ell wagging, like a bed of
clover leaves in the morning, at their own choice humour.

"Will you pile your arms outside," I said, "and try a bit of fair play
with me?"

For I disliked these men sincerely, and was fain to teach them a lesson;
they were so unchristian in appearance, having faces of a coffee colour,
and dirty beards half over them. Moreover their dress was outrageous,
and their address still worse. However, I had wiser let them alone, as
will appear afterwards. These savage-looking fellows laughed at the idea
of my having any chance against some twenty of them: but I knew that
the place was in my favour; for my part of it had been fenced off (for
weaning a calf most likely), so that only two could come at me at once;
and I must be very much out of training, if I could not manage two of
them. Therefore I laid aside my carbine, and the two horse-pistols; and
they with many coarse jokes at me went a little way outside, and
set their weapons against the wall, and turned up their coat sleeves
jauntily; and then began to hesitate.

"Go you first, Bob," I heard them say: "you are the biggest man of us;
and Dick the wrestler along of you. Us will back you up, boy."

"I'll warrant I'll draw the badger," said Bob; "and not a tooth will I
leave him. But mind, for the honour of Kirke's lambs, every man stands
me a glass of gin." Then he, and another man, made a rush, and the
others came double-quick-march on their heels. But as Bob ran at me most
stupidly, not even knowing how to place his hands, I caught him with my
knuckles at the back of his neck, and with all the sway of my right arm
sent him over the heads of his comrades. Meanwhile Dick the wrestler had
grappled me, expecting to show off his art, of which indeed he had some
small knowledge; but being quite of the light-weights, in a second he
was flying after his companion Bob.

Now these two men were hurt so badly, the light one having knocked his
head against the lintel of the outer gate, that the rest had no desire
to encounter the like misfortune. So they hung back whispering; and
before they had made up their minds, I rushed into the midst of them.
The suddenness and the weight of my onset took them wholly by surprise;
and for once in their lives, perhaps, Kirke's lambs were worthy of their
name. Like a flock of sheep at a dog's attack they fell away, hustling
one another, and my only difficulty was not to tumble over them.

I had taken my carbine out