Barnabas (being a infant, you don't remember), but when she died, lad!
I was that lost--that broke an' helpless, that all the fight were
took out o' me, and it's a wonder I didn't throw up the sponge
altogether. Ah! an' it's likely I should ha' done but for Natty Bell."

"Yes, father--"

"No man ever 'ad a better friend than Natty Bell--Ah! yes, though I
did beat him out o' the Championship which come very nigh breaking
his heart at the time, Barnabas; but--as I says to him that day as
they carried him out of the ring--it was arter the ninety-seventh
round, d' ye see, Barnabas--'what is to be, is, Natty Bell,' I says,
'an' what ain't, ain't. It were ordained,' I says, 'as I should be
Champion o' England,' I says--'an' as you an' me should be
friends--now an' hereafter,' I says--an' right good friends we have
been, as you know, Barnabas."

"Indeed, yes, father," said Barnabas, with another vain attempt to
stem his father's volubility.

"But your mother, Barnabas, your mother, God rest her sweet
soul!--your mother weren't like me--no nor Natty Bell--she were
away up over me an' the likes o' me--a wonderful scholard she were,
an'--when she died, Barnabas--" here the ex-champion's voice grew
uncertain and his steady gaze wavered--sought the sanded floor--the
raftered ceiling--wandered down the wall and eventually fixed upon
the bell-mouthed blunderbuss that hung above the mantel, "when she
died," he continued, "she made me promise as you should be taught to
read an' cypher--an' taught I've had you according--for a promise is
a promise, Barnabas--an' there y' are."