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12 finding now that I had foughten three-score fights already, he came up to me woefully, in the quickness of my breathing, while I sat on the knee of my second, with a piece of spongious coralline to ease me of my bloodshed, and he says in my ears, as if he was clapping spurs into a horse —

"Never thee knack under, Jan, or never coom naigh Hexmoor no more."

With that it was all up with me. A simmering buzzed in my heavy brain, and a light came through my eye-places. At once I set both fists again, and my heart stuck to me like cobbler's wax. Either Robin Snell should kill me, or I would conquer Robin Snell. So I went in again, with my courage up; and Bob came smiling for victory, and I hated him for smiling. He let at me with his left hand, and I gave him my right between his eyes, and he blinked, and was not pleased with it. I feared him not, and spared him not, neither spared myself. My breath came again, and my heart stood cool, and my eyes struck fire no longer. Only 1 knew that I would die, sooner than shame my birth-place. How the rest of it was I know not; only that I had the end of it, and helped to put Robin in bed.