A VIOLENT DEER-STEALER 229 



went at the one who was most notorious, and of whom many of 

 the keepers stood in great dread, a much bigger man than him- 

 self, and Toomer pursued the other. Hall was armed with a 

 stick and loaded pistol, and soon came up with his man, who 

 turned round with the barrel of his gun and commenced a furious 

 attack. At it they went, up and down ; in the fight Hall was 

 disarmed of his stick, and in the inky darkness under the trees, 

 near the road from Brockenham to Lyndhurst, it flew from his 

 hand he knew not whither. His head was then laid open in 

 several places, and he could scarcely see for blood ; he had been 

 kicked too in the body most severely, and the murderous attack 

 of his assailant still continued. Had Hall fired he would have 

 been fully justified, for it would have been in defence of his life ; 

 but the brave fellow abstained, and closing with his man he used 

 the pistol only as a weapon to strike with, and with it he frac- 

 tured the deer-stealer's under-jaw, knocked out a number of his 

 teeth, and got him down. The man then surrendered, praying 

 Hall not to strike him any more. Hall knelt on him, and as he 

 had surrendered, refrained from further punishment, when, at 

 that moment, the returning footsteps of Toomer were heard, 

 who had received a blow on his head, which he said had stunned 

 him, but without a prisoner, the other fellow having escaped ; 

 and when Hall's surrendered antagonist heard the footsteps, he 

 took them for those of his companion, and calling out to him to 

 hasten to his assistance " to kill Hall," he suddenly freed him- 

 self from the nearly fainting antagonist who had hold of him, 

 and assaulted him as savagely as before, but luckily in vain. 

 Hall knocked him down again, and, angry at this recommence- 

 ment of hostilities after he had surrendered, was administering 

 to the villain some severe punishment when Toomer and a 

 brother of HalPs came up and begged him to desist. The deer- 

 stealer was sent to the hulks, but what reward had Joseph Hall ? 

 None ; and though he was six weeks in the doctors care, and 

 for a year or more spit blood from the kicks he received, and, in 

 short, very nearly lost his life in doing his duty, he was left to 

 defray the medical expenses he had incurred. There are keepers 



