, zealously encouraged by their
friends. Sawney's wife telling him, that if he did not soften that
lump of goat's flesh, she would give him a lesson herself how to fist
a man.

It was curious to observe how differently these people were affected,
when a violent struggle was about to take place. The most of the
younkers, particularly the females, got upon the window-ledge tables,
and forms, but most of the veterans in vice never moved out of their
seats.

The sole garments of the Scot consisted of a loose, ragged great coat,
and a pair of trousers of equal value. Wheeling himself round for
the combat, in a kind of bravo style, his cumbrous coat dropped off
his shoulders, with as much ease as if it had been the cloak of a
Spanish duellist, and presented a frame formed for the ring. Rather
under-sized, light limbed, broad chested, and strong armed, all sinew
and bone, with a step as light as an Indian, and an eye as fierce as a
Mohawk.

After a little play with their fists, by the way of feeling how each
other stood, and an exchange or two of favours, the Scot sent in a
straight right-handed hit on the throat, with as much force as if the
whole weight and strength of his body had been concentrated in the
blow. His man was prostrate head foremost under the bars. Taffy's lump
of a body was picked up, for his soul seemed as if it had taken its
flight to Davy Jones. It was all over, and Joe, the "o'er the border
man," was cheered with deafening acclamations, whoops, and yells.

Harlequin, who ought to have been christened Hercules, from his
Atlas-like shoulders, was now standing in the middle of the floor,
like a surly boar roused from his lair, by the seat he had been
sleeping upon being overturned, and, catching instinctively, as it
were, that fights were going on, longed for some object on whom he
could soothe his disturbed blood. He had flung his jacket over his
arm, and, like a true bully, was striking his naked breast with his
fist, and daring in his own low, disgusting slang, the best man in the
room to turn out.

The place, at this moment, bore no bad resemblance to the infernal
regions. The tables, forms, and windows were crowded, and drunkenness,
ruffianism, and profligacy, were revelling in all the demoniac
delights of mischief. Shouts, roars, and yells, shook the house, for
the Scot to accept the challenge. Ben's voice in the din, was like a
mite in the universe.

Sawney had just moved a step, to take the