ominie! like Hector issuing from the
gates of Troy, and driving back the Greeks to their ships; or
rather--hear, spirit of Homer!--like some great, shaggy, outlandish
wolf-dog, that hath swum ashore from some strange wreck, and, after a
fortnight's famine on the bare sea-cliffs, been driven by the hunger
that gnaws his stomach like a cancer, and the thirst-fever that can only
be slaked in blood, to venture prowling for prey up the vale, till,
snuffing the scent of a flock of sheep, after some grim tiger-like
creeping on his belly, he springs at last, with huge long spangs, on the
woolly people, with bull-like growlings quailing their poor harmless
hearts, and then fast throttling them, one after another--till, as it
might seem rather in wantonness of rage than in empty pangs, he lies
down at last in the midst of all the murdered carcasses, licking the
blood off his flews and paws--and then, looking and listening round with
his red turbid eyes, and sharp-pointed ears savagely erect, conscious of
crime and fearful of punishment, soon as he sees and hears that all the
coast is clear and still, again gloatingly fastens his tusks behind the
ears, and then eats into the kidneys of the fattest of the flock, till,
sated with gore and tallow, he sneaks stealthily into the wood, and
coiling himself up all his wiry length--now no longer lank, but swollen
and knotted like that of a deer-devouring snake--he falls suddenly
asleep, and re-banquets in a dream of murder.

That simile was conceived in the spirit of Dan Homer, but delivered in
that of Kit North. No matter. Like two such wolf-dogs are now Bob Howie
and the Mad Dominie--and the School like such silly sheep. Those other
hell-dogs are leaping in the rear--and to the eyes of fear and flight
each one of the Six seems more many-headed than Cerberus, while their
mouths kindle the frosty air into fire, and thunder-bolts pursue the
pell-mell of the panic.

Such and so imaginative is not only mental but corporeal fear. What
though it be but a Snowball bicker! The air is darkened--no, brightened
by the balls, as in many a curve they describe their airy flight--some
hard as stones--some soft as slush--some blae and drippy in the cold-hot
hand that launches them on the flying foe, and these are the
teazers--some almost transparent in the cerulean sky, and broken ere
they reach their aim, abortive "armamentaria coeli"--and some useless
from the first, and felt, as they leave the palm,