with his fist.
His fortitude was not proof against this treatment; he turned his face
away, and only said, in a low tone of voice, "Master Tommy, Master
Tommy, I never should have thought it possible you could have treated me
in this unworthy manner;" then, covering his face with both his hands,
he burst into an agony of crying.

But the little troop of gentlemen, who were vastly delighted with the
mortification which Harry had received, and had formed a very different
opinion of his prowess, from the patience which he had hitherto exerted,
began to gather round and repeat their persecutions. _Coward_, and
_blackguard_, and _tell-tale_ echoed in a chorus through the circle; and
some, more forward than the rest, seized him by the hair, in order that
he might hold up his head and show his _pretty face_.

But Harry, who now began to recollect himself, wiped his tears with his
hand, and, looking up, asked them with a firm tone of voice and a steady
countenance, why they meddled with him; then, swinging round, he
disengaged himself at once from all who had taken hold of him. The
greatest part of the company gave back at this question, and seemed
disposed to leave him unmolested; but Master Mash, who was the most
quarrelsome and impertinent boy present, advanced, and looking at Harry
with a contemptuous sneer, said, "this is the way we always treat such
little blackguards as you, and if you have not had enough to satisfy
you, we'll willingly give you some more." "As to all your nicknames and
nonsense," answered Harry, "I don't think it worth my while to resent
them; but though I have suffered Master Merton to strike me, there's not
another in the company shall do it, or, if he chooses to try, he shall
soon find whether or not I am a coward."

Master Mash made no answer to this, but by a slap of the face, which
Harry returned by a punch of his fist, which had almost overset his
antagonist, in spite of his superiority of size and strength. This
unexpected check from a boy, so much less than himself, might probably
have cooled the courage of Mash, had he not been ashamed of yielding to
one whom he had treated with so much unmerited contempt. Summoning,
therefore, all his resolution, he flew at Harry like a fury, and as he
had often been engaged in quarrels like this, he struck him with so much
force, that, with the first blow he aimed, he felled him to the ground.
Harry, foiled in this manner, but not dismayed, rose in an inst