If he did not
fight, it was simply because he found cowardice universal. No man would
engage him; his spirit blazed in vain; his thirst for battle was doomed
to remain unquenched, except by whiskey, and this only increased it. In
short, he could find no foe. He has often been known to challenge the
first cudgel-players and pugilists of the parish; to provoke men of
fourteen stone weight; and to bid mortal defiance to faction heroes of
all grades--but in vain. There was that in him which told them that an
encounter with Neal would strip them of their laurels. Neal saw all this
with a lofty indignation; he deplored the degeneracy of the times, and
thought it hard that the descendant of such a fighting family should be
doomed to pass through life peaceably, while so many excellent rows and
riots took place around him. It was a calamity to see every man's head
broken but his own; a dismal thing to observe his neighbors go about
with their bones in bandages, yet his untouched; and his friends beat
black and blue, whilst his own cuticle remained undiscolored.
"Blur-an'-agers!" exclaimed Neal one day, when half-tipsy in the fair,
"am I never to get a bit of fightin'? Is there no cowardly spalpeen to
stand afore Neal Malone? Be this an' be that, I'm blue-mowlded for want
of a batin'! I'm disgracin' my relations by the life I'm ladin'! Will
none o' ye fight me aither for love, money, or whiskey--frind or inimy,
an' bad luck to ye? I don't care a traneen which, only out o' pure
frindship, let us have a morsel o' the rale kick-up, 'tany rate.
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