RETURNING THE WRESTLER'S TROPHY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1261, 30 April 1896, Page 41

RETURNING THE WRESTLER'S TROPHY.

As Boutigo’s Van (officially styled tho ‘Vivid’) slackened its already inconsiderable pace at tho top of the street, to slide precipitately down into Troy upon a heated skid, the one outside passenger began to stare about him with the air of a man who compares present impressions with old memories. liis eyes travelled down the inclined plane of slate roofs, glistening in a bright interval between two showers, to the masts which rocked slowly by the quays, and from fhence to the silver bar of sea beyond the harbour’s mouth, whero the outline of Battery Point wavered unsteadily in tho dazzle of sky ami water. He sniffed the fragrance of pilchards cooking and the fumes of pitch blown from tho shipbuilders’ yards; and scanned with some curiosity the men and women who drew asido into doorways'. Ho was a powerfully made man of about sixty-live, with a solemn, hard-set face. The upper lip was clean-shaven and tho chin decorated with a square, grizzled beard i inodo of wearing the hair that gave prominence to tho ugly lines of the mouth. He wore a Sunday-bust suit and a silk hat. He carriod % blue band-box on liis knees, and his onormous hands were spread over the cover. Boutigo, who held tho reins beside him, seemed, in comparison with this mighty passenger, but a trivial accessory to his own vehicle.

‘ Whore did you say William Dorn.To lives!-’ asked the big man, as the van swung around a sharp corner to halt under the signboird of ‘ Tho Lugger.’ ‘ Straight on for maybe quarter of a mile-

turn down a court to the right, facin’ the tollhouse. You’ll see liis sign, ‘" W. Dendle, Block and Pump Manufacturer.” There’s stops loadin’ ’ec slap into his workshop.’ The passenger sat his bandbox down on the cobbles between liis ankles and counted out the fare.

By the rod and yellow board opposite the tollhouse lie paused for a moment or two in the sunshine, as if to rehearse the speech with which lie meant to upon his business. A woman passed with a child in her arms, and turned her head to stare. The stranger looked up and caught her eye. ‘ That’s Dendlo’s shop down tho steps,’ she said, somewhat confused at being caught. ‘ Thank you ; I know.’ Ho turned in at the doorway and began to descend. The noise of persistent hammering echoed within the workshop at his feet. A workman came out into the yard, carrying a plank. ‘ Is William Dendlo here ?’

Tho man looked up and pointed at the quay door, which stood open, with threads of light wavering over its surface. Beyond it, against an oblong of green water, rocked a small yacht’s mast. ‘ Ho’s down on the yacht there. Shall I say you want en ?’ ‘No.’

The stranger stepped to the quay door and lookod down the ladder. On the deck below him stood a man about his own age and proportions, fitting a block. His flannel shirt hung loosely about a magnificent pair of shoulders, and was tucked up at the sleeves, about tho bulge of his huge forearms. Ho wore no cap, and as he stooped the light wind puffed back his hair, which was gray and fino. ‘Hi, there —William Dendle !’ ‘ Hullo !’ Tho man looked up quickly. ‘Can you sparo a word? Don’t trouble to come up—l’ll climb down to you.’ He w-Tfit down tho kddor carefully, hugging.

‘ You disremember me, I dcssay,’ lie began, as be stood on the yacht’s dock. ‘Well, I do, to be sure. Oughtn't to, though, come to look on your s izc.’ ‘ Samuel B.idgevy’s my name. Yon an’ me had a hitch to wrestlin’ once, over to Tregarriek feast.’ ‘ Why, o’ course, l mind your features now, though ’tis forty years since. We was standards there an’ met i’ tho last round, an’ I got tho wust o't Terrible hard yr u pitched me, to be sure; but your sweetheart was a-watohin’ ’oe—hoy r —wi’ her blue eyes.’ Samuel Bad gory sat down on the dock, with a leg on either side of the bandbox. ‘ iss ; she was there, as you say. An’ she married mo that day month, ilow do you know her eyes were blue?’ ‘ Oh, 1 (iunno. Young men notice these trifles.’ ‘ She died last week.’ ‘lndeed? Pore soul!’ ‘An’ she left you this by her will. ’Tv,as hers to leave, for I gave it to lu-r mysel’, when that day’s wrestlin’ was over.’ He removed the lid of the bandbox and pulled out two parcels wrapped in a pile of tissue paper. After removing sheet upon sheet of this paper he held up two glittering objects in the sunshine. The one was a silver mug; the other a leather belt with an elaborate silver buckle. William Dendle wore a puzzled and uneasy look. 1 1 reckon she saw how disappointed I was that day,’ he said. After a pa isc he added, ‘ Women brood over such things, J b’lieve ; for years, I’m told. ’Tis their unsearchable natur’.’ ‘ William Dendlo, I wish you’d speak truth.’ ‘ What have I sai 1 that’s false?’ ‘ Nothin’; an’ you’ve said nothin’ that’s true. 1 charge 'eo to toll mo the facts about that hitch o’ our’n ’ ‘ You’re n hard man, foam Badgcry. 1 Impc, though, you've been .-Ml to your wife. 1 mind—it you i nuxt have tho tale—how you played very rough that day. There was a

