A Man of the Moors

by Halliwell Sutcliffe

"No; but I've got the fists that God gave me. Drop your gun, and come on."

The Squire chucked his weapon into the bracken, and they ran together like steel to magnet. In and out darted the blows; Roger Daneholme took a crack on the mouth that rattled his teeth in their sockets, and Griff lost the aid of his left eye for the time being. It was neck or nothing with Griff. In among the stress, he found time to wonder how he could have been fool enough to mix himself up with a poaching affray, now that Kate had made things matter so much more; it was all very well in his bachelor days, but he should have had more sense now. Suppose he were collared and run in, along with these jolly boon companions of his? He pondered a trifle too long on that aspect of the case, for the Squire got in a body-blow, that came dangerously near to taking his adversary's wind. All the while the tussle of four against four was running a brisk course on the left; curses and blows thwacked through the frosty air with cheery impartiality; but Jack o' Ling Crag was laughing, and Griff gathered that the three were having the best of it—though his notions of everything outside the radius of the Squire's fists were of necessity in the shadowy background of his mind. At last Griff got his chance, and took it. Old Roger again aimed a bit too high for his wind, and he responded with a clean-cut drive from his left that got the Squire full between the eyes, planting him squarely in the bracken. He showed no disposition to come up to scratch again, and Griff looked to see if he were needed elsewhere. But the keepers had had the worst of the tussle; they had been driven back towards the wood-bottom, and the poachers four were making the best of their way towards Wynyates. Jack o' Ling Crag stopped at the top of the wood to see how it fared with Lomax; the others were well ahead of him, and did not notice the stoppage, their guiding rule on these occasions being to take a bee-line for home.

And somehow it fell about that Jack, the old reprobate, grew so keen on the mighty battle going on below him that he forgot all about his own safety. The keepers rallied, just as Griff put in his farewell smack at his opponent; two went to tackle Lomax, and two made up the hill towards Jack o' Ling Crag.

"Come on!" shouted Jack. "Run for your life, ye fool! What are ye stopping for?"

To tell the truth, Griff had characteristically lost sight of prudence; how could he leave the Squire, stretched stark before him, without at least a passing attempt to bring him round? He looked towards the stream that tumbled through Cringle Wood, and was setting off to fetch water in his cap when a pair of lusty arms gripped him from behind. His next clear conception of outward things was, that he was lying on his back, looking up at the Milky Way.

"The game's up at last," he groaned. "Dad would never have been such a dolt—and how will it strike Kate?"

"Much as you struck Squire," put in one of the keepers, facetiously—"straight atween the eyes."

Griff bit his lip; he had not known that he was talking aloud.

Then, to make matters worse, down came the other pair of the Squire's party, with Jack o' Ling Crag between them. Old Roger Daneholme opened his eyes presently; they doused him with cold water, and before long he was on his feet again.