see something of them, and I speak of what I know.

In our own village, I can assure you that we were very proud of the
presence of such a man as Champion Harrison, and if folks stayed at
the inn, they would walk down as far as the smithy just to have the
sight of him. And he was worth seeing, too, especially on a
winter's night when the red glare of the forge would beat upon his
great muscles and upon the proud, hawk-face of Boy Jim as they
heaved and swayed over some glowing plough coulter, framing
themselves in sparks with every blow. He would strike once with his
thirty-pound swing sledge, and Jim twice with his hand hammer; and
the "Clunk--clink, clink! clunk--clink, clink!" would bring me
flying down the village street, on the chance that, since they were
both at the anvil, there might be a place for me at the bellows.

Only once during those village years can I remember Champion
Harrison showing me for an instant the sort of man that he had been.
It chanced one summer morning, when Boy Jim and I were standing by
the smithy door, that there came a private coach from Brighton, with
its four fresh horses, and its brass-work shining, flying along with
such a merry rattle and jingling, that the Champion came running out
with a hall-fullered shoe in his tongs to have a look at it. A
gentleman in a white coachman's cape--a Corinthian, as we would call
him in those days--was driving, and half a dozen of his fellows,
laughing and shouting, were on the top behind him. It may have been
that the bulk of the smith caught his eye, and that he acted in pure
wantonness, or it may possibly have been an accident, but, as he
swung past, the twenty-foot thong of the driver's whip hissed round,
and we heard the sharp snap of it across Harrison's leather apron.