Jack thereupon turned back. Duffer followed him. Jack began to run, and then Duffer began to run. Jack went tumbling over the fences, and Duffer went tumbling over the fences after him. Jack ran for liberty at first, but soon he began to run from the whip; while at each moment, as he gave signs of failing courage, Duffer’s rage and thirst for vengeance increased; for nothing so excites the valorous fury of your genuine bully, as the appearance of faint-heartedness in a foe.
Beyond the street, Jack kept the shore of the pond where it swept around towards the canal. He now regretted not having taken that course in the first place, yet he had avoided it for a good reason; there was the waste-wear in his way.
The “heel-path” side of the canal was narrowed here to a high and steep embankment; into this was set a waste-gate in a frame of strong timbers; and over the gate and the timbers the canal poured its surplus waters in a shining cascade that fell into the pond below. This was the waste-wear, crossed by a single foot-plank, in full view of the village and of the canal, for half a mile up and down. Quite near the gate, its arched top visible at the base of the embankment, was a culvert for the pond water, which there flowed under the canal into a mill-race on the other side.
Towards this conspicuous if not very dangerous place, the hatless Jack, driven back by Duffer, now ran with all his might. Once across the waste-wear, he could still hope to baffle pursuit in the orchards and woods beyond. But Duffer was too swift for him; and, feeling his own strength giving out, and the avenger of the “dorg” fast gaining on him, Jack stooped and caught up from the flat, goose-nibbled and goose-trampled pond-shore the only available missile in sight. Then, like David defying the giant of Gath, he turned, with upraised, menacing arm.
“Come on,” he cried, “and I send this at your head!”
It could not have proved a very formidable projectile, being nothing but a dirty goose-egg, but it served his purpose for the moment; Goliath, mistaking it for a stone, stopped and prepared to dodge or retreat.
“Don’t ye chuck that rock at me! I’ll drownd ye in that water if ye do!”
“Keep your distance, then,” commanded Jack, backing off.
He used often to laugh, in later years, at the ludicrous spectacle of the big-whiskered ruffian brought to a stand and put in fear by a goose-egg; but he had no leisure for laughing at the time. For now the uproar in the village, which had seemed to be subsiding, burst forth afresh in sudden cries of “Ketch him! ketch that boy!” and, looking quickly around, he saw a scattered crowd of men and youngsters running out of the village directly towards him.
Then Jack felt that his chance of escape was small; his breath was spent, and here were fresh pursuers on his track! In his rage, remembering that he might now have been a mile away had it not been for Duffer, he paused, before once more taking to flight, and discharged the goose-egg at his enemy. Long practice with pebbles and stones on the tow-path, in the days when he was a driver, had made him a good shot; wrath nerved his arm; the mark was near, and by no means small; and the result was satisfactory. He whirled and ran, leaving Duffer half stunned, staggering and spluttering and spitting, mouth, beard, and bosom variegated and dripping with the mixed yellow and white of the egg, which had struck and burst, like a bombshell, full in his face.