Sam Figgis came forward then and said something to Stephen, and then
shrugged his shoulders and went back to his wife. He seemed to feel that no
one could interfere between the two men--it was too late for interference.
Then things happened very quickly. Peter saw that they had all--men and
women--crowded back against the benches and the wall and were watching,
very silently and with great excitement. He found it very difficult to see,
but he bent his head and peered through the legs of a big fisherman in
front of him. He was shaking all over his body. Stephen had never before
appeared so terrible to him; he had seen him when he was very angry and
when he was cross and ill-tempered, but now he was very ominous in his
quiet way, and his eyes seemed to have changed colour. The small boy
could only see the middle of the floor and pieces of legs and skirts and
trousers, but he knew by the feeling in the room that Stephen and the
little man were going to fight. Then he moved his head round and saw
between two shoulders, and he saw that the two men were stripping to the
waist. The centre of the room was cleared, and Sam Figgis came forward to
speak to Stephen again, and this time there was more noise, and the people
began to shout out loud and the men grew more and more excited. There had
often been fights in that room before, and Peter had witnessed one or two,
but there had never been this solemnity and ceremony--every one was very
grave. It did not occur to Peter that it was odd that it should be allowed;
no one thought of policemen twenty years ago in Treliss and Sam Figgis was
more of a monarch in The Bending Mule than Queen Victoria. And now two of
the famous old chairs were placed at opposite corners, and quite silently
two men, with serious faces, as though this were the most important hour of
their life, stood behind them. Stephen and the other man, stripped to their
short woollen drawers, came into the middle of the room. Stephen had hair
all over his chest, and his arms and his neck were tremendous; and Peter as
he looked at him thought that he must be the strongest man in the world.