pon the prominent features of an
assailant that yields to it perforce. Even when you receive such perfect
blows you are half satisfied. Feeling conqueror, my wrath was soothed; I
bent to have a look at my ruffian, and ask him what cause of complaint
gipsies camping on Durstan could find against Riversley. A sharp stroke
on the side of my neck sent me across his body. He bit viciously. In pain
and desperation I flew at another of the tawny devils. They multiplied. I
took to my heels; but this was the vainest of stratagems, they beat me in
nimbleness. Four of them were round me when I wheeled breathless to take
my chance at fighting the odds. Fiery men have not much notion of
chivalry: gipsies the least of all. They yelled disdain of my summons to
them to come on one by one: 'Now they had caught me, now they would pay
me, now they would pound me; and, standing at four corners, they
commended me to think of becoming a jelly. Four though they were, they
kept their positions; they left it to me to rush in for a close; the
hinder ones held out of arms' reach so long as I was disengaged. I had
perpetually to shift my front, thinking--Oh, for a stick! any stout bit
of timber! My fists ached, and a repetition of nasty dull knocks on back
and neck, slogging thumps dealt by men getting to make sure of me,
shattered my breathing.

I cried out for a pause, offered to take a couple of them at a time: I
challenged three-the fourth to bide. I was now the dancer: left, right,
and roundabout I had to swing, half-stunned, half-strangled with gorge.
Those terrible blows in the back did the mischief. Sickness threatened to
undermine me. Boxers have breathing-time: I had none. Stiff and sick, I
tried to run; I tottered, I stood to be knocked down, I dropped like a
log-careless of life. But I smelt earth keenly, and the damp grass and
the devil's play of their feet on my chin, chest, and thighs, revived a
fit of wrath enough to set me staggering on my legs again. They permitted
it, for the purpose of battering me further. I passed from down to up
mechanically, and enjoyed the chestful of air given me in the interval of
rising: thought of Germany and my father, and Janet at her window,
complacently; raised a child's voice in my throat for mercy, quite
inaudible, and accepted my punishment. One idea I had was, that I could
not possibly fail as a speaker after this--I wanted but a minute's grace
to fetch breath for an oration, beginning, 'You foo