Wilkins, The autobiography of an English gamekeeper (1892)

(p. 235) I had my sword, which I have before mentioned that I bought off old Dick, hanging by my side. I uncocked the single-barrelled gun, and thought I would keep it and throw away my sword, but, on second thoughts, I threw away the gun and kept the sword, for I knew what I could do with the latter.

I had practised single-stick in Wiltshire, and that very night, before leaving home, I had shown Hutley and Joslin what I could do with my weapon. I noticed them smile as I buckled it on, so I drew it, and remarked that it was a very handy thing to carry. I placed the candle on the table. “Now,” said I, ” I’ll snuff that candle backwards and forwards, and then split the wick down the middle, with my sword.” This I did, and they then ceased to smile.

Well, I stepped back into the field for a run (p.236) up the hedge, which was from eight to nine feet high. I called out to Joslin to let go his two men and follow me. This he did, shouting to me, valiantly and lustily, to ‘Go on.’. I went pelting up the bank, he close at my heels, and caught a blow on my left temple, which knocked me backwards into his arms. He caught me round the waist, and, being a very strong man, held me over his head with great ease, as a shield against the two poachers above, who then used their sticks on my body, right and left,

Duckey bolted, as I thought he would, and, on seeing this, Joslin threw me down on my face; and next morning you could see the prints of my hands, fingers, and teeth on the ground where I had fallen. Away goes Joslin about twelve ur fifteen yards behind Duckey, and the latter, thinking he was being chased, and finding his pursuer gaining on him, fell flat on the ground, and so Joslin flew past him.

” When Joslin threw me on the ground the two poachers kept me there with their knobbed sticks, thump, thump, like two blacksmiths at (p. 237) the anvil. I frequently endeavoured to rise, and was knocked down again and again, but at last I managed to stagger to my feet, holding my gun, and with this I struck a smart jumping blow at one of the men. He bobbed his head and put up his hand to save himself, and the gun struck him on the thumb-nail, cutting it nearly off. This did not, however, stop the blow, for the gun-barrel struck the ground at our feet, breaking short off at the stock, and causing me to fall forward on my hands and knees. Then it was thump, thump, thump on my head again; more anvil business. I had a tough job to get on my feet again, but I managed to at last, having the butt of the gun left to defend myself with.

Now ensued a sharper fight than before. I warded off a good many blows, not only with the butt end of the gun but also with my left arm, so that after a time the latter got numbed, and I knew that one of the bones was broken, which turned out afterwards to be the case. I used the stump of the gun so quickly from right to left that I warded off (p. 238) five blows out of six, so that they struck the butt and my left arm four or five times to one blow on my head. Hutley told my master afterwards that I received enough blows on my head to kill a horse, but he was mistaken ; he said that the blows sounded like a man threshing on a barn floor, but that was when the gun, and not my head, was struck.

Hutley stuck true to his three men, Jones, Boys, and the man whom we did not then know, but who afterwards turned out to be one George Newman. Hutley did all that could be expected of him, and, had Joslin done as well, we might have got through all right without my being left in the ditch for dead. I kept on defending myself as well as I could, until a heavy blow on the head knocked me over the hedge and into the ditch, insensible.

Big Joslin had run away fifty yards, to the gate where the hare was caught, and where I had collared a man with my left hand whilst I shot the dog with my right. He told me afterwards that he stood there, resting his elbow (p. 239) on the gate, with his head to his hand, or his hand to his head, watching me fighting, till he saw me fall over the hedge, into the ditch.

Then he bolted, and the two men with whom I had been fighting, seeing him run away, chased him and drove him up into Bury Lodge Road. There they threw their sticks at him, striking him in the back as he was running away, and that was all the blows that Joslin got.

Wilkin, John (1892). The autobiography of an English gamekeeper. Ed. by A.H. Byng and S.M. Stephens. Available online via Google Books. pp. 235-239.