Barren Honour: A Novel

by George A. Lawrence

The same voice answered which had spoken before—hoarse and thick with passion.

"Surrender be d—d! Here's the chance we've been wanting ever so long. Stick together, lads, and be smart with those bludgeons: there's enow of us to cut the —— keepers to rags."

Alan spoke again; and the curt, stern, incisive accents clove the still night-air like points of steel.

"Stand fast in the front: close up there in the rear. It is our own fault if a man gets through: we'll have all—or none."

He had only time for a hurried whisper—"Somers, whatever happens, look after Lord Clydesdale;" for Bertie and his men came on with a rush and a cheer. The port-fires were cast down and trampled out instantly, and so—darkly and sullenly—the melée began. It was likely to be an equal one; the poachers had the disadvantage of the surprise and the attack being against them, but they were slightly superior in numbers, and their bludgeons were of a more murderous character than those carried by the keepers, shod with iron for the most part, and heavily leaded. For a minute or two the struggle went on in silence, only broken by the dull sound of heavy blows, by hard, quick breathings, and by an occasional curse or groan. Lord Clydesdale had drawn slightly aside, and so, avoiding the first rush of the poachers, remained for awhile inactive. Suddenly, as ill-luck would have it, he found himself face to face with the most formidable of all the gang. "Lanky Jem" had forced his way to the front, partly because safety lay in that direction, partly because he fancied that there fought "the foemen worthiest of his steel;" he had his wits perfectly about him, and was viciously determined to do as much damage as possible, whether he escaped or no. He saw the figure standing apart from the rest, taking no part in the conflict, and instantly guessed that he had to do with a personage of some condition and importance: keepers are rarely contemplative or non-combatants at such a moment.

"Here's one of them —— swells!" he growled. "Come on, d—n ye! I'll have your blood, if I swing for it."

Clydesdale was not exactly a coward; if any ordinary social danger had presented itself, he would scarcely have quailed before it. For instance, I believe he would have faced a pistol at fifteen paces with average composure. But it so happened (he had not been at a public school) that in all his life he had never seen a blow stricken in anger. The aspect of his present adversary fairly appalled him. Independently of the poacher's huge proportions and evidently great strength, there was a cool, concentrated cruelty about the bull-dog face—the white range of grinded teeth showing in relief against the blackness of his sooty disguise—which made him a really terrible foe. The Earl looked helplessly round, as though seeking for succour; but all his party seemed to have already as much as they could do. He saw the grim giant preparing for a spring, and all presence of mind utterly deserted him; he drew hastily back without lifting his hands to defend himself; his heel caught in a projecting root, and he fell supine, with a loud, piteous cry. "Lanky Jem" was actually disconcerted by such absolute non-resistance; but the brutal instinct soon reasserted itself, and he was rushing in to maim and mangle the fallen man, after his own savage fashion, when a fresh adversary stood in his path, bestriding Clydesdale where he lay.

Wyverne had been engaged with a big foundry-man, who chanced to come across him first; but even in the fierce grapple, where pluck and activity could scarcely hold their own against weight and brute strength, he had found time to glance repeatedly over his shoulder. He saw the Earl fall, and extricating himself from his opponent's gripe with an effort that sent the latter reeling back, he sprang lightly aside, just in time to intercept the Lancashire man from his prey. But the odds were fearfully against him now; for his original adversary had recovered himself, and made in quickly to help his comrade. Both struck at Alan savagely at the same instant. He caught one blow on his club, but was obliged to parry the other with his left arm: the head was saved, but the limb dropped to his side powerless. He ground his teeth hard, and threw all the strength that was left him into one bitter blow; it lighted on the temple of the man who had disabled him, and dropped him like a log in his tracks. But, before Wyverne could recover himself, the terrible Lancashire bludgeon came home on his brows, crushing in the low, stiff crown of his hat like paper, and beating him down, sick and dizzy, to his knee. He lifted his club mechanically, but it hardly broke the full sway of another murderous stroke, which stretched him on his face senseless. It looked as if he had remembered his promise to the last; for he fell right over Clydesdale, effectually shielding the latter with his own body.

Alan's life and this story had well nigh ended there and then. Such an abrupt termination might possibly have been to his advantage as well as to yours, reader of mine. But it was not so to be. Just as Jem was bracing his great muscles for one cool, finishing stroke on the back of Wyverne's unprotected skull, a lithe active form lighted on his shoulders, and slender, nervous fingers clutched his throat till they seemed to bury themselves in the flesh; and as he fell backward, gasping and half-strangled, a voice, suppressed and vicious as a serpent's hiss, muttered in his ear three words in an unknown tongue—"Basta, basta, carissimo!"

The poacher's vast strength, however, soon enabled him to shake off his last assailant, and he was rising to his feet, more dangerous than ever, when a tremendous blow descended right across his face, gashing the forehead and crushing the bones of the nose in one fearful wound. The miserable wretch sank down—all his limbs collapsing—without a groan or a struggle, and lay there half drowned in blood.