The Four Swans (53 page)

The. Poldarks and the Enyses strolled up about six. Ross had not wanted to come, nor had Demelza; yet it had been difficult to stay away. Sam was Demelza’s brother. It was neither easy to patronize nor to ignore. But as Demelza said, this was not a bare-fist fight; it was a proper wrestling match and, there’d be sticklers to see fair play. And there was no need for the gentry to mix with other gentry.

Yet when the time came it was not possible for them to sit far apart. There were only four benches, and these were in a line by the entry to the ring. At fifteen minutes after six George Warleggan and Osborne Whitworth emerged from the gates of Trenwith and sauntered towards the common. Osborne had changed out of his clerical clothes and wore a handsome coat of mulberry coloured silk with white breeches. The ladies were not with them. The two gentlemen sat at the end of the benches farthest from the Poldark party.

Tholly Tregirls was now in his element. Shoulders hunched in his long coat like a vulture in a tree, scarred and one-armed, and asthmatic, he stood in the, centre of the ring and announced the contest … ‘Wrastling challenge contest, best of three falls, three three-point-falls, for the prize of two guineas, awarded by Mrs Sally Tregothnan of Sally’s-Kiddley, contestants to be … on my left Tom Harry… and on my right Sam Carne … ‘

There were cheers and counter cheers as the two men stepped forward. They were dressed, in the prescribed costume for the bout, naked to the waist except for short loose jackets made of untearable linen cloth, with loose sleeves, and secured round the neck by tough cord. They wore breeches to the knees, thick stockings but no shoes. Kicking might be allowed east of the Tamar but it was considered unfair in Cornwall, where all the power and skill had to be in the shoulders and arms. In addition to Tholly two others, Paul Daniel and Will Nanfan, were in the ring to adjudicate and see fair play.

As the contenders came to shake hands it could be seen that Sam was a good three inches the taller of the two, but Harry was massively broad across the shoulders with matching legs and buttocks. It was not necessarily an advantage to be tall in such a contest.

Tholly blew his whistle; it was one he had had for years, given him, he always said, by a dying bo’sun on one of the frigates on which he had first sailed; as a measure of the bo’sun’s esteem. In fact he had stolen it from a Spanish beggar in Gibraltar. As Sam circled round his man he saw Emma Tregirls come to the ringside along with Sally. They stood among the group supporting Tom Harry. Emma was not even looking at the wrestlers as she talked and laughed with Sally. Her laugh floated across the field.

There were a lot of cries and shouts as the two men manoeuvred for the first hitch. Sam had most of the support, and he noticed with embarrassment the voices of many of his own flock. It was not that he did not want them to support him but that he felt the falseness and wrongness of his own position. On that long dragging walk back from Bodmin, with the mourners and the corpse, he had thought a lot about life and death and his own position in the world, his own privileges and his own duties., And it did not seem that one of his privileges or duties was to spread the Word of God by returning to the old habits of his youth and entering into a public contest of physical skill and strength with a brute of a man who had assaulted and beaten his brother and threatened to marry the girl who for some reason had engaged his own worldly heart.

Harry made a sudden sharp lunge for Sam’s coat as it swung, but Sam, crouching as low as the other man, dodged him and tried to grab his own hitch as they slid past each other. But Harry tore himself away and the circling and feinting began again. This was part of the technique of the play and with champions could sometimes go on for half an hour. But it could not this evening; there was too much feeling in the game.

It might be, thought Sam, that he had persuaded himself into such a contest to try to save a precious soul for Jesus, but surely in the final searching of one’s own soul two other and very unChristian motives came in. Revenge and lust. Revenge and lust. How could you deny it? And if you could not deny it, how could you justify it? After seeing a man hanged and the grief and horror of knowing that

he had died unsaved, how could a man indulge in this sort of trumpery violence for the entertainment of folk on holiday?

Suddenly they were joined and Sam’s thoughts went no farther than self-preservation from being thrown through the air. Tom Harry had gained the grip he wanted: they struggled for position; twisting, Harry had his head under Sam’s armpit, was trying the back crook, swung with arms pinioning - a countermove - Sam’s feet were off the floor, he was going up and over; to struggle now was fatal; he went, but dead-weight all to one side so that instead of landing-heavily on his back he landed on elbow and buttock, fell and rolled over-Harry was on him as he was half up, was now attempt the fore heave. Sam broke the grip on his collar, fell again to his knees and suddenly collapsed head down. Harry went over the top in his turn.

