Cunning Murrell by Arthur Morrison Read Free Book Online

palled or
the Fat Lady had ceased to amaze, the customary fight had broken out between
the warriors of Hadleigh and those of Leigh. The Leigh men, easily
distinguished by their blue guernseys, but well enough known individually,
never allowed any day of rejoicing to run many hours without a fight; and
Hadleigh was as ready for Leigh as Leigh could wish. Conspicuous, though not
large, among the Hadleigh champions was Buck Murrell, disgraceful and
degenerate son of the soothsayer; short, thick, and shock-headed, hatless and
fierce, he was ever where the fray raged closest, and this day he headed the
rush up the stairs of the Castle Inn that drove the few Leigh men in the
clubroom (made another taproom for the day), out by the window, and down the
post of the inn-sign (reached by a jump from the sill) hand-over-hand to the
street. It was because of this irregular escape that, a week after,
tenterhooks were driven in the post—the tenterhooks that remain to this
day witnesses of the prowess of Hadleigh and of the seaman-like agility of
Leigh in the year 1854.
    Soon the fight took half the attention of the fair, and peep-shows were
overset. More, one corner of the Living Skeleton’s booth gave way, and
brought the canvas about Mag Banham’s ears, and those of young Sim Cloyse,
who was taking her a-fairing; and such was her discomposure and affliction
that gin and peppermint was necessary to restore her, and she had to be
restored more than once. Then, toward five o’clock or so, the scrimmage grew
slack; for some bodily refreshment, some measure of threepenny, is needed to
maintain the activity of the most valorous champions. And when the noise of
battle arose again, it was less in volume than it had been in the afternoon,
and the combat itself not so brisk; for the measures of threepenny that spur
warriors to conflict are apt at the same time to impair their might, and to
pull away the legs from under them. Till at last, when the final skirmish
tailed away into a meadow by the fourwont way, somebody was inspired to drive
a startled and disconcerted cow into the meadow with the shout: “The bull!
look out for the bull!” Whereat the champions of Leigh, already somewhat
outnumbered and in no very able state to make zoological distinctions, went
for the nearest hedge and cleared it, and the fight was done. For extreme
distrust of bulls and a great disinclination to remain in the same field with
one, made a singular failing of the fishermen of this coast; though one might
have been sadly put to it to find another earthly creature wherewith to daunt
them.
    The peep-shows were picked up and packed up, the Living Skeleton took down
the remaining three corners of his habitation, and the Fat Lady bethought her
of supper. At the Castle Inn and the Crown late rallies were made of
revellers yet unwearied, and young Sim Cloyse and Mag Banham wandered
together through Dawes Heath Lane, amid gathering shadows and evening odours,
somewhat characterised by peppermint.
    At the Castle Inn, taprooms and bars were full of them that still thirsted
after threepenny; but the parlour was given over to a privileged group of
tradesmen and respectabilities, and no threepenny entered there. There sat
Prentice, Steve Lingood, Banham, Dan Fisk the builder, and a dozen others,
some from neighbouring parts, immersed in the enjoyment of pipes, beverages,
and mutual improvement. There was some disposition to perceive a weakness in
the drink, perhaps because it really was the custom to water it on fair day,
perhaps merely because it was the infirmity of jealous human nature to
suspect it. Dan Fisk, a thick-set humourist with a squint, rotated his pot
before him, as though to enrich the liquor with whatever sediment there might
be, and shook his head. “Carl that six-ale, ‘em do,” he said, “an’ what’s
wuss they charge it…Well, well, ‘tis fair day!”
    “‘Tis poor stuff, sarten to say,”