"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
water-barrow, and he fell over them heavily.
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.
Then the blows only came from one side, for there was a hoarse panting
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.
"Well done!" cried another voice. "What a licking you two give 'em!"
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.