Cashel Byron's Profession

"I was a nice boy to let loose in a school. I could speak as well as

an actor, as far as pronunciation goes; but I could hardly read

words of one syllabile; and as to writing, I couldn't make pothooks

and hangers respectably. To this day, I can no more spell than old

Ned Skene can. What was a worse sort of ignorance was that I had no

idea of fair play. I thought that all servants would be afraid of

me, and that all grown-up people would tyrannize over me. I was

afraid of everybody; afraid that my cowardice would be found out;

and as angry and cruel in my ill-tempers as cowards always are. Now

you'll hardly believe this; but what saved me from going to the bad

altogether was my finding out that I was a good one to fight. The

bigger boys were given to fighting, and used to have mills every

Saturday afternoon, with seconds, bottle-holders, and everything

complete, except the ropes and stakes. We little chaps used to

imitate them among ourselves as best we could. At first, when they

made me fight, I shut my eyes and cried; but for all that I managed

to catch the other fellow tight round the waist and throw him. After

that it became a regular joke to make me fight, for I always cried.

But the end of it was that I learned to keep my eyes open and hit

straight. I had no trouble about fighting then. Somehow, I could

tell by instinct when the other fellow was going to hit me, and I

always hit him first. It's the same with me now in the ring; I know

what a man is going to do before he rightly knows himself. The power

that this gave me, civilized me. It made me cock of the school; and

I had to act accordingly. I had enough good-nature left to keep me

from being a bully; and, as cock, I couldn't be mean or childish.

There would be nothing like fighting for licking boys into shape if

every one could be cock; but every one can't; so I suppose it does

more harm than good.

"I should have enjoyed school well enough if I had worked at my

books. But I wouldn't study; and the masters were all down on me as

an idler--though I shouldn't have been like that if they had known

how to teach--I have learned since what teaching is. As to the

holidays, they were the worst part of the year to me. When I was

left at school I was savage at not being let go home; and when I

went home my mother did nothing but find fault with my school-boy

manners. I was getting too big to be cuddled as her darling boy, you

understand. In fact, her treatment of me was just the old game with

the affectionate part left out. It wasn't pleasant, after being cock

of the school, to be made feel like a good-for-nothing little brat

tied to her apron-strings. When she saw that I was learning nothing

she sent me to another school at a place in the north called Panley.

I stayed there until I was seventeen; and then she came one day, and

we had a row, as usual. She said she wouldn't let me leave school

until I was nineteen; and so I settled that question by running away

the same night. I got to Liverpool, where I hid in a ship bound for

Australia. When I was starved out they treated me better than I

expected; and I worked hard enough to earn my passage and my

victuals. But when I wad left ashore in Melbourne I was in a pretty

pickle. I knew nobody, and I had no money. Everything that a man

could live by was owned by some one or other. I walked through the

town looking for a place where they might want a boy to run errands

or to clean windows. But somehow I hadn't the cheek to go into the

shops and ask. Two or three times, when I was on the point of

trying, I caught sight of some cad of a shopman, and made up my mind

that I wouldn't be ordered about by HIM, and that since I had the

whole town to choose from I might as well go on to the next place.

At last, quite late in the afternoon, I saw an advertisement stuck

up on a gymnasium, and, while I was reading it, I got talking to old

Ned Skene, the owner, who was smoking at the door. He took a fancy

to me, and offered to have me there as a sort of lad-of-all-work. I

was only too glad to get the chance, and I closed with him at once.

As time went on I became so clever with the gloves that Ned matched

me against a light-weight named Ducket, and bet a lot of money that

I would win. Well, I couldn't disappoint him after his being so kind

to me--Mrs. Skene had made as much of me as if I was her own son.

What could I do but take my bread as it came to me? I was fit for

nothing else. Even if I had been able to write a good hand and keep

accounts I couldn't have brought myself to think that quill-driving

and counting other people's money was a fit employment for a man.

It's not what a man would like to do that he must do in this world,

it's what he CAN do; and the only mortal thing I could do properly

was to fight. There was plenty of money and plenty of honor and

glory among my acquaintances to be got by fighting. So I challenged

Ducket, and knocked him all to pieces in about ten minutes. I half

killed him because I didn't know my own strength and was afraid of

him. I have been at the same work ever since. I was training for a

fight when I was down at Wiltstoken; and Mellish was my trainer. It

came off the day you saw me at Clapham; that was how I came to have

a black eye. Wiltstoken did for me. With all my nerve and science,

I'm no better than a baby at heart; and ever since I found out that

my mother wasn't an angel I have always had a notion that a real

angel would turn up some day. You see, I never cared much for women.

Bad as my mother was as far as being what you might call a parent

went, she had something in her looks and manners that gave me a

better idea of what a nice woman was like than I had of most things;

and the girls I met in Australia and America seemed very small

potatoes to me in comparison with her. Besides, of course they were

not ladies. I was fond of Mrs. Skene because she was good to me; and

I made myself agreeable, for her sake, to the girls that came to see

her; but in reality I couldn't stand them. Mrs. Skene said that they

were all setting their caps at me--women are death on a crack

fighter--but the more they tried it on the less I liked them. It was

no go; I could get on with the men well enough, no matter how common

they were; but the snobbishness of my breed came out with regard to

the women. When I saw you that day at Wiltstoken walk out of the

trees and stand looking so quietly at me and Mellish, and then go

back out of sight without a word, I'm blessed if I didn't think you

were the angel come at last. Then I met you at the railway station

and walked with you. You put the angel out of my head quick enough;

for an angel, after all, is only a shadowy, childish notion--I

believe it's all gammon about there being any in heaven--but you

gave me a better idea than mamma of what a woman should be, and you

came up to that idea and went beyond it. I have been in love with

you ever since; and if I can't have you, I don't care what becomes

of me. I know I am a bad lot, and have always been one; but when I

saw you taking pleasure in the society of fellows just as bad as

myself, I didn't see why I should keep away when I was dying to

come. I am no worse than the dog-baker, any how. And hang it, Miss

Lydia, I don't want to brag; but I never fought a cross or struck a

foul blow in my life; and I have never been beaten, though I'm only

a middle-weight, and have stood up with the best fourteen-stone men

in the Colonies, the States, or in England."