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In the midst of this, succour arrived for the invaded party in the person of no less a hero than Mr. David Shaw. In a state of exasperation amounting almost to frenzy, that individual rushed into the house, crying out as he impetuously advanced, “Where is she?—where is she?”—the idea that Mrs. Clink had purposely betrayed them being alone uppermost in his mind. Making his way, as if instinctively, towards the stairs, he beheld something like the figure of a woman standing three or four steps above him, for the light was not sufficient to discover more. A plunge with his right hand, which grasped a common pocket-knife, was the work of an instant, and the landlady of the house—for he had mistaken his object—fell with a dead weight under the blow. At the same instant the fingers of his right hand became fast bound, and the blood ran down his arm in a bubbling stream. Instead of doing the murder he intended, the knife blade had struck backwards, and closed tightly upon the holder, so that three of his fingers and the fleshy part of the thumb were gashed through to the bone. Regardless of this, he extricated his hand, cast the knife fiercely amongst the combatants, and fell to the attack in right good earnest.
Pope, if I recollect aright, very highly extols some of those similes which Perrault describes as similes with a long tail, introduced by the greatest of epic poets into his descriptions of the combats between the Trojans and the Greeks, In humble imitation, then, of Homer, let me proceed to say, that as a platoon of maggots on a cheese-plate contend with violent writhings of the body for superiority, as they overrun each other, and alternately gain the uppermost place, or roll ingloriously to the bottom in the ambitious strife for mastery;—so did the preservers and the destroyers of game in the parlour of the poacher's ken mingle together in deadly strife, amidst the fall of tables and the wreck of kegs.
Securely seated, after the struggles of an unequal war, old Jerry Clink might now, by the aid of some friendly candle, have been seen reposing himself between the legs of a round table, his countenance and hands so deeply besmeared with blood as to give him all the grimness of a red Indian squatting after the operation of scalping, the huge mastiff stretched before him, with its head bruised until its features were not discernible, and a gaping wound behind the left fore-leg, into which had been introduced the weapon that had let out his life; while around lay strewn in confusion the fragments and ribands of nearly every portion of dress that Mr. Clink had previously worn. Nothing was left of his large snuff-coloured coat, save the collar and a small portion of the upper ends of the arms; his red waistcoat lay in twenty pieces around; and his unmentionables hung about him like the shattered bark of some old tree, that has been doomed to experience the lacerating power of a lightning-stroke. Jerry could do no more. He saw David Shaw, after a desperate struggle, worthy of a more noble cavalier, subdued, and pinioned like a market-fowl across the back, without the power to make even an effort in his favour; while of the remaining portion of his men some had made their escape, and the rest, having exhausted their means of defence, were surrendering at discretion.
“Well, if I could I would not leave you, lads,” thought Jerry, as he witnessed the defeat of his companions,—“I've stood by you in good, and I 'll stand by you in evil. Sooner than be guilty of a mean action like that, I'd do as the great Cato did, and fall upon my own pocket-knife. Here,” he cried in a loud voice, addressing himself to the head gamekeeper, “here, you big brute! pick me up, will you? I'm going along with all the rest.”
“I know that,” responded the individual thus addressed, with an allusion to Mr. Clink's eyes, which would not have benefited them, if carried into effect, quite so materially as might a pinch of Grimston's snuff; “I'll take care of you soon enough, old chap, trust me for that.”
So saying, he cast a cord round Jerry's body, binding his arms to his sides; an operation which the latter underwent with the most heroic fortitude and good will. Not so, however, with the next proceeding; for the gamekeeper, having by this time discovered the carcass of his murdered dog under the table, seized hold of the loose end of the rope with which Jerry was tied, and fell to belabouring him without mercy.