Chapter III: The Great Brontë Fight

The fight between Welsh Brontë and Sam Clarke of Ballynaskeagh was an era-making event. The contest took place long before my time, but I had a precise and full account of the battle from two eye-witnesses. No encounter of the kind in County Down ever made such a noise, or left such a lasting impression. Like the flight of Mahomet or the founding of Rome, it became a fixed point around which other events ranged themselves.

Women would speak of their children as born, or their daughters married, so many years before or after the fight; and old men, in referring to their ages, would tell how they had been present when Welsh Brontë licked Sam Clarke, and that they must have been of such an age at the time. It was one of those famous encounters which only required the pen of Pindar to give it immortality in epic form.

The history of the affair which I here submit embodies the conclusions at which I have arrived, after comparing twenty or thirty versions; but I am specially indebted to the late Mr. John Todd of Croan, who was present at the battle with his brother James, and who narrated the incidents of the contest, with many picturesque details. I should add, however, that the Todds were friends of the Brontës, and told the story with the warmth of partisans.

Welsh Brontë had a sweetheart called Peggy Campbell, and she had a little, delicate, deformed brother who used to go to Ballynafern school on crutches. Some of the big healthy boys thoughtlessly amused themselves by tormenting the little cripple. He often arrived home with his clothes torn and daubed with mud, and sometimes showing in his person the signs of ill-treatment. After the manner of school-boys, he would never tell on his tormentors. Welsh’s sweetheart, however, had discovered the cowardly and cruel treatment to which her little brother had been subjected, and appealed to Welsh to protect him.

Welsh had, no doubt, often heard the story of his father’s wrongs, when a child, and, at a hint from Peggy, constituted himself the champion of the injured boy. He went to Sam Clarke, who was a near relative of the chief offenders, and begged him to interfere.

Clarke, who was said to be something of a bully, advised Brontë to mind his own business, and Brontë replied that that was the exact thing he was doing; and then he added, as a threat, that unless Clarke restrained his brutal relatives he would chastise them himself. Hot words ensued, and Brontë and Clarke parted with expressions of mutual defiance.

Welsh Brontë’s blood was up. His sense of justice was roused on behalf of an ill-used child, and his feelings of chivalry impelled him to become the champion of his sweetheart’s brother.

Meanwhile the boys were meditating vengeance on their victim, who, in addition to the crime of meek endurance, had, they believed, proved a _sneak_, by telling of their misdeeds.

Welsh Brontë resolved to watch the children on their way home from school on the following day. He took up his position in a clump of trees somewhere near the glen. He waited long, but the school-children did not appear, and, thinking that perhaps they had returned home by another path, he left his ambush to resume his work. Suddenly he heard hilarious cheering and piteous cries, and hurrying towards the spot from which the noise came, he found the school engaged in the ceremony of “_ducking_ the _clash beg_,” or tale-bearer.

They had taken the poor little cripple’s crutches from him, and had placed him in the middle of a pond of water, up to his neck, and then, having taken hands, they danced round the pond, chanting, “Clash beg!” “Clash beg!” “Clash beg!”

Welsh Brontë took in the situation at a glance, and captured the two biggest Clarkes before they knew he was near. He then compelled them to wade into the pond, and support gently to the edge their victim. When they had placed him on the dry ground, he was so exhausted that he could neither stand nor support himself on his crutches, and Brontë obliged the Clarkes to carry him home on their backs, time about, the water dripping down their clothes. They did as Brontë directed them, but only after considerable chastisement.

The other children had fled home in alarm, and had given a highly colored description of the inhuman manner in which Brontë was treating the Clarkes. Some of them reported that he had actually drowned them in the pond. On that night a challenge from Sam Clarke reached Welsh Brontë, and was instantly accepted.

The time for angry words had gone, and all preliminary formalities were carried out according to rule, and with perfect courtesy. “Seconds” were appointed, the day was fixed, and a professional pugilist, who resided at Newry, was engaged to act as referee. Both men went into close training, and the event was awaited with the most intense excitement for ten miles round.