They separated and began to spar again. Harry rushed - more like a bull than a wrestler - his shoulder caught Sam in the ribs, seeming to bend them, gripped both Sam’s shoulders till the cord cut at his neck. Sam broke the hold by working his elbow into Harry’s face; hooked his leg behind the other’s leg, and they fell and rolled over on the hard ground together, first one uppermost and then the other,

Tholly had to leap out of the way as they convulsively jerked towards him: he blew his whistle for fighting on the ground was not permitted.

He had, to haul Harry away, and the two men got to their feet to the sound of cheers and hisses and shouts from the crowd.

It’s wrong, thought Sam, it’s wrong that I should be here. Hands gripped his coat and a bull head grated hard against his chin. A hand was round his waist, the other clutching his breeches. He fell, like a tree with sixteen stone of bone and muscle on top of him.

In a daze of pain and lack-of air he heard the whistle and felt hands pulling Harry off him. He had lost the first fall.

IV

`I believe,’ said Demelza, `I do not like this.’

`Nor. I,’ said Ross, `but we must see it out.’

`That man is not wrestling proper he’s wrestling to do hurt! Why don’t they stop it?’

`In honesty they can’t without giving the match to Harry. He’s not quite breaking the rules; he’s just playing rough. The sticklers can interfere, as Tholly did then, but he can’t stop the match. Ah ..’

Anger, and spite are not necessarily the best fuelling ingredients for a contest of physical skill, but a measure of combativeness is vital, and until now Sam had lacked it. He knew nothing of Ross’s wager but he knew too well the promise that Emma had made, and today more than ever it looked like a joke, on her part, unworthy and unmeant He felt defensive and ashamed.

But in spite of the saintliness that had come upon him with conversion to Christ, and in spite of his present shame, there was enough old Adam in him to dislike the pain of badly bruised ribs, the bleeding from the tooth that had been loosened by Harry’s bullet head, the sweaty smell of a brute body forcing him into humiliating and painful postures; the gasps and grunts of triumph coming from his opponent. And Harry bent on quick success and now sure of it, had begun to relax his guard.

It was more as if Sam’s body rather than his conscious brain reacted to a situation it found itself in and took sharp and appropriate action that it had learned in these contests years ago. A sudden change of position under the grasping hands, a twist of body, two arms behind Harry’s neck, one clasping the other wrist for strength, and down he went, Sam on top, just avoiding the deliberately upturned knee as they fell. A flurry, of dust and heather, and Harry was pinned as neatly as if someone had run him through with a sword.

Roars of delight from the crowd. As the whistle blew Sam rose quickly and stepped back while Tom Harry spat blood that had come from somewhere and got to his feet too. The second fall, Tholly announced, had been gained by Sam Came. The final and deciding one would now begin.

As he spoke the fog drifted back over, the sun and all the shadows evaporated. The ground was chill and grey, and it seemed likely that as the sun was sinking it would not be seen again.

Both men were badly bruised, for it was not at all a gentlemanly contest and both had taken heavy, falls on ground which had been baked by the long dry summer. Sam had twice only just avoided serious injury by protecting himself against Harry’s knee. (If by `accident’ you fell on your opponent with your knee, up you probably put him out of the wrestling ring for life. Of course you would be disqualified if the sticklers saw.) Because both men wanted to avoid another such fall the next catch was a long time in coming, and when it came it was a body to body hug rather than an attempt to throw. It was a not unusual end to a match in which skills were nearly equal, and one much to the crowd’s liking. Cornish wrestling was sometimes known as Hug-wrestling.

Ross, watching from under scowling brows, saw the two men straining against each other and had a sudden memory of that fight he had had with Demelza’s father so many years ago. Thus after some preliminary fighting they had so locked in much the same hold; he the taller and younger, being bent back from the waist, his hands on the other’s chin, almost kneeling on the other’s thighs on tiptoes, bending and resisting with all the strength of his back muscles and backbone. Now he felt a sudden identification with old Carne’s son, who was fighting, as he had fought, against the same shape and build of man, and almost. it seemed for the same things-found himself muttering aloud, half-shouting useless advice. For if Tom Harry won this trial of strength and Sam did not accept defeat, he might neither wrestle nor dig again.