slim young chap—Nathan Uke, liis name was —that stood up to you i’ the second round, lie wasn’t ha’f your match : you lniglit ha’ pitched en tl it-handed. An’ yet you must I needs give en the ‘"livin’ mare.” Your maid’s face turned lily-white as he dropped. Two of liis ribs went rr-rk / 'You could hear it right across the ring. I looked at her—she was close beside me—an’ saw tho tears come; that’s how I know the colour of her eyes. Then there was that small blacksmith—you dropped on slap on tho tail o’ liis spine. I won lered if you knew the mortal pain o’ being flung that way, an’ 1 swore fo mysel’ that if we met i’ the last round you should taste it. ‘ Well, we met, as you know. When I was stripped, an’ the folks made way for me to step into the ring, I saw her face again. ’Twas whiter than ever, an’ her eyes went over me in a kind o’ tenor. I reckon it dawned on her that I might hurt you ; but I didn’t pay her much heed at tho lime, for I lusted alter the prize, an’ I got savage. You was st indin’ ready for me, wi’ the sticklers about you, an’ I looked you up and down a brave figure of a man. You’d longer arms than me, an’ two inches to spare in height; prettier shoulders, too, I’d never clapp’d eyes on. But I guessed mysel’ a trifle the de -per and a trifle tho cleaner i’ the matter o’ loins an’quarters; an’ I promised that I'd ouflas’ ’ee.

‘You got the sun an’ the best bitch, an’ after a rougb-an’-tumblo piece o’ work, we went down togithcr, you remember—no fair back. The second hitch was just about equal; an’ 1 gripped up the sackin’ round your shoulders an’ held you off, an’ meant to keep you off till you was weak. Ten good minutes I laboured with ’ce by tlio stickler's watch, an’ you heaved and levered in vain, till 1 hoard your breath alter its pace, an’ felt the strength tricklin’ out o’ you, an’ knew ’eo for a done man. “Now,” thinks I, “half a minnifc moro, an’ you shall learn how the blacksmith felt.” I glanced up over your shoulder for a moment at the folks i’ the ring, an’ who should my eye light on but your girl. ‘I hadn’t got a sweetheart then, an’ I’ve nover had one since—never saw another woman who could ha’ looked what she looked. I was condemned a single man there on tho spot; an’, what’s more, I was condemned to loso tho belt. There was that ’pon frer face

was suitin’ I wanted to see instead—just for a moment—that I could ha’ given forty silver mugs to fetch up. ‘An’ I looked at her over your shoulders wi’ a kind o’ question i’ my face, an’ I did fetch it up. The next moment you had your chance and oast me flat. When I came round—for you were always an ugly player, Sam Badgcry —an’ the folks was consolin’ me, 1 gave a look i:i her direction ; but she bad no eyes for me at all. She was usin’ all her dear deceit to make ’ee think you was a hero. So home I went, an’ never .set eyes ’pon her agon. That's the tale, an’ 1 didn’t want to tell it. But wo’m old gaffers both by this time, an' I couldn’ make this belt meet round my middle if I wanted to.’

'cam Bad gory straightened his upper lip. ‘ No. 1 got a call from the Lord a year after wc was married, an’ gave up wrestlin’. My poor wife found grace about the samo time, an’ since then we’ve been preachers of tho Word for nigh oil forty year.-. If our work had lain in Cornwall, I’d have sought you out ail’ wrestled with you again not in tho flesh, but in the spirit. Man, I'd have shown you the Kingdom of Heaven !’ ‘Thankee,’ answered Dendle; ‘but I got a glimpse o’t once—from your wife.’ The other stared, failing to understand tin's speech. What puzzled him always annoyed him. Ho set down tho cup and belt oil tho yacht’s deck, shook hands abruptly, and hurried hack to the inn, where already Bouligo was harnessing for the return journey.-—From the ‘ Wandering Heath,’ by