Helmsgail, the Scot, was a youth scarcely nineteen, but he had already had his forehead sewn up, for which reason they laid 2 1/3 to 1 on him.  The month before he had broken the ribs and gouged out the eyes of a pugilist named Sixmileswater.  This explained the enthusiasm he created.  He had won his backers twelve thousand pounds.  Besides having his forehead sewn up Helmsgail’s jaw had been broken.  He was neatly made and active.  He was about the height of a small woman, upright, thick-set, and of a stature low and threatening.  And nothing had been lost of the advantages given him by nature; not a muscle which was not trained to its object, pugilism.  His firm chest was compact, and brown and shining like brass.  He smiled, and three teeth which he had lost added to his smile.

His adversary was tall and overgrown—­that is to say, weak.

He was a man of forty years of age, six feet high, with the chest of a hippopotamus, and a mild expression of face.  The blow of his fist would break in the deck of a vessel, but he did not know how to use it.

The Irishman, Phelem-ghe-Madone, was all surface, and seemed to have entered the ring to receive rather than to give blows.  Only it was felt that he would take a deal of punishment.  Like underdone beef, tough to chew, and impossible to swallow.  He was what was termed, in local slang, raw meat.  He squinted.  He seemed resigned.

The two men had passed the preceding night in the same bed, and had slept together.  They had each drunk port wine from the same glass, to the three-inch mark.

Each had his group of seconds—­men of savage expression, threatening the umpires when it suited their side.  Amongst Helmsgail’s supporters was to be seen John Gromane, celebrated for having carried an ox on his back; and one called John Bray, who had once carried on his back ten bushels of flour, at fifteen pecks to the bushel, besides the miller himself, and had walked over two hundred paces under the weight.  On the side of Phelem-ghe-Madone, Lord Hyde had brought from Launceston a certain Kilter, who lived at Green Castle, and could throw a stone weighing twenty pounds to a greater height than the highest tower of the castle.

These three men, Kilter, Bray, and Gromane, were Cornishmen by birth, and did honour to their county.

The other seconds were brutal fellows, with broad backs, bowed legs, knotted fists, dull faces; ragged, fearing nothing, nearly all jail-birds.

Many of them understood admirably how to make the police drunk.  Each profession should have its peculiar talents.

The field chosen was farther off than the bear garden, where they formerly baited bears, bulls, and dogs; it was beyond the line of the farthest houses, by the side of the ruins of the Priory of Saint Mary Overy, dismantled by Henry VIII.  The wind was northerly, and biting; a small rain fell, which was instantly frozen into ice.  Some gentlemen present were evidently fathers of families, recognized as such by their putting up their umbrellas.