ling, and with
shrieks of women, and the beams of the blazing houses fell, and hissed
in the bubbling river; all the rest of the Doones leaped at us, like
so many demons. They fired wildly, not seeing us well among the hazel
bushes; and then they clubbed their muskets, or drew their swords, as
might be; and furiously drove at us.

For a moment, although we were twice their number, we fell back before
their valorous fame, and the power of their onset. For my part, admiring
their courage greatly, and counting it slur upon manliness that two
should be down upon one so, I withheld my hand awhile; for I cared to
meet none but Carver; and he was not among them. The whirl and hurry
of this fight, and the hard blows raining down--for now all guns were
empty--took away my power of seeing, or reasoning upon anything. Yet
one thing I saw, which dwelled long with me; and that was Christopher
Badcock spending his life to get Charley's.

How he had found out, none may tell; both being dead so long ago; but,
at any rate, he had found out that Charley was the man who had robbed
him of his wife and honour. It was Carver Doone who took her away, but
Charleworth Doone was beside him; and, according to cast of dice, she
fell to Charley's share. All this Kit Badcock (who was mad, according
to our measures) had discovered, and treasured up; and now was his
revenge-time.

He had come into the conflict without a weapon of any kind; only begging
me to let him be in the very thick of it. For him, he said, life was no
matter, after the loss of his wife and child; but death was matter to
him, and he meant to make the most of it. Such a face I never saw, and
never hope to see again, as when poor Kit Badcock spied Charley coming
towards us.

We had thought this man a patient fool, a philosopher of a little sort,
or one who could feel nothing. And his quiet manner of going about, and
the gentleness of his answers (when some brutes asked him where his wife
was, and whether his baby had been well-trussed), these had misled us
to think that the man would turn the mild cheek to everything. But I, in
the loneliness of our barn, had listened, and had wept with him.

Therefore was I not surprised, so much as all the rest of us, when, in
the foremost of red light, Kit went up to Charleworth Doone, as if to
some inheritance; and took his seisin of right upon him, being himself a
powerful man; and begged a word aside with him. What they said aside, I
kno