These six men were ready, and resolute enough, to meet any bodily conflict; but the literary crisis scared them.
"Can e' do it, Jack?" "Don't know as I can." "Wish my boy Bill was here." "Don't run in my line"—and so on.
"If none on 'e knows what he be about," said the man with the best legs to stand upon, advancing into the midst of them, "I know a deal of the law; and I tell 'e, as a friend of the King, who hath lost two legs for 'un, in the Royal Navy, there can't be no lawful arrest made here. And the liberty of the subject cometh in, the same as a' doth again' highwaymen. Harvey Tremlett, and Jem Kettel, the law be on your side, to 'protect the liberty of the subject.'"
This was enough for the pair who had stood, as law-abiding Englishmen, against the wall, with their big fists doubled, and their great hearts doubting. "Here goo'th for the liberty of the subject," cried Harvey Tremlett, striding forth; "I shan't strike none as don't strike me. But if a doth, a' must look out."
The constables wavered, in fear of the law, and doubt of their own duty; for they had often heard that every man had a right to know what he was arrested for. Unluckily one of them made a blow with his staff at Harvey Tremlett; then he dropped on the flags with a clump in his ear, and the fight in a moment was raging.
Somebody knocked Jemmy Kettel on the head, as being more easy to deal with; and then the blood of the big man rose. Three stout fellows fell upon him all together, and heavy blows rung on the drum of his chest, from truncheons plied like wheel-spokes. Forth flew his fist-clubs right and left, one of them meeting a staff in the air, and shattering it back into its owner's face. Never was the peace of the King more broken; no man could see what became of his blows, legs and arms went about like windmills, substance and shadow were all as one, till the substance rolled upon the ground, and groaned.
This dark flight resembled the clashing of a hedgerow in the fury of a midnight storm; when the wind has got in and cannot get out, when ground-ash, and sycamore, pole, stub, and saplin, are dashing and whirling against one another, and even the sturdy oak-tree in the trough is swaying, and creaking, and swinging on its hole.
"Zoonder not to kill e'er a wan of 'e, I 'ood. But by the Lord, if 'e comes they byses"—shouted Harvey Tremlett, as a rope was thrown over his head from behind, but cut in half a second by Herniman—"more of 'e, be there?" as the figures thickened—"have at 'e then, wi' zummat more harder nor visties be!"
He wrenched from a constable his staff, and strode onward, being already near the main gate now. As he whirled the heavy truncheon round his head, the constables hung back, having two already wounded, and one in the grip of reviving Jem, who was rolling on the floor with him. "Zurrender to His Majesty;" they called out, preferring the voluntary system.
"A varden for the lot of 'e!" the big man said, and he marched in a manner that presented it.