hould there be
fledged or puddock-haired young ones among the wool, whirling with
guttural cawings down a hundred feet descent, on the hard rooty ground
floor from which springs pine, oak, or ash, driven out is the life, with
a squelsh and a squash, from the worthless carrion. At swimming we
should not boggle to back him for the trifle of a cool hundred against
the best survivor among those water-serpents, Mr Turner, Dr Bedale,
Lieutenant Ekenhead, Lord Byron, Leander, and Ourselves--while, with the
steel shiners on his soles, into what a set of ninnies in their ring
would he not reduce the Edinburgh Skating Club?

Saw ye ever a Snowball Bicker? Never! Then look there with all the eyes
in your head--only beware of a bash on the bridge of your nose, a bash
that shall dye the snow with your virgin blood. The Poet-pedagogue,
_alias_ the Mad Dominie, with Bob Howie as his Second in Command, has
chosen the Six stoutest striplings for his troop, and, at the head of
that Sacred Band, offers battle to Us at the head of the whole School.
Nor does that formidable force decline the combat. War levels all
foolish distinctions of scholarship. Booby is Dux now, and Dux
Booby--and the obscure dunce is changed into an illustrious hero.

"The combat deepens--on, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave!
Wave, Nitton, all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy schoolery!"

Down from the mount on which it had been drawn up in battle array, in
solid square comes the School army, with shouts that might waken the
dead, and inspire with the breath of life the nostrils of the great
Snow-giant built up at the end of yonder avenue, and indurated by last
night's frost. But there lies a fresh fall--and a better day for a
bicker never rose flakily from the yellow East. Far out of distance, and
prodigal of powder lying three feet deep on the flats, and heaped up in
drifts to tree and chimney-top, the tirailleurs, flung out in front,
commence the conflict by a shower of balls that, from the bosom of the
yet untrodden snow between the two battles, makes spin like spray the
shining surface. Then falling back on the main body, they find their
places in the front rank, and the whole mottled mass, grey, blue, and
scarlet, moves onwards o'er the whiteness, a moment ere they close,

"Calm as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm!"

"Let fly," cries a clear voice--and the snowball storm hurtles through
the sky. Just then the va