five-and-twenty miles from Newmarket, where the big handicap, I think
the Cesarewitch, was to be run the following day, or the next--I
forget which.

But an interesting episode interrupted our journey to the Heath.
To our surprise, and no little to our delight, there was to be an
important meeting of the "Fancy" to witness a great prize-fight
between Jack Brassy and Ben Caunt.

Ben Caunt was the greatest prize-fighter, both in stature and bulk, as
well as in strength, I ever saw. He looked what he was--then or soon
after--the champion of the world.

Brassy, too, was well made, and seemed every whit the man to meet
Caunt. The two, indeed, were equally well made in form and shape, and
as smooth cut as marble statues when they stripped for action.

The advertisements had announced that the contest was to come off at,
"or as near thereto as circumstances permitted" (circumstances here
meaning the police), the village of Little Bury, near Saffron Walden.

At the little inn of the village some of the magnates of the Ring were
to assemble on the morning of the fight for an early breakfast,
to which Charley and I had the good fortune to be invited by Jack
Brassy's second, Peter Crawley, another noted pugilist of his day.

It was different weather from that we enjoyed in the early morning,
for the rain was now pouring down in torrents, and we had a drive of
no less than fifteen miles before us to the scene of action. Vehicles
were few, and horses fewer. Nothing was to be had for love or money,
as it seemed. But there was at last found one man who, if he had
little love for the prize-ring, had much reverence for the golden coin
that supported it. He was a Quaker. He had an old gig, and, I think, a
still older horse, both of which I hired for the journey--the Quaker,
of course, pretending that he had no idea of any meeting of the
"Fancy" whatever. Nor do I suppose he would know what that term
implied.

If ever any man in the world did what young men are always told by
good people to do--namely, to persevere--I am sure we did, Charley and
I, with the Quaker's horse. Whether he suspected the mission on which
we were bent, or was considering the danger of such a scene to his
morals, I could not ascertain, but never did any animal show a greater
reluctance to go anywhere except to his quiet home.

Your happiness at these great gatherings depended entirely upon the
distance or proximity of the police. If they were pretty near