‘You will not do that again, sir,’ said he, as he got up and put himself on his guard. The fellow laughed again more strangely and awkwardly than before; then, bending his body and moving his head from one side to the other as a cat does before she springs, and crying out, ‘Here’s for ye, sodger!’ he made a dart at Bagg, rushing in with his head foremost. ‘That will do, sir,’ says Bagg, and, drawing himself back, he put in a left-handed blow with all the force of his body and arm, just over the fellow’s right eye. Bagg is a left-handed hitter, you must know, and it was a blow of that kind which won him his famous battle at Edinburgh with the big Highland sergeant. Bagg says that he was quite satisfied with the blow, more especially when he saw the fellow reel, fling out his arms, and fall to the ground. ‘And now, sir,’ said he, ‘I’ll make bold to hand you over to the quarter sessions, and, if there is a hundred pounds for taking you, who has more right to it than myself?’ So he went forward, but ere he could lay hold of his man the other was again on his legs, and was prepared to renew the combat. They grappled each other—Bagg says he had not much fear of the result, as he now felt himself the best man, the other seeming half stunned with the blow—but just then there came on a blast, a horrible roaring wind bearing night upon its wings, snow, and sleet, and hail. Bagg says he had the fellow by the throat quite fast, as he thought, but suddenly he became bewildered, and knew not where he was; and the man seemed to melt away from his grasp, and the wind howled more and more, and the night poured down darker and darker; the snow and the sleet thicker and more
blinding. ‘Lord have mercy upon us!’ said Bagg.”
Myself. A strange adventure that; it is well that Bagg got home alive.
John. He says that the fight was a fair fight, and that the fling he got was a fair fling, the result of a common enough wrestling trick. But with respect to the storm, which rose up just in time to save the fellow, he is of opinion that it was not fair, but something Irish and supernatural.
Myself. I dare say he’s right. I have read of witchcraft in the Bible.
John. He wishes much to have one more encounter with the fellow; he says that on fair ground, and in fine weather, he has no doubt that he could master him, and hand him over to the quarter sessions. He says that a hundred pounds would be no bad thing to be disbanded upon; for he wishes to take an inn at Swanton Morley, keep a cock-pit, and live respectably.
Myself. He is quite right; and now kiss me, my darling brother, for I must go back through the bog to Templemore.
CHAPTER XIII
Groom and Cob—Strength and Symmetry—Where’s the Saddle?—The First Ride—No more Fatigue—Love for Horses—Pursuit of Words—Philologist and Pegasus—The Smith—What more, Agrah!—Sassanach Ten Pence.
And it came to pass that, as I was standing by the door of the barrack stable, one of the grooms came out to me, saying, “I say, young gentleman, I wish you would give the cob a breathing this fine morning.”