res the whole school to combat. Off fly a dozen
jackets--and a devil's dozen of striplings from twelve past to going
sixteen--firmly wedged together like the Macedonian Phalanx--are yelling
for the fray. There is such another shrieking of women as at the taking
of Troy. But

"The Prince of Mearns stept forth before the crowd,
And, Carter, challenged you to single fight!"

Bob Howie, who never yet feared the face of clay, and had too great a
heart to suffer mere children to combat the strongest and most unhappy
man in the whole country--stripped to the buff; and there he stands,
with

"An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;"

shoulders like Atlas--breast like Hercules--and arms like Vulcan. The
heart of Benjamin the waggoner dies within him--he accepts the challenge
for a future day--and retreating backwards to his clothes, receives a
right-hander as from a sledge-hammer on the temple, that fells him like
an ox. The other carters all close in, but are sent spinning in all
directions as from the sails of a windmill. Ever as each successive lout
seeks the earth, we savage schoolboys rush in upon him in twos, and
threes, and fours, basting and battering him as he bawls; at this very
crisis--so fate ordained--are seen hurrying down the hill from the
south, leaving their wives, sweethearts, and asses in the rear, with
coal-black hair and sparkling eyes, brown brany legs, and clenched iron
fists at the end of long arms, swinging flail-like at all times, and
never more than now, ready for the fray, a gang of Gypsies!
while--beautiful coincidence!--up the hill from the north came on, at
double-quick time, an awkward squad of as grim Milesians as ever buried
a pike in a Protestant. Nor question nor reply; but in a moment a
general melee. Men at work in the hay-fields, who would not leave their
work for a dog-fight, fling down scythe and rake, and over the hedges
into the high-road, a stalwart reinforcement. Weavers leap from their
treddles--doff their blue aprons, and out into the air. The red-cowled
tailor pops his head through a skylight, and next moment is in the
street. The butcher strips his long light-blue linen coat, to engage a
Paddy; and the smith, ready for action--for the huge arms of Burniwind
are always bare--with a hand-ower-hip delivery, makes the head of the
king of the gypsies ring like an anvil. There has been no marshalling of
forces--yet lo! as if formed in two regular lines by the Adjutant