Gregson charged at his antagonist like a great bull, head down, arms working like flails. Gulley stood still, coolly taking his opportunity. Left and right he sent his bony fists crashing into Gregson’s face, brought, by his attitude, into easy reach. Left and right, and then, giving way a little, left and right again. He hit him as he liked, driving his weight behind each blow, guarding himself from or merely avoiding the ponderous windmill attack of the infuriated giant. When Gregson’s moment of realisation came, his temper having passed, he fled towards the side of the ring, actually turning his back upon Gulley as he did so. But Gulley was after him and never left him alone, bringing short-arm blows to bear upon face and body until, utterly exhausted, Gregson fell. From the eighteenth to the twenty-fourth and last round Gulley had the fight, as it were, in one hand. He punished Gregson terribly, but the giant’s pluck was even greater than his rage had been. He would not give in, but came, at each call of time, staggering to the scratch. At last Gulley got the chance of an absolutely clear, free blow, into which he could put every ounce of his weight. It caught Gregson behind the ear and knocked him out; that is to say, he had not recovered at the end of half a minute, and was unable to stand at the next call of time. Bob Gregson was certainly a great pugilist, and besides, like Gulley and Jackson, a man of presence and social charm. Indeed, he was offered and accepted a commission in the army, but Pierce Egan tells us that his means would not support the privilege for more than a very short while. It is Egan, too, who tells us that Bob Gregson, “although not possessing the terseness and originality of Dryden, or the musical cadence and correctness of Pope, yet still ... entered into a peculiar subject with a characteristic energy and apposite spirit.” In other words, Gregson wrote verse. That there may be no misunderstanding, the following stanza, the first of three in honour of Tom Cribb, is quoted below:-- “You gentlemen of fortune attend unto my ditty, A few lines I have penn’d upon this great fight, In the centre of England the noble place is pitch’d on, For the valour of this country, or America’s delight; The sturdy Black doth swear, The moment he gets there, The planks the stage is built on, he’ll make them blaze and smoke; Then Cribb, with smiling face, Says, these boards I’ll ne’er disgrace, They’re relations of mine, they’re old English Oak.” This refers to one of the battles, shortly to be described, between Tom Cribb and Molineux, the black. CHAPTER VII JEM BELCHER’S LAST FIGHT