Tom was by the ropes, wrapped in a greatcoat, with Richmond and Pad Jones, and at the other corner stood the Bristol Man, Burrows, stripped and sporting a torso and arms that would have done Hercules credit, a great tow-headed ruffian grinning all over his yokel face as he spoke to his second – and when I saw who that was I bore up sharp, I can tell you. Richmond had made a point, you remember, of the Bristol Man's having the “right” second … no, no, I shan't name him, just yet. Richmond meant it for a surprise, and so do I.
“Not a beak in sight,” says Egan, hopping down. “Well, it ain't a big enough turn-up to disturb the peace. Hollo, there's Crocky! Well, old fellow, what price, then?”
“Five to four Bristol,” says Crockford, tipping his tile to me and leering all over his pasty face. “G'day, captain. Here's Lord Barrymore offerin' a thousand 'gainst your black. What's your pleasure?”
“At those odds I'll take it all,” says I. “Why've they dropped?”
“They've seen your man,” says he, and I saw that Tom had shed his coat, and the mob were craning to look and gasping in excitement. “Ah,” says Crocky, all knowing, “they've seen some blackamoors before, but none like that, I'll lay!”
Damme, he was right, for Tom shone in the morning sun like an ebony statue, flexing his splendid arms, and when he skipped it was like some savage war dance. The mob cheered, and Crocky shook his head.
“Evens in a moment, at least. Aye, I thought so – three to two Molineaux! You was just in time, captain!”
The legs were racing about, crying the late odds and jotting in their readers, as the two men ducked through the ropes and took their handlers' knees. There was no weighing, as at the big mills, but Jackson called out Tom at thirteen two, and the Bristol Man unstated. When they came to scratch, and it was seen how large Bristol bulked against Tom, and half a head higher, the odds went back to evens, and Crock-ford laughed as the legs scampered harder than ever.
Then Jackson called for silence, and the two shook hands and squared off, Bristol planted like an oak, Tom dancing on his toes – and in the hush over Tothill Fields I could hear my heart racing. Oh, I knew it was Tom's fight, but how would he play, how would he shape? When you see your fighter primed and ready, for the first time, you're bound to swallow hard and grip your knees. Jackson nodded to the time-keepers, called “Set to!” and they went at it.
Well, they breed game men in Gloucestershire, and had need to that morning, for I never saw a more one-sided melting. Tom made no play at a distance, but bore straight in at half-arm and used the other's body as a drubbing-bag. Burrows could make nothing of him, clumsy and flat on his feet as Tom danced in and out, hitting where he chose and pounding his ribs. His fists went like steam-pistons, too fast to be seen, and when Bristol put in a counter, Tom either took it without wincing or slipped it with ease, hardly bothering to guard or stop. In thirty seconds he scored the first knock-down, doubling Bristol up and flooring him with a muzzling right that travelled a bare six inches. That was Burrows's epitaph, for every round ended alike, Tom flipping him to the body and practising on his nob till he fell. Burrows was game; he rushed, and was nailed by Tom's left; he tried to hold and throw, and got handfuls of air for his pains.
It was the plebs's delight, a scientist butchering a clod who was too brave to give in. By twenty minutes Bristol's face was a bloody swamp, by the half-hour he was reeling like a soused sailor, but fib as Tom might he could not put the brute away. Time and again the rounds ended with Bristol bleeding on the grass and crawling back to his second's knee, but at every call of “Time!” he would come staggering back to scratch, spouting gore like a fountain, but grinning and trying to raise his fists. Tom knocked him into the ropes, and he hung there helpless, but when Tom appealed to Jackson – and got a rare huzza from the mob – the Bristol Man heaved up again, and it was nigh on an hour before he went down for the last time, and lifted a hand in surrender. Tom had not a mark on him, but I saw Pad Jones making earnest examination of his fists, which must have been the sorest part of him.
Then it was all “Hurra for the black!”, with hats in the air and a surge of people about Tom clapping his shoulder, vowing he was a slasher and a pounder and God knows what. He and the Bristol Man flung their arms about each other, Pad Jones tried to get Tom into his coat, Bill Richmond nodded like a man well content, and Tom embraced 'em both and began to caper, beaming and chortling with his arms in the air, skipping in that plantation dance-step that would soon be known all over Town. I beckoned him, and he pranced over to the curricle with Pad and Richmond at his heels.
“Well done, Tom, my boy,” says I. “How are you?”
