as
though it would burst them. The next minute was as severe a trial
of nerve as he had ever been put to, and the sound of a stealthy
tread on the grass just below came to him as a relief. It
stopped, and he heard the man stoop, then came a stir in the
water, and the flapping as of a fish being landed.

Now was his time! He sprang from behind the tree, and, the next
moment, was over the stooping figure of the poacher. Before he
could seize him the man sprung up, and grappled with him. They
had come to a tight lock at once, for the poacher had risen so
close under him that he could not catch his collar and hold him
off. Too close to strike, it was a desperate trial of strength
and bottom.

Tom knew in a moment that he had his work cut out for him. He
felt the nervous power of the frame he had got hold of as he
drove his chin into the poacher's shoulder, and arched his back,
and strained every muscle in his body to force him backwards, but
in vain. It was all he could do to hold his own; but he felt that
he might hold it yet, as they staggered on the brink of the back
ditch, stamping the grass and marsh marigolds into the ground,
and drawing deep breath through their set teeth. A slip, a false
foot-hold, a failing muscle, and it would be over; down they must
go-who would be uppermost?

The poacher had trod on a soft place and Tom felt it, and,
throwing himself forward, was reckoning on victory, but reckoning
without his host. For, recovering himself with a twist of the
body which brought them still closer together, the poacher locked
his leg behind Tom's in a crook which brought the wrestlings of
his boyhood into his head with a flash, as they tottered for
another moment, and then losing balance, went headlong over with
a heavy plunge and splash into the deep back ditch, locked in
each other's arms.

The cold water closed over them, and for a moment Tom held as
tight as ever. Under or above the surface it was all the same, he
couldn't give in first. But a gulp of water, and the singing in
his ears, and a feeling of choking, brought him to his senses,
helped too, by the thought of his mother and Mary, and love of
the pleasant world up above. The folly and uselessness of being
drowned in a ditch on a point of honor stood out before him as
clearly as if he had been thinking of nothing else all his life;
and he let go his hold--much relieved to find that his companion
of the bath seemed equally willing to be quit of