ant the Master fair brayed, do you? So do we. Well, what
have you to say?"

"Is this your mon, sir?"

"Well, suppose it is?"

"Then it's him I want to tell aboot it. T' Maister is blind o' the left
eye."

"Nonsense!"

"It's true, sir. Not stone blind, but rarely fogged. He keeps it
secret, but mother knows, and so do I. If thou slip him on the left
side he can't cop thee. Thou'll find it right as I tell thee. And mark
him when he sinks his right. 'Tis his best blow, his right upper-cut.
T' Maister's finisher, they ca' it at t' works. It's a turble blow when
it do come home."

"Thank you, my boy. This is information worth having about his sight,"
said Wilson. "How came you to know so much? Who are you?"

"I'm his son, sir."

Wilson whistled.

"And who sent you to us?"

"My mother. I maun get back to her again."

"Take this half-crown."

"No, sir, I don't seek money in comin' here. I do it--"

"For love?" suggested the publican.

"For hate!" said the boy, and darted off into the darkness.

"Seems to me t' red-headed wench may do him more harm than good, after
all," remarked the publican. "And now, Mr. Montgomery, sir, you've done
enough for this evenin', an' a nine-hours' sleep is the best trainin'
before a battle. Happen this time to-morrow night you'll be safe back
again with your 100 pound in your pocket."

II

Work was struck at one o'clock at the coal-pits and the iron-works, and
the fight was arranged for three. From the Croxley Furnaces, from
Wilson's Coal-pits, from the Heartsease Mine, from the Dodd Mills, from
the Leverworth Smelters the workmen came trooping, each with his
fox-terrier or his lurcher at his heels. Warped with labour and twisted
by toil, bent double by week-long work in the cramped coal galleries or
half-blinded with years spent in front of white-hot fluid metal, these
men still gilded their harsh and hopeless lives by their devotion to
sport. It was their one relief, the only thing which could distract
their minds from sordid surroundings, and give them an interest beyond
the blackened circle which enclosed them. Literature, art, science, all
these things were beyond their horizon; but the race, the football
match, the cricket, the fight, these were things which they could
understand, which they could speculate upon in advance and comment upon
afterwards. Sometimes brutal, sometimes grotesque, the love of sport is