They had to please, for policemen were at the door to see the house cleared.
Now, if these somewhat wild young men had broken up into little parties of three or four, and each gone its own way, the riot I have to describe would never have taken place.
I must tell you, first, that a very heavy snow-storm had fallen some days before, and that then a partial thaw had come. The streets were cleared in the centre only, the snow being thrown in shovelfuls to the sides near the pavement.
But frost had returned, and those shovelfuls of snow had become frozen into huge bricks of part ice, part snow.
“Well,” cried the Africander, who carried an umbrella like a weaver’s beam, “let us form four deep, and go singing up Union Street, as far as the bridge, then give three cheers and disperse.”
Four deep was formed accordingly, and the march commenced, also “Auld Lang Syne.”
But they had not got farther than Market Street ere the roughs had assembled in