If ever any man in the world did what young men are always told by good people to do—­namely, to persevere—­I am sure we did, Charley and I, with the Quaker’s horse.  Whether he suspected the mission on which we were bent, or was considering the danger of such a scene to his morals, I could not ascertain, but never did any animal show a greater reluctance to go anywhere except to his quiet home.

Your happiness at these great gatherings depended entirely upon the distance or proximity of the police.  If they were pretty near, the landlord of the inn would hesitate about serving you, and if he did, would charge a far higher price in consequence of the supposed increased risk.  He would never encourage a breach of the peace in defiance of the county magistrates, who were the authority to renew his licence at Brewster Sessions.  So much, then, if the officers of justice were near.

If they happened to be absent—­which, as I have said, occasionally occurred when a big thing was to come off—­there was then a dominant feeling of social equality which you could never see manifested so strongly in any other place.  A gentleman would think nothing of putting his fingers into your pockets and abstracting your money, and if you had the hardihood to resent the intrusion, would think less of putting his fist into your eyes.

We were by no means certain, as I learned, that our fight would come off after all, for it appeared the magistrates had given strict and specific instructions to the police that no combat was to take place in the county of Essex.  Consequently the parties whose duty it was to make preparations had fled from that respectable county and gone away towards Six Mile Bottom, just in one of the corners of Cambridgeshire, as if the intention was that the dons of the University should have a look in.  Constables slept more soundly in Cambridgeshire than in Essex.  Moreover, the Essex magistrates would themselves have a moral right to witness the fight if it did not take place in their county.

Thus we set out for the rendezvous.  Charley soon discovered that our steed was not accustomed to the whip, for instead of urging him forward it produced the contrary effect.  However, we got along by slow degrees, and when we came up with the crowd—­oh!

Such a scene I had never witnessed in my life, nor could have conceived it possible anywhere on this earth or anywhere out of that abyss the full description of which you will find in “Paradise Lost.”

It was a procession of the blackguardism of all ages and of all countries under heaven.  The sexes were apparently in equal numbers and in equal degrees of ugliness and ferocity.  There were faces flat for want of noses, and mouths ghastly for want of teeth; faces scarred, bruised, battered into every shape but what might be called human.  There were fighting-men of every species and variety—­men whose profession it was to fight, and others whose