eleven o’clock
On the morning in question -- August 25 , 1818 -- there were but two men in this famous snuggery . One was Cribb himself -- all run to flesh since the time seven years before , when , training for his last fight , he had done his forty miles a day with Captain Barclay over the Highland roads . Broad and deep , as well as tall , he was a little short of twenty stone in weight , but his heavy , strong face and lion eyes showed that the spirit of the prize-fighter was not yet altogether overgrown by the fat of the publican . Though it was not eleven o'clock , a great tankard of bitter ale stood upon the table before him , and he was busy cutting up a plug of black tobacco and rubbing the slices into powder between his horny fingers . For all his record of desperate battles , he looked what he was -- a good-hearted , respectable householder , law-abiding and kindly , a happy and prosperous man . His companion , however , was by no means in the same easy circumstances , and his countenance wore a very different expression . He was a tall and well-formed man , some fifteen years younger than the Champion , and recalling in the masterful pose of his face and in the fine spread of his shoulders something of the manly beauty which had distinguished Cribb at his prime .