Will Nanfan shouted at Tholly and Tholly caught Harry by the shoulder. But neither wrestler took any notice. Tholly blew the whistle. But the crowd was shouting to him to get out of, their sights and to let the fight go on. For now it was a fight and the rules of pure wrestling could go hang. Sam’s back, having bent so far, was bending no further, and instead Harry’s neck was moving back in its turn. George put away his snuff box. Ossie dusted some pollen off his coat and day-dreamed of beating Rowella with a stick. Emma took off her hat and plucked out pieces of straw. Demelza sat like a stone.

Then like two old elms crashing they went to the ground, struggled for mastery, and Sam came up on top. Everybody was screaming. Harry was done and it looked like a ‘back’. The extra weight only had to be applied to push his other shoulder down to achieve the-three-pin fall necessary for victory. Tholly raised his hand and put his whistle to his mouth; and then Sam seemed to relax at the wrong moment. Tom Harry, within an inch of defeat, forced himself a fraction upwards; with a last effort jack-knifed himself away from the compelling hold Sam had had, and in three seconds had somehow come out on top. Then it was Sam who was underneath, who was almost but not completely down, who was struggling to avoid the pressures he had himself just been applying; Sam who was now crushed beneath the weight of the heavier man and in three seconds more finally succumbed.

Tholly blew the whistle.

Tom Harry had won.

I

Tom Harry had won, but it was a cause for instant dispute , and constant discussion and argument in every home and kiddley in the days to come. Even the sticklers disagreed. Tholly and Will Nanfan gave the victory to Tom Harry, though in Nanfan’s view Harry had lost points earlier in the contest for foul play. Paul, Daniel said the, contest should be declared void because the rules of wrestling had been totally abandoned in the last, round; and they had rolled over fighting on the ground like two drunken tinkers. But in the general view, there had been two fair `backs’, one each way, and in the third round both men had fought the same sort of fight; and who was on top at the end? It was not a popular view, not one the majority wanted to take but that they took it was the more significant.

Fortunately there was no need for Ross to see George. He sent his draft to Basset and asked Basset if he would be so kind as to let George know, he had paid. Crossing with this was a letter from Tankard, `on behalf of Mr Warleggan’ reminding Ross off his debt. Ross mixed this with the pig feed.

After his defeat Sam was off work for more than a week and frequently brought up blood, but this condition mended. He did not see Emma after the contest and she made no, attempt to see him. He went about the duties of his Connexion with quiet obedience to the word of God. He would discuss the fight with no one. He prayed a lot, noticing some falling off in the enthusiasm of his flock. It was as if their understanding of the Bible derived more from the Old Testament, where virtue had its material reward,, than from the New, where the rewards of virtue were solely spiritual, and material things went down to defeat. Sam often thought of what he would have gained by winning - and what he would have lost.

He also read a lot, and he received another visit from Mr Champion, in the course of which Mr Champion expressed his pleasure at the general reports he had had from the parish. It seemed that the unfortunate association with the light woman had been dutifully broken and all was well. He still however had criticism to offer of the way in which Sam tended to keep all the affairs of the Connexion in his own hands, especially the monetary side. Sam said he would mend his ways.

Dwight went to see Hugh Armitage twice more but said his condition was no worse. Hugh wrote to Demelza once, but kept to the polite generalities of correspondence. It was so suitable for Ross to see that Demelza showed it him. Ross said: `I suppose he’ll stay in Cornwall until the election is over and then hope to go to Westminster. It should occupy him.’

`Yes,’ Ross. If he gets in.’

`I hope he does, not merely for his own sake but because it would unseat George.’

`Would it? I hadn’t quite thought of that.’

`Well, the corporation could put in one Basset and one Boscawen candidate, but it’s improbable.’ Normally two M.P.s are elected of the same complexion, since a voter who votes for one of them is like to choose the other also. If George remains it is probable Gower will lose his seat and Trengrouse will be returned. If Hugh gets in Gower will remain with him.’