One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
tism. All is accepted. Politeness is the rule, according to
Skepsey’s experience of the Southern part of the third-class
kingdom. And it is as well to mark the divisions, for the
better knowledge of our countrymen. The North requires
volumes to itself.
The hard-grained old pirate-stock Northward has built the
land, and is to the front when we are at our epic work. Meanwhile
it gets us a blowzy character, by shouldering roughly
among the children of civilization. Skepsey, journeying one
late afternoon up a Kentish line, had, in both senses of the
word, encountered a long-limbed navvy; an intoxicated, he
was compelled by his manly modesty to desire to think; whose
loathly talk, forced upon the hearing of a decent old woman
opposite him, passed baboonish behaviour; so much so, that
Skepsey civilly intervened; subsequently inviting him to leave
the carriage and receive a lesson at the station they were nearing.
Upon his promising faithfully, that it should be a true
and telling lesson, the navvy requested this pygmy spark to
flick his cheek, merely to show he meant war in due sincerity;
and he as faithfully, all honour, promising not to let it
bring about a breakage of the laws of the Company, Skepsey
promptly did the deed. So they went forth.
Skepsey alluded to the incident, for an example of the lamentable
deficiency in science betrayed by most of our strong
men when put to it; and the bitter thought, that he could
count well nigh to a certainty on the total absence of science
in the long-armed navvy, whose fist on his nose might have
been as the magnet of a pin, was chief among his reminiscences
after the bout, destroying pleasure for the lover of
Old England’s might. One blow would have sent Skepsey
travelling. He was not seriously struck once. They parted,
shaking hands; the navvy confessing himself to have ‘drunk
a drop’; and that perhaps accounted for his having been
‘topped by a dot on him.’
He declined to make oath never to repeat his offence; but
said, sending his vanquisher to the deuce, with an amicable
push at his shoulder, ‘Damned if I ever forget five foot five
stretched six foot flat!’
Skepsey counted his feet some small amount higher; but
our hearty rovers’ sons have their ballad moods when giving
or taking a thrashing. One of the third-class passengers, a
lad of twenty, became Skepsey’s pupil, and turned out clever
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