When at length upon the road again, the bruised youth resolved to follow
a cattle-track "across lots," for the greater space in which to exercise
with his Indian club as he walked. Like any other novice in the
practice, he could not divest his mind of the impression, that the
frightful thumps he continually received, in twirling the merciless
thing around and behind his devoted head, were due to some kind of
crowding influence from the boundaries on either side the way, and it
was to gain relief from such damaging contraction of area that he left
the highway for the wider wintry fields. Going onward in these latter at
an irregular pace; sometimes momentarily stunned into a rangy stagger by
a sounding blow on the cerebrum or the cerebellum; and, again, irritated
almost to a run by contusion of shoulder-blade or funny-bone; he finally
became aware that two men were following him through the lots, and that
with a closeness of attention indicating more than common interest. To
the perception of his keenly sensitive Southern nature they at once
became ribald Yankee vandals, hoping for unseemly amusement from the
detection of some awkwardness in the Indian-club-play of a defeated but
not conquered Southern Gentleman; and, in the haughty sectional pride of
his contemptuous soul, he indignantly determined to show not the least
consciousness of their disrespectful observation. Twirling the club
around and around his battered head with increasing velocity, he smiled
scornfully to himself, nor deigned a single backward glance at the one
of his two followers who approached more rapidly than the other. He
heard the hindermost say to the foremost, "Leave him alone, I tell you,
and he'll knock himself down in a minute," and, in a passionately
reckless effort of sheer bravado to catch the club from one hand with
the other while it yet circled swiftly over his skull, he accidentally
brought the ungovernable weapon into tremendous contact with the top of
his head, and dashed himself violently to the earth.