Cashel Byron's Profession

Mellish was a trainer of athletes, and hence the witnesses to his

character were chiefly persons connected with sport; but they were

not the less worthy of credence on that account.

In fine, the charge would have been hard to believe even if

supported by the strongest evidence. But when there was no

evidence--when the police had failed to produce any of the

accessories of a prize-fight--when there were no ropes nor

posts--no written articles--no stakes nor stakeholders--no seconds

except the unfortunate man Mellish, whose mouth was closed by a law

which, in defiance of the obvious interests of justice, forbade a

prisoner to speak and clear himself--nothing, in fact, but the

fancies of constables who had, under cross-examination, not only

contradicted one another, but shown the most complete ignorance (a

highly creditable ignorance) of the nature and conditions of a

prize-fight; then counsel would venture to say confidently that the

theory of the prosecution, ingenious as it was, and ably as it had

been put forward, was absolutely and utterly untenable.

This, and much more argument of equal value, was delivered with

relish by a comparatively young barrister, whose spirits rose as he

felt the truth change and fade while he rearranged its attendant

circumstances. Cashel listened for some time anxiously. He flushed

and looked moody when his marriage was alluded to; but when the

whole defence was unrolled, he was awestruck, and stared at his

advocate as if he half feared that the earth would gape and swallow

such a reckless perverter of patent facts. Even the judge in the

city; and was eventually invited to represent a Dorsetshire

constituency in Parliament in the Radical interest. He was returned

by a large majority; and, having a loud voice and an easy manner, he

soon acquired some reputation both in and out of the House of

Commons by the popularity of his own views, and the extent of his

wife's information, which he retailed at second hand. He made his

maiden speech in the House unabashed the first night he sat there.

Indeed, he was afraid of nothing except burglars, big dogs, doctors,

dentists, and street-crossings. Whenever any accident occurred

through any of these he preserved the newspaper in which it was

reported, read it to Lydia very seriously, and repeated his favorite

assertion that the only place in which a man was safe was the ring.

As he objected to most field sports on the ground of inhumanity,

she, fearing that he would suffer in health and appearance from want

of systematic exercise, suggested that he should resume the practice

of boxing with gloves. But he was lazy in this matter, and had a

prejudice that boxing did not become a married man. His career as a

pugilist was closed by his marriage.