“Bless my soul! are you the man who fought with
him,—you? I can’t believe it.”
“Why not?”
“Why not! So far as I can judge by this
light, though you are a tall fellow, Tom Bowles must
be a much heavier weight than you are.”
“Tom Spring was the champion of England; and
according to the records of his weight, which history
has preserved in her archives, Tom Spring was a lighter
weight than I am.”
“But are you a prize-fighter?”
“I am as much that as I am anything else.
But to return to Mr. Bowles, was it necessary to bleed
him?”
“Yes; he was unconscious, or nearly so, when
I came. I took away a few ounces; and I am happy
to say he is now sensible, but must be kept very quiet.”
“No doubt; but I hope he will be well enough
to see me to-morrow.”
“I hope so too; but I can’t say yet.
Quarrel about a girl,—eh?”
“It was not about money. And I suppose
if there were no money and no women in the world,
there would be no quarrels and very few doctors.
Good-night, Sir.”
“It is a strange thing to me,” said Kenelm,
as he now opened the garden-gate of Mr. Saunderson’s
homestead, “that though I’ve had nothing
to eat all day, except a few pitiful sandwiches, I
don’t feel the least hungry. Such arrest
of the lawful duties of the digestive organs never
happened to me before. There must be something
weird and ominous in it.”
On entering the parlour, the family party, though
they had long since finished supper, were still seated
round the table. They all rose at the sight of
Kenelm. The fame of his achievements had preceded
him. He checked the congratulations, the compliments,
and the questions which the hearty farmer rapidly
heaped upon him, with a melancholic exclamation, “But
I have lost my appetite! No honours can compensate
for that. Let me go to bed peaceably, and perhaps
in the magic land of sleep Nature may restore me by
a dream of supper.”
KENELM rose betimes the next morning somewhat stiff
and uneasy, but sufficiently recovered to feel ravenous.
Fortunately, one of the young ladies, who attended
specially to the dairy, was already up, and supplied
the starving hero with a vast bowl of bread and milk.
He then strolled into the hayfield, in which there
was now very little left to do, and but few hands
besides his own were employed. Jessie was not
there. Kenelm was glad of that. By nine o’clock
his work was over, and the farmer and his men were
in the yard completing the ricks. Kenelm stole
away unobserved, bent on a round of visits. He
called first at the village shop kept by Mrs. Bawtrey,
which Jessie had pointed out to him, on pretence of
buying a gaudy neckerchief; and soon, thanks to his
habitual civility, made familiar acquaintance with
the shopwoman. She was a little sickly old lady,
her head shaking, as with palsy, somewhat deaf, but
