There was not an Academy boy worth speaking of who was in time for dinner the following day; and several of them brought brothers or cousins to the fray.  By half-past twelve we had crept down the field that was on the other side of our wall, and had hidden ourselves in various corners of a cattle-shed, where a big cart and some sail-cloth and a turnip heap provided us with ambush.  By and by certain familiar whoops and hullohs announced that the enemy was coming.  One or two bigger boys made for the dam (which I confess was a relief to us), but our own particular foes advanced with a rush upon the wall.

“They hevn’t coomed yet, hev they?” we heard the sexton’s son say, as he peeped over at our pond.

“Noa,” was the reply.  “It’s not gone one yet.”

“It’s gone one by t’ church.  I yeard it as we was coming up t’ lane.”

“T’ church clock’s always hafe-an-hour fasst, thee knows.”

“It isn’t!”

“It is.”

“T’ church clock’s t’ one to go by, anyhow,” the sexton’s son maintained.

His friend guffawed aloud.

“And it’s a reight ’un to go by too, my sakes! when thee feyther shifts t’ time back’ards and for’ards every Sunday morning to suit hissen.”

“To suit hissen!  To suit t’ ringers, ye mean!” said the sexton’s son.

“What’s thou to do wi’ t’ ringers?” was the reply, enforced apparently by a punch in the back, and the two lads came cuffing and struggling up the field, much to my alarm, but fortunately they were too busy to notice us.

Meanwhile, the rest had not been idle at the wall.  Jem had climbed on the cart, and peeping through a brick hole he could see that they had with some difficulty disengaged a very heavy stone.  As we were turning our heads to watch the two lads fighting near our hiding-place, we heard the stone strike with a heavy thud upon the rotten ice below, and it was echoed by a groan of satisfaction from above.

("Ready!” I whispered.)

“You’ll break somebody’s nose when it’s frosted in,” cried Bob Furniss, in a tone of sincere gratification.

“Eh, Tim Binder! there’ll be a rare job for thee feyther next spring, fettling up this wall, by t’ time we’ve done wi’ it.”

“Let me come,” we heard Tim say.  “Thou can’t handle a stone.  Let me come.  Th’ ice is as soft as loppered milk, and i’ ten minutes, I’ll fill yon bit they’re so chuff of skating on, as thick wi’ stones as a quarry.”

("Now!” I said.)

Our foes considerably outnumbered us, but I think they were at a disadvantage.  They had worked off a good deal of their steam, and ours was at explosion point.  We took them by surprise and in the rear.  They had had some hard exercise, and we were panting to begin.  As a matter of fact those who could get away ran away.  We caught all we could, and punched and pummelled and rolled them in the snow to our hearts’ content.

Jem never was much of a talker, and I never knew him speak when he was fighting; but three several times on this occasion, I heard him say very stiffly and distinctly (he was on the top of Tim Binder), “I’ll fettle thee!  I’ll fettle thee!  I’ll fettle thee!”