ページの画像
PDF
ePub

aloud, Well done, Warren!' to their hero, whose naturally pale visage glowed with the hope of success. He seemed to have his opponent at his will, and to be fit to fling him, as Hercules flung Lycas any how he pleased. Devonshire then trembled for its champion, and was mute. Indeed it was a moment of heart-quaking suspense. But Cann was not daunted; his countenance expressed anxiety, but not discomfiture. He was off terra-firma, clasped in the embrace of a powerful man, who waited but a single struggle of his, to pitch him more effectually from him to the ground. Without straining to disengage himself, Cann with unimaginable dexterity, glued his back firmly to his opponent's chest, lacing his feet round the other's knee-joints, and throwing one arm backward over Warren's shoulders so as to keep his own enormous shoulders pressed upon the breast of his uplifter. In this position they stood, at least twenty seconds, each labouring in one continuous strain, to bend the other, one forward, the other backwards. Such a struggle could not last. Warren, with the might of the other upon his stomach and chest, felt his balance almost gone, as the energetic movements of his countenance indicated. His feet too, were motionless, by the coil of his adversary's legs round his; so, to save himself from falling backward, he stiffened his whole body from the ankles upwards, and these last being the only liberated joints, he inclined forward from them, so as to project both bodies, and prostrate them in one column to the ground together. It was like the slow and poising fall of an undermined tower. You had time to contemplate the injury which Cann, the undermost,

Of

would sustain, if they fell in that solid, unbending posture to the earth. But Cann ceased bearing upon the spine as soon as he found his supporter going in an adverse direction. With a presence of mind unrateable, he relaxed his strain upon one of his adversary's stretched legs, forcing the other outwards with all the might of his foot, and pressing his elbow on the opposite shoulder. This was sufficient to whisk his man undermost the instant he unstiffened his kneewhich Warren did not do till more than half-way to the ground, when from the acquired rapidity of the falling bodies, nothing was discernible. At the end of the fall, Warren was seen sprawling on his back, and Cann, whom he had liberated to save himself, had been thrown a few yards off, on all-fours. course the victory should have been adjudged to this last. When the partial referee was appealed to, he decided, that it was not a fair fall, as only one shoulder had bulged the ground, though there was evidence on the back of Warren that both had touched it pretty rudely. After much debating, a new referee was appointed, and the old one expelled: when the candidates again entered the lists. The crowning beauty of the whole was, that the second fall was precisely a counterpart of the first. Warren made the same move, only lifting his antagonist higher, with the view to throw the upper part of his frame out of play. Cann turned himself exactly in the same manner, using much greater effort than before, and apparently more put to it by his opponent's great strength. His share, however, in upsetting his supporter was greater this time, as he relaxed one leg much sooner, and adhered closer to the chest during

the fall; for at the close he was seen uppermost, still coiled round his massive adversary, who admitted the fall, starting up, and offering his hand to the victor."

Since then Polkinhorne of St. Columb has encountered Cann, and thrown him, and is, or was, the acknowledged champion of the West. He is the keeper of the principal inn at St. Columb, where I on one occasion stopped, having shortly before taken a halfpenny ticket from his dethroned rival, Cann of Dartmoor, at the foot - bridge, between Plymouth and Devonport, where he was, if he be not yet, stationed.

293

CHAPTER XII.

FAVOURITE PURSUITS OF ENGLISH COTTAGERS
AND WORKMEN.

IN my last chapter I gave a general view of the present rural sports and pastimes of the peasantry— perhaps as it regards wrestling, more prominently than some readers might think judicious. But what is prominent in the country life of any part of England, it is my bounden duty to set before my readers; and there is no feature of English life more remarkable than the sanguine attachment of the people of some particular parts to particular sports; more especially where those sports have relaxed their ancient hold on the people in all other districts, or have refused to be engrafted on other districts; as golf continues to be one of the prime sports of Scotland, but will not travel across the Tweed. Let us now, before closing the department of this work appropriated to the peasantry, notice some characteristic features, which I think must strongly interest us all.

After all, the happiness of a people is not found in their amusements. Amusements may indicate, in a certain degree, that a people is happy; but real happiness is a thing of a more domestic nature. It is a

Lar, and belongs to the household, or is to be found in the quiet and enclosed precincts of home gardens. A great portion of the happiness of the common people is therefore little perceived, for it is unobtrusive; and consists in following out those peculiar biases and penchants, which in higher personages are termed genius. The genius of the working classes, which, from its deriving little help from science, or field of exercise from circumstance, is seldom admitted to be genius at all, still exhibits itself in a variety of ways, and contributes at once to their prosperity, their happiness, and to the stamping of individual character. A great deal of it is necessarily exerted in their particular trades, and produces all that is beautiful and exquisite in handicraft arts. That which gives an artizan eminence in the workshop of his master, would probably have produced specimens of art that would have claimed the admiration of the whole community. Those glorious specimens of architectural perfection, which adorn our chief cathedrals, the work of the middle ages, are the evidences of masonic skill, which in this age might probably have been employed on our plainer structures, or in building steam-engines, or elaborating some piece of plate, or carving the handles of parasols. Circumstance has much to do in the decision of the fate of all genius and ingenuity. It is a striking fact, that the greater number of artizans who eminently excel in their own line, partake largely of the temperament and foibles of genius. They are often irregular in their application to business, fond of company and of its excitements; so that nothing is so common as to say, that man is an inimitable workman, but that he will not work half his

« 前へ次へ »