The day, a charming summer day, at last arrived. A crowd numbering ten thousand--some estimated the number at from thirty to fifty thousand--assembled. They came together from Newry, Banbridge, Rathfriland, Dromore, Hilltown, Warrenpoint, Loughbrickland, and other towns and districts. Such an assemblage of the scoundrelism of that region had never been drawn together before. But they were not all scoundrels, for public opinion had not, at that time, affixed the stamp of infamy indelibly to the brutal exhibitions of the ring; and it was said that a number of sporting clergymen and country gentlemen were present, undisguised and unashamed.

Many circumstances rendered the field famous. The mothers of the combatants had fed their sons for the fray like gamecocks; oat-bread and new milk were the staple food which was supposed to give muscle, strength, and endurance.

Shortly before the fight Clarke’s mother, when giving him his last meal before the encounter, said to him, “Sam, my son, may you never get bit or sup from me more, if you do not lick the mongrel.”

This Spartan speech spread through the field like wildfire, and such was the code of honor, on that occasion, that the exhortation was much blamed, and led to a strong current of popularity in favor of Brontë. The word “mongrel,” referring to the fact that her son’s antagonist had had a Catholic mother, was considered unfitting to be used in connection with the noble encounter that was about to take place.

The ring was roped off in the hollow of a green field; the multitude stood on the rising ground around, and all could see the entire ring. Three or four hundred men were enrolled as “special order preservers,” and stood in a circle round the ring, two or three deep. The seconds and referee and umpire were in their places at the opposite sides of the ring.

The hour fixed to begin was twelve o’clock, and prompt to the minute the two combatants strode down leisurely through the crowd, each with his sweetheart leaning on his arm; their mothers already occupied seats of honor outside the ring.

Clarke was an older and maturer man than Brontë, and much bigger. Beside him, Brontë, in his tight-fitting homespun, looked slender and youthful and overmatched.

In consequence of the ungenerous and unguarded words spoken by Clarke’s mother, sympathy, as we have seen, was already on Brontë’s side, and this was greatly increased by the natural feeling that prompts the generous to take the weak side.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, the original cause of the quarrel was wholly lost sight of before the fight began. No one seemed to give a thought to the circumstance that Brontë had got into the affair by espousing the cause of a helpless boy. After listening to an account of the fight, from some old man who had witnessed it, I have often asked what it was about, and I have generally got for answer, “Oh, it was just a fight,” my question being evidently deemed irrelevant, and somewhat silly.

The champions stepped into the ring, and their sweethearts with them. As each stripped he handed his clothes to his future wife, and these two women stood, each with her lover’s garments on her arm, till the matter was decided.

Time was not accurately kept, but the battle was said to have lasted three or four hours. At first Clarke had the advantage in strength and weight, but Brontë, who had long arms, was lithe and active and wiry, and did not seem to weary as the day wore on. On the contrary, Clarke began to show signs of fatigue, but the spectators thought he was simply husbanding his strength. Throughout the whole contest not a word was heard. Suddenly, Miss Campbell’s voice rang out clear in the silence: “Welsh, my boy, go in and avenge my brother, and the mongrel.”

Peggy Campbell, by her woman’s instinct, discerned that the hour for the final effort and victory had come. Welsh responded like a lightning flash. A few awful moments followed. The spectators held their breaths and some fainted, others covered their eyes with their hands, or averted their faces. Terrific crushing and crashing blows were heard all over the field, and when the blows ceased to resound, Sam Clarke was lying a motionless heap in the ring.

The crowd, after the long suspense and hushed silence, lost all control of themselves, and wanted to rush in and chair the victor, but the “special order preservers” held the ring, and the sea of human beings surged against them in vain.

Welsh Brontë declined to receive congratulations until he had deposited his antagonist safely at home in bed. The fight was followed by no evil consequences, and Sam Clarke and Welsh Brontë became fast friends from that day forth.

All were agreed as to the closing scene. During the last few seconds the fight became so fierce and furious that the blood of the spectators ran cold. Nothing like it for wild fury and Titanic ferocity had ever been witnessed, and no such battle has ever, since or before, been fought in County Down.