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The great times for back-swording came round once a year in each village; at the feast. The Vale "veasts" were not the common statute feasts, but much more ancient business.

Tom at first only looked on at this pastime, but it had peculiar attractions for him, and he could not long keep out of it. Elbow and collar wrestling, as practised in the western counties, was, next to back-swording, the way to fame for the youth of the Vale; and all the boys knew the rules of it, and were more or less expert.

Don't let reformers of any sort think that they are going really to lay hold of the working boys and young men of England by any educational grapnel whatever, which isn't some bona fide equivalent for the games of the old country "veast" in it; something to put in the place of the back-swording and wrestling and racing; something to try the muscles of men's bodies, and the endurance of their hearts, and to make them rejoice in their strength.

If good men are playing, the quickness of the returns is marvellous: you hear the rattle like that a boy makes drawing his stick along palings, only heavier; and the closeness of the men in action to one another gives it a strange interest, and makes a spell at back-swording a very noble sight. They are all suited now with sticks, and Joe Willis and the gipsy man have drawn the first lot.

For he had been a famous back-swordman in his young days, and a good wrestler at elbow and collar. Back-swording and wrestling were the most serious holiday pursuits of the Vale those by which men attained fame and each village had its champion. I suppose that, on the whole, people were less worked then than they are now; at any rate, they seemed to have more time and energy for the old pastimes.

"Thee mind what I tells 'ee," rejoins Rachel saucily, "and doan't 'ee kep blethering about fairings." Tom resolves in his heart to give Willum the remainder of his two shillings after the back-swording. Joe Willis has all the luck to-day.

But the object of most interest to Benjy, and of course to his pupil also, was the stage of rough planks some four feet high, which was being put up by the village carpenter for the back-swording and wrestling.