Brownsmiths Boy - A Romance in a Garden
Page 174"Shake yourself, dog!" cried Courtenay, roaring with laughter.
"Fetch him a towel," cried Philip. "A towel for the clean pauper. Give
him another ducking, Courtenay."
He ran at me, but in those moments I had forgotten everything in my
thirst to be revenged on my cowardly persecutors.
Philip only seemed to be something in my way as I made at his brother,
and throwing out one fist, he went down amongst the willows, while the
next minute I was striking at Courtenay with all my might.
He was a bigger boy than I. Taller and older, and he had had many a
good fight at school no doubt; but my onslaught staggered him, and I
drove him before me, striking at him as he reached the handles of my
This only enraged him, and he sprang up and received my next blow right
in the face, to be staggered for the moment.
Then I don't know what happened, only that my arms were going like
windmills, that I was battering Courtenay, and that he was battering me;
that we were down, and then up, and then down again, over and over, and
fighting fiercely as a couple of dogs.
I think I was getting the best of it, when I began to feel weak, and
that my adversary was hitting me back and front at once.
Then I realised that Philip had attacked me too, and that I was getting
very much the worst of it in a sort of thunderstorm which rained blows.
and the sound of heavy blows and scuffling away from me, while I was
hitting out again with all my might at one boy instead of two.
All at once there was a crash and the rattle of an iron handle, and
Courtenay went down. He had caught against the pail and fallen.
This gave me time to glance round and see in a half-blinded way that
Philip was fighting with some other boy, who closed with him, and down
they went together.
"Yah! yah! Cowards! cowards!" cried a voice that I well knew; and I saw
giddily that Courtenay and Philip were running up the path, and that
Shock was standing beside me.
Shock started, and ran, darting among the bushes, while I sat down on a
barrow-handle, feeling rather thick and dizzy.
"I was coming to stop it. Two to one's too bad; but that ragged chap
come out at young Phil, and my word, he did give it him well. Are you
much hurt, my lad?"
"No, not much, Mr Bunce," I said, staring at him in rather a confused
way.