Quicksilver: The Boy With No Skid to His Wheel

by George Manville Fenn

Edgar sat and stared for a few moments, the sudden shock being anything but pleasant; but, as he saw Dexter’s mirthful face, a fit of rage seized him, and, leaping up, he resumed his attack with the stick.

This time his strokes and thrusts were so malicious, and given with so decided a desire to hurt his victim as much as was possible, that, short of running away, Dexter had to do everything possible to avoid the blows.

For the most part he was successful; but at last he received so numbing a blow across the arm that he quivered with pain and anger as he sprang forward, and, in place of retreating, seized the stick, and tried to wrest it away.

There was a brief struggle, but pretty full of vigour.

Rage made Edgar strong, and he fought well for his weapon, but at the end of a minute’s swaying here and there, and twistings and heavings innumerable, Edgar’s arms felt as if they were being torn from his body, the stick was wrenched away, and as he stood scarlet with passion, he saw it whirled into the air, to fall with a loud splash into the river.

Edgar ground his teeth for a moment or two, and then, as white with anger as his adversary was red, he flew at him, swaying his arms round, and then there was a furious encounter.

Edgar had his own ideas about fighting manoeuvres, which he had tried again and again upon his nurse in bygone times, and upon any of the servants with whom he had come in contact. His arms flew round like flails, or as if he had been transformed into a kind of human firework, and for the next five minutes he kicked, scratched, bit, and tore at his adversary; the next five minutes he was seated upon the grass, howling, his nose bleeding terribly, and the crimson stains carried by his hands all over his face.

For Dexter was not perfect: he had borne till it was impossible to bear more, and then, with his anger surging up, he had fought as a down-trodden English boy will sometimes fight; and in this case with the pluck and steadiness learned in many a school encounter, unknown to Mr Sibery or Mr Hippetts, the keen-eyed and stern.

Result: what might be expected. Dexter felt no pain, only an intense desire to thrash the virulent little tyrant who had scratched his face, kicked his shins, torn at his hair—it was too short still for a good hold—and, finally, made his sharp, white teeth meet in his visitor’s neck.

“Served you right!” muttered Dexter, as he knelt down by the river, and bathed his hands and face before dabbing them dry with his pocket-handkerchief. “No business to treat me like that.”