The fight now began, and, I must repeat, I never saw anything like it.  Both pugilists were of the heaviest fighting weights.  Caunt was a real giant, ugly as could be by the frequent batterings he had received in the face.  His head was like a bull-dog’s, and so was his courage, whilst his strength must have been that of a very Samson; but if it was, it did not reside in his hair, for that was short and close as a mouse’s back.

At first I thought Brassy had the best of it; he was more active, being less ponderous, and landed some very ugly ones, cutting right into the flesh, although Caunt did not appear to mind it in the least.  Brassy, however, did not follow up his advantage as I thought he ought to have done, and in my opinion dreaded the enormous power and force of his opponent in the event of his “getting home.”

With the usual fluctuations of a great battle, the contest went on until nearly a hundred rounds were fought, lasting as many minutes, but no decisive effect was as yet observable.  After this, however, Brassy could not come up to time.  The event, therefore, was declared in Caunt’s favour, and his opponent was carried off the field on a hurdle into the public-house, where I afterwards saw him in bed.

Thus terminated the great fight of the day, but not thus my day’s adventures.

The sport was all that the most enthusiastic supporters of the Ring could desire.  It no doubt had its barbarous aspects, regarded from a humanitarian point of view, but it was not so demoralizing as the spectacle of some poor creature risking his neck in a performance for which the spectator pays his sixpence, and the whole excitement consists in the knowledge that the actor may be dashed to pieces before his eyes.

It was time now to leave the scene, so Charley and I went to look for our gig (evidence of gentility from the time of Thurtell and Hunt’s trial for the murder of Mr. Weare).

Alas! our respectability was gone—­I mean the gig.

In vindication of the wisdom and foresight of Charley and myself, I should like to mention that we had entrusted that valuable evidence of our status to the keeping of a worthy stranger dressed in an old red jacket and a pair of corduroy trousers fastened with a wisp of hay below the knees.

When we arrived at the spot where he promised to wait our coming, he was gone, the horse and gig too; nor could any inquiries ascertain their whereabouts.

Whether this incident was a judgment on the Quaker, as Wright suggested, or one of the inevitable incidents attendant on a prize-fight, I am not in a position to say; but we thought it served the Quaker right for letting us a horse that would not go until the gentleman in the red jacket relieved us of any further trouble on that account.

Mistakes are so common amongst thieves that one can never tell how the horse got away; but if I were put on my oath, knowing the proclivities of the animal, I should say that he was backed out of the field.