and should 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 shall dye the snow in your virgin blood. The poet-pedagogue, alias the Mad Dominie, has chosen the six stoutest striplings for his allies, 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. Lo! how 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, 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 hardened like marble 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 * The capital of Mearns in the West. bosom of the yet untrodden snow between the two battles, makes spin the shining surface like spray. Then falling back on the main body, they find their places in the foremost rank, and the whole mottled mass, gray, 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 valley-mouth blew sleety in the faces of the foe-their eyes, as if darkened with snuff or salt, blinked batlike-and with erring aim flew their feckless return to that shower of frosty fire. Incessant is the silent cannonade of the resistless schoolsilent but when shouts proclaim the fall or flight of some doughty champion in the adverse legion. See-see-the sacred band are broken! The cravens take ignominiously to flight-and the Mad Dominie and Bob Howie alone are left to bear the brunt of battle. A dreadful brotherhood! But the bashing balls are showered upon them right and left from a hundred catapultic arms and the day is going sore against them, though they fight Tess like men than devils. Hurra! the Dominie's down, and Bob staggers. "Guards, up and at them!" "A simultaneous charge of cocks, hens, and earocks!" No sooner said than done. Bob Howie is buried-and the whole school is trampling on its master! "Oh, for a blast of that dread horn, On Fontarabian echoes borne, That to King Charles did come, On Roncesvalles died!" The smothered ban of Bob, and the stifled denunciations of the Dominie, have echoed o'er the hill, and, lo! "Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell," The runaways, shaking the snows of panic from their shoulders, "Like dew-drops from the lion's mane," come rushing to the rescue. Two of the six tremble and turn. The high heroic scorn of their former selves urge the four to renew the charge, and the sound of their feet on the snow is like that of an earthquake. What bashes on bloody noses! What bungings-up of eyes! Of lips what slittings! Red is many a spittle! And as the coughing urchin groans, and claps his hand to his mouth, distained is the snowball that drops unlaunched at his feet! The school are broken-their hearts die within them-and-can we trust our blasted eyes?-the white livers show the white feather, and fly! O shame! O sorrow! O sin! they turn their backs and fly! Disgraced are the mothers that bore them-and "happy in my mind," wives and widows," were ye that died," undoomed to hear the tidings of this wretched overthow! Heavens and earth! sixty are flying before six!—and half of sixty-oh! that we should record it!—are pretending to be dead!! Would indeed that the snow were their winding-sheet, so that it might but hide their dishonour! Lo! the Mad Dominie! 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 a 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 bulllike growlings quailing their poor harmless hearts-and then fast throttling them, one after another-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 his crime, and fearful of punishment-soon as he sees and hears that all the coast is clear and still, again he 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 sullenly asleep, and rebanquets 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. And lo! 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 thunderbolts pursue the pell-mell of the panic. Such and so imaginative is not only mental but corporal fear! What though it be but a snow-bicker! The air, so far from being darkened, is 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 foes, and these are the teasers-some almost transparent to the cerulean sky, and broken ere they reach their aim, abortive "armamentaria cœli"-and some useless from the first, and felt, as they leave the palm, to be fozier than the foziest turnip, and unfit to bash a fly! Far and wide, over hill, bank, and brae, are spread the flying school! Squads of them, and at sore sixes and sevens, are making for the frozen woods. Alas! poor covert now in their naked leaflessness for the stricken deer! Twos and threes, in miserable plight, floundering in drift-wreaths! And here and there-wofullest sight of all-single boys distractedly ettling at the sanctuaries of distant houses-with their heads all the while insanely twisted back over their shoulders, and the glare of their eyes fixed frightfully on the swift-footed Mad Dominie, souse over neck and ears, bubble and squeak, precipitated into traitorous pitfall, and in a moment evanished from this upper world! Disturbed crows fly away a short distance-and alight silent-the magpies chatter pert even in alarm-the lean kine collected on the lown sides of braes, wonder at the rippet-their horns moving-but not their tails-while the tempest-tamed bull-almost dull now as an ox-gives a short sullen growl as he feebly paws the snow. But who is he-the tall slender youth--slender, but sinewy-a wiry chap--seemingly six feet on his stocking. soles and on his stocking-soles he stands-for the snow has sucked his shoes from his feet-that plants himself like an oak sapling, rooted ankle-deep on a knoll, and there, like a juvenile Jupiter Stator, with voice and arm arrests the flight, and fiercely gesticulating vengeance on the insolent foe, recalls and rallies the shattered school, that he may re-lead them to victory? The phantom of a visionary dream! KIT NORth Himself— "In life's morning march when his spirit was young." And once on a day was that figure-ours! Then like a chamois-hunter of the Alps! Now, alas, like "But be hush'd, my dark spirit-for wisdom condemns, When the faint and the feeble deplore; Be strong as a rock of the ocean that stems A thousand wild waves on the shore. Through the perils of chance and the scowl of disdain, Half a century is annihilated as if it had never been-it is as if young Kit had become not old Kit—but were standing now as then front to front-with but a rood of trampled snow between them-before the Mad Dominie and Bob Howie both the bravest of the brave in snow or stonebicker-in street, lane, or muir-fight-hand to hand, or single-pitched with Black King Carey of the Gipsies-or in an irregular high-road row-two to twelve-with a gang of Irish horse-coupers from the fair of Glasgow returning by Portpatrick to Donaghadee. 'Tis a strange thing so distinctly to see one's self as he looked of yoreto lose one's present frail personal identity in that of the powerful past! Or rather to admire one's self as he was, without consciousness of the mean vice of egotism, because |