Twelve o'clock
On the morning after his arrival , the town in which we have laid the scene of this legend felt the usual impulse of an intense curiosity to see so celebrated a character . The Dead Boxer , however , appeared to be exceedingly anxious to gratify this natural propensity . He walked out from the head inn , where he had stopped , attended by his servant , merely , it would appear , to satisfy them as to the very slight chance which the stoutest of them had in standing before a man whose blow was so fatal , and whose frame so prodigiously Herculean . Twelve o'clock was the hour at which he deemed proper to make his appearance , and as it happened also to be the market-day of the town , the crowd which followed him was unprecedented . The old and young , the hale and feeble of both sexes , all rushed out to see , with feelings of fear and wonder , the terrible and far-famed Dead Boxer . The report of his arrival had already spread far and wide into the country , and persons belonging to every class and rank of life might be seen hastening on horseback , and more at full speed on foot , that they might , if possible , catch an early glimpse of him . The most sporting characters among the nobility and gentry of the country , fighting-peers , fire-eaters , snuff-candle squires , members of the hell-fire and jockey clubs , gaugers , gentlemen tinners , bluff yeomen , laborers , cudgel-players , parish pugilists , men of renown within a district of ten square miles , all jostled each other in hurrying to see , and if possible to have speech of , the Dead Boxer .