'So he is, Miss, till he's put upon. I expect Geordie said he was weighing the gold wrong, and Mr. Stirling won't likely stand that from a digger, and put him out. That's about the size of it. Oh, do look, Miss; they're going at it.' Estelle was much minded to turn her head away. In her own country she would doubtless have thought shame to have looked on at any such spectacle. But somehow the anxiety to see how the aristocrat fared in conflict with the man of the people overpowered her scruples, so she gazed eagerly at the conflict, as might her ancestress at a tournament where her badge was worn by a knightly aspirant. 'Geordie' Billy, belonging to a section of miners who hailed from 'canny Newcassel,' was a low-set, broad-chested, unusually powerful man. Long in the reach, and in the pink of condition from severe daily labour, his enormous strength and dogged courage, independently of science, made him a dangerous antagonist. Mr. Stirling was held to be the most finished performer with the gloves on the field. It was therefore a contest of champions, and as such awaited by the crowd with keen and pleasurable expectation; and a very ugly customer indeed did Mr. Billy Corve appear, as he came forward with an activity which the various 'nips' he had indulged in that morning had but slightly impaired. Had one of those sledgehammer blows which he delivered with fierce rapidity taken effect, Mr. Stirling would have had some difficulty in 'coming to time.' But stepping back from one, eluding another by what appeared to be the slightest side movement of his head, and stopping a third neatly, he caught his advancing foe such a left-handed facer as staggered him, leaving him a prey to the body blow that followed, and which, getting 'home' to some purpose, sent him very decidedly to grass. 'Oh dear, how dreadful!' said Estelle, pale with apprehension. 'Surely they won't let them kill one another? That poor man must be badly hurt.' 'Not a bit of it, Miss. You couldn't kill Billy with an axe. He'll be all the steadier for it next round. Oh! look out, Mr. Stirling.'