Little blew his coals to a white heat: then took his hammer into his left hand, and his little iron shovel¹, a weapon about two feet long, into his right.  
Three assailants crept toward him, and his position was such that two at least could assail² him front and rear. He counted on that, and measured their approach with pale cheek but glittering eye, and thrust his shovel deep into the white coals.
 
They crept nearer and nearer, and, at last, made an almost simultaneous rush on him back and front.
 
The man in the rear was a shade in advance of the other. Little, whose whole soul was in arms, had calculated on this, and turning as they came at him, sent a shovelful³ of fiery⁴ coals into that nearest assailant's face, then stepped swiftly out of the way of the other, who struck at him too immediately for him to parry; ere he could recover the wasted blow, Little's hot shovel came down in his head with tremendous force, and laid him senseless and bleeding on the hearth⁵, with blood running from his ears.
 
Little ladled the coals right and left on the other two assailants, one of whom was already yelling with the pain of the first shovelful; then, vaulting⁶ suddenly over a pew, he ran for the door.
 
There he was encountered by Sam Cole, an accomplished⁷ cudgel-player, who parried his blows coolly, and gave him a severe rap on the head that dazzled him. But he fought on, till he heard footsteps coming behind him, and then rage and despair seized him, he drew back, shifted his hammer into his right hand and hurled⁸ it with all his force at Cole's breast, for he feared to miss his head. Had it struck him on the breast, delivered as it was, it would probably have smashed his breastbone, and killed him; but it struck him on his throat, which was, in some degree, protected by a muffler: it struck him and sent him flying like a feather: he fell on his back in the porch, yards from where he received that prodigious⁹ blow.
 
Henry was bounding out after him, when he was seized from behind, and the next moment another seized him too, and his right hand was now disarmed¹⁰ by throwing away the hammer.
 
He struggled furiously with them, and twice he shook them off, and struck them with his fist, and jobbed them with his shovel quick and short, as a horse kicking.
 
But one was cunning enough to make a feint at his face, and then fell down and lay hold of his knees: he was about to pulverize¹¹ this fellow with one blow of his shovel, when the other flung his arms round him. It became a mere¹² struggle. Such was his fury and his vigor¹³, however, that they could not master him. He played his head like a snake, so that they could not seize him disadvantageously; and at last he dropped his shovel and got them both by the throat, and grasped them so fiercely that their faces were purple, and their eyes beginning to fix, when to his dismay, he received a violent blow on the right arm that nearly broke it: he let go, with a cry of pain, and with his left hand twisted the other man round so quickly, that he received the next blow of Cole's cudgel. Then he dashed his left fist into Cole's eye............