorated with green ribbons, cut out like laurel-leaves;—and you said they were the best sticks you ever broke a head with: and when Harry cut your ear, and I cried out 'A bout, a bout!' and put the poker between you, you shook Harry's hand, and said you admired him, for he had done what no man ever had attempted—namely—hit you under your best guard.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted Harry. “Odds buttons! Ralph, but there seems to be some truth in this though, for your ear is cut up, sure enough then, clean as a whistle; it must ha; been done as Creese says.”
Ralph put his hand up to his ear, and, like Lord Burleigh, in The Critic, shook his head and said nothing.
“All this,” continued the landlord, “was friendly and civil: you then ordered a double quantity of brandy in the brewage—if you don't believe me, look in the bill,—and, in about half an hour, I found you fighting in downright earnest, and in all manner of ways;—kicking, cudgelling, wrestling, pulling, punching, tearing one another to pieces very ungentlemanly, and so forth, and clearly bent on destruction. You had cracked the looking-glass, broke the table, 'shod the liquor, and tore the porringer,' as the man said; or, in other words, shed the cider and brandy, and broke the bowl; all which you'll find I've made correct memorandums of in the bill. Then I called in the blacksmiths, from next door, our ostler, and three waggoners who were drinking outside;—we all pitched into you, and, at last, got you asunder: but not before the mischief you see and feel was done; and to shew what minds you were in, when we pulled you, by main force, apart, each of you carried away his hold, like a couple of bull-dogs:—Harry brought off a piece of Ralph's sleeve and his shoulder-belt, and Ralph the forepart of Harry's coat, full two-thirds of his waistcoat, and a pattern of his linen. We then contrived to get you to bed—as you'll see in the bill; and—and—”
“Aye,—and here we be,” added Ralph; “nice objects for a wife and family to look at!”