“Say, Ah's fit's a fiddle, fresh an' easy, Cap'n Buck!” cries he, with the sauciest grin. Hollo, it used to be “Cap'n”, or “Mass' Buck”, with a respectful bob, but what the devil, he'd just won his first mill, and in slashing style, too. “Say, but he weren't nuthin', nuthin' at all! Reckon Ah fibbed him down real good! Hey, Pad, am Ah a miller? You bet Ah am! What you say, Bill Richmond? You bring on yo' Gregsons an' yo' Tom Belchers, an' Ah show you! Yeah, bring on yo' Tom Cribb!”
“Ye think so?” says Richmond, with an odd glint in his eye. He looked back at the ring, over the heads of the cockneys cheering about the curricle. “Tell ye what, Tom, you jus' rest here wi' the Cap'n awhile. He'll give you a seat, won't ye, sir? Up with you, now. You jus' set right there, boy, an' keep your eyes on Pad an' me, 'cos we got somethin' to show you.”
I didn't know what he was about, but Richmond never did anything without good reason, so I let Tom sit by me, swathed in his coat, full of brag and ginger, begging a swig of the “cool Nantz” from my flask, toasting me familiarly as “Cap'n Buck!” and so uncommon pleased with himself, as he waved to the mob and whinnied his infectious black laugh, that I couldn't take offence. Farewell to our humble, shuffling sambo, I thought, and why not, for he's a figure now, for all the man he's thrashed is no more than a stalwart pudding.
Cripplegate limped up, snarling his congratulations like the charming loser he was and swearing our wager had been at evens, not five to four. I didn't heed him, for a strange scene was being played before my eyes. The crowd were dispersing, the stakes and ropes being removed, and Jones and Richmond were approaching the little knot of folk round the Bristol Man, who sat on the grass counting his teeth through a mouth that was like a gaping wound, while his bottle-holder sponged the blood from his shattered face.
His second stood by, turning as Richmond and Pad approached; he smiled and held out his hand; then his face fell and the hand was withdrawn.
They were too far to be heard, but Richmond was shouting, and suddenly he slapped the second's face and squared up – and in a twinkling the second shot a left at his head, and Bill was sent sprawling. Pad Jones dodged in, letting fly a fist. The second slipped it almost lazily, and as Richmond jumped up and bore in on his other side, the second upper-cut him and in the same moment his other fist knocked Jones clean off his feet. It was over in an instant, the two of 'em grassed, and the second shrugging and turning away to see to his principal.
Beside me Tom grunted and half-started up, staring as Richmond and Jones climbed to their feet and came back to us, Richmond none too steady and Pad nursing his peeper.
“You see that, Tom?” cries Richmond, out of breath. “You see what that big cove did to me an' Pad, swattin' us off like we's flies? Did ye see his hands move, 'cos I swear I didn't!” He felt his jaw tenderly. “Damme if he ain't loosed a couple o' my dice! Well, I wanted you to see that, Tom, so you can study that man, that big good-lookin' file wi' the curly hair, who put down two 'sperienced millers without shiftin' his feet, even! 'Cos he's the feller you came 'cross the herrin' pond for, my boy! That's Tom Cribb.”
It was no news to me, of course, but now I saw what Richmond had been at. He'd picked the Bristol Man as Tom's adversary because he was a prime chopping-block, but also because he knew that Cribb, being from Bristol, always turned out to lend a knee to a fellow-townie, h
owever humble; that was Cribb's sort. And Richmond had picked a quarrel (some gammon about a foul blow, I believe) so that Tom should have a glimpse of the Champion at work.
“So there ye are,” says Bill. “You seen him, but, boy, you ain't felt him! Well, what d'ye say now?”
Tom's great lips had gaped at the mention of the name, and he frowned as though puzzled to see the man at last. “That Tom Cribb?” growls he. “The Champeen of Englan' – that him?”
“The one and only,” says Pad.
Tom stared for a moment, and then looked sly, glancing sidelong and rolling his eyes in comical fashion.
