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, the landlord of the inn would hesitate about serving you, and if he did, would charge a far higher price in consequence of the supposed increased risk. He would never encourage a breach of the peace in defiance of the county magistrates, who were the authority to renew his licence at Brewster Sessions. So much, then, if the officers of justice were _near_. If they happened to be absent--which, as I have said, occasionally occurred when a big thing was to come off--there was then a dominant feeling of social equality which you could never see manifested so strongly in any other place. A gentleman would think nothing of putting his fingers into your pockets and abstracting your money, and if you had the hardihood to resent the intrusion, would think less of putting his fist into your eyes.