t racquets in
the Little Yard, tell them that the boys coming home from cricket have
been attacked, and that unless help comes they will be terribly knocked
about."

Evan dashed off at full speed. Dean's Yard was but a few minutes' run
distant. He dashed through the little archway into the yard, down the
side, and then in at another archway into Little Dean's Yard, where some
elder boys were playing at racquets. A fag was picking up the balls, and
two or three others were standing at the top of the steps of the two
boarding-houses.

"If you please, sir," Evan said, running up to one of the
racquet-players, "there is just a row going on; they are all pitching
into the scholars on their way back from Vincent Square, and if you
don't send help they will get it nicely, though they are all fighting
like bricks."

"Here, all of you," the lad he addressed shouted to the others; "our
fellows are attacked by the 'skies' on their way back from fields. Run
up College, James; the fellows from the water have come back." Then he
turned to the boys on the steps, "Bring all the fellows out quick; the
'skies' are attacking us on the way back from the fields. Don't let them
wait a moment."

It was lucky that the boys who had been on the water in the two eights,
the six, and the fours, had returned, or at that hour there would have
been few in the boarding-houses or up College. Ere a minute had elapsed
these, with a few others who had been kept off field and water from
indisposition, or other causes, came pouring out at the summons--a body
some thirty strong, of whom fully half were big boys. They dashed out of
the gate in a body, and made their way to the scene of the conflict.
They were but just in time; the compact group of the boys had been
broken up, and every one now was fighting for himself.

They had made but little progress towards the school since Evan had
started, and the fight was now raging opposite his house. The cripple
was almost crying with excitement and at his own inability to join in
the fight going on. His sympathies were wholly with "the boys," towards
whose side he was attached by the disparity of their numbers compared to
those of their opponents, and by the coolness and resolution with which
they fought.

"Just look at those two, mother--those two fighting back to back. Isn't
it grand! There! there is another one down; that is the fifth I have
counted. Don't they fight cool and steady? and they almost look