Melville, Katerfelto: a Story of Exmoor (1875)

Deadman’s Alley, pp. 11.

Plain John Garnet looked somewhat preoccupied now, sitting moodily over his punch, and the influence of his demeanour seemed to steal upon the company in general. Mr. Gale, indeed, held forth loudly on horse-racing, cock-fighting, and such congenial topics, but spent his breath for an inattentive audience, not to be interested even by a dissertation on West-country wrestling in all its branches—the Cornish hug, the Devonshire shoulder-grip, and the West Somerset “rough-and-tumble catch where you can.”

Melville (1875); Katerfelto: a Story of Exmoor: Bernhard Tauchnitz. Available online via Google Books.