“Well, my-my!” crows he. “So that's Tom Cribb! Why, he looks a right nice feller. Ain't you 'shamed, Bill Richmond, pickin' on a quiet 'spectable gen'man like that? Ain't you larned no manners?” He gave his deep darkie chuckle. “Well, Ah guess he larned you an' Pad, silly ol' men, baitin' a champeen thataway! Oh, oh, oh!” cries he, giving a great shudder and clasping his coat about him. “Cap'n Buck, Ah's catchin' cold a-settin' here! Cain't we go home, Cap'n Buck, an' leave these foolish pe'sons 'fore they starts mo' brawlin'? Ah's powe'ful cold, cap'n, Ah's a-shiverin' suthin' painful!” And damned if he didn't contort his grotesque face in a mighty wink at me.
“Damn your eyes!” splutters Richmond, struggling for speech, at which Tom fairly cackled with mirth, and I judged it best to wheel the curricle away and remove this eccentric insolent nigger before Bill, stamping in fury, burst his bounds. Damned if I knew what to make of Molineaux and his antics (and still don't) but as we threaded our way through the multitude streaming towards the Horse Ferry, and I was preparing to shout the starch out of him, he forestalled me with another of his plantation guffaws.
“That Bill Richmond! Tryin' to skeer po' li'l Tom wi' that foolishness! Aimin' to teach the sassy nigguh a lesson, ho-ho!”
“Not before time, I think! Now, see here, Tom–”
“Why, Cap'n Buck, Ah knowed 'twas Cribb f'm the fi'st!” He was grinning like the dam' sunrise. “Ah see his picksher on the wall in that Don Saltero's cawfy-house, din't have to ask who 'twas, 'cos 'tis bigger'n all th'other spo'tin' pickshers. An' the way he eyed me today when Ah's millin' the Bristol Man – he studyin' me real close, Ah see that.” He exploded with mirth. “Hoo-hey, an' ol' Bill gits hisself floo'ed for nuthin', an' Pad gits a shiner!”
“I'll be damned!” says I, astonished and trying not to laugh. “Well, ye've seen Cribb with his hands up, at all events. You can thank Richmond for that.”
“Din't tell me nuthin',” says this amazing aborigine. “Allus knowed Tom Cribb mus' be a top-notchah, 'thout seein' him flip Bill an' Pad so easy. Big man, fibs real sweet. Sho', Ah seen him.” He waved to the cheering louts running behind as we bore up towards the Greycoat School, and settled back with a contented sigh, black phiz beaming. “An' he's seen me.”
So that, my industrious inquirer, was his first fight, and I trust you've sense enough to see that the change it wrought in Tom was a sight more remarkable than the mill itself. It was like taking the hood off a hawk: he'd stood up in an English ring, against a white pug, tested his skill and strength, heard the screaming worship of the crowd, and got thoroughly drunk with bounce and conceit. More than that, he tasted the first fruits of victory in hard money … but I'll tell you about that when you've done your duty with the brandy … fill up, man, I won't dissolve!
There was a mighty crush at the Nag to toast his triumph: the swell crowd with Alvanley, Sefton, and Mellish to the fore, lesser lights of the Fancy, and the raggle-taggle hoping for free drink from the winning patron. Richmond, half-sour-half-pleased at Tom's showing in the ring and his antics afterwards, handed him the subscription purse of forty guineas, to which I added a cool hundred – I cleared three thou' in stakes on the fight, and Bill a hundred or two – and our sable hero was so moved that he danced before the counter, snapping his fingers and singing a darkie jubilee, to wild applause. Then he spread the rhino on the table, roaring to the customers to admire it, tucking flimsies into the bosoms of the tap-wenches (all of whom had backed him with their ha'pence), and calling for drink for the company. I put a stop to that, reminding Bill it must be to my account, and damme if Tom didn't claim priority until Bill spoke a sharp word in his ear, at which he had the sense to pocket his blunt with a show of boisterous comedy that still had a gleam of defiance in it.
There was no damping him, though. When Egan quizzed him, scribbling away, about the Bristol Man, our gladiator dismissed him with a wave, and announced that he was ready to back himself with his newly-gotten winnings against any pug, light or heavy, in the country. “They sayin' Mistah Jem Belcher an' Mistah Gregson retired!” cries he. “Guess they knows what's good for 'em, but ifn they gits tired ale-drapin', Ah's heah!” Dutch Sam was “on'y a lightweight, an' Ah reckon he's too well 'quainted wi' this already!” sporting his right to renewed cheering. “What's that? You say Mistah Tom Cribb was at the mill today? Well, lan' sakes, think o' that! He ain't heah now, is he, 'cos Ah'd sho' like to interdooce maself !” Both fists flourished, with great grinning and eye-rolling, and the welkin fairly rang. The Corinthians laughed, the common herd hurrah'd and raised their pots, the Cyprians pressed about him, and one bold painted trollop begged to feel his biceps, squealing with admiration. Tom stood like a beaming black colossus in the midst of it, planting smacking kisses on the titters who clung to either arm, detaching himself only to quaff the magnum of fizz which Alvanley had presented; he did it by clapping the bottle to his lips and draining it, while the mob cheered and stamped, and having gasped for breath, demanded: “Can Tom Cribb drink thataway, hey?”
“Wonderful what a good mill can do, eh, cap'n?” says Pad Jones.
“Dam' nigger mouth!” growls Richmond. “To hear him ye'd think he'd beat Broughton!”
“Why, Bill, it's but fighter's talk,” says Mellish, who had come to our corner. “He's only a black child, man, after all.”
“'E ain't that childish,' says Pad, and I saw he had a grim eye on Tom and the mollishers, who were now paying attention to Tom's thigh muscles and screaming when he demanded, with roaring ho-ho's, to return the compliment.
“Bit of a mutton-monger, I shouldn't wonder,” laughs Mellish. “Well, Pad, you'll just have to prime him with raw eggs, stout and oysters, what?”
Then Sefton called for silence, and pledged Tom as “the newly-come American hero” who had made such an auspicious entry to the English ring, and must, he did not doubt, add lustre to the laurels of our grand old game – which I thought damned handsome of him – and the toast was drunk with three times three. Sefton shook his hand, and I heard Richmond curse under his breath when Tom took it, bold as you please, man-to-man, and clapped Sefton on the shoulder (at which my noble earl raised an eyebrow, with a glance at his collar to see that Tom's sooty daddle hadn't creased Scott's best superfine). I saw Alvanley's lips twitch, and Mellish muttered “I say!”, while Richmond ground his teeth.
You see, there was a nice etiquette in the Fancy, where the highest in the land were on terms with the pugs – why, they drank together, and sparred together, and gossiped together, easy enough, in a way that foreigners with their rigid distinctions could make nothing of. But there was a line that neither ever crossed. The Quality never condescended, and the pugs never presumed; each respected the other, and kept his station. Tom, blast his impudence, treated Sefton as an equal, and I knew, from the cock of his woolly head, and the look in his bloodshot eye, that he knew better. Dammit, he knew what he was, and what Sefton was, and he'd seen enough at the Nag and Blower, where the classes mingled, to know how peers and pugs conducted themselves. But his victory, the plaudits, and the consciousness of what he, Tom Molineaux, was and might become, had gone to his head altogether. I'd seen the beginnings of this intoxication after the mill, in his familiarity to me, his amusement at Richmond's expense, his roaring and bragging celebration, and now in his “Why, that's fine, milord, that's jus' fine!” as he slapped Sefton on the back. Richmond
could have killed him, and I resolved to be elsewhere when he spoke his mind to our cocksure gladiator, for I guessed he'd get only sauce in return, and 'twould do my dignity no good to be on hand. So when Sefton and the other swells took their leave, I too brushed, leaving Tom to his boozy revels among the mollishers, Richmond preparing to pitch into him, and Pad Jones looking decidedly blue.
The fact was, I didn't mind. I'd got unto myself a fighter who'd be the talk of the Town, and if he chose to give himself airs or kick up larks, why, the Town would talk all the more. A prize pug, and a black one at that, who tweaked the Quality by his presumption, would be a novelty, and a refreshing one – not least to me, for when you've had to scheme your way into the ton it's capital fun to see those who were born to it having their fine feathers ruffled. I promised myself some quiet amusement in parading Tom through the haunts of sporting fashion – well, I might be his backer, but I wasn't to be held accountable for his manners.
If soldiering teaches you anything, it's to lose no time, aim high, and strike boldly, so before bedtime I sent a note to my old cricketing acquaintance, George Brummell, begging his assistance in a toggery matter, which I was certain must fetch him. Sure enough, he rolled up to my rooms in South Street at eleven the next morning, exquisite as always, yawning and demning the dem' dawn, and I drove him round to the Nag, confronted him with Tom, and told him what was afoot.
“Gad's me life!” says he, dropping his eye-glass in disbelief. “You want my advice in rigging out that? Buckley, have you no mercy, dammit? At this time of day, too, without warning! Richmond, a glass of brandy! I feel quite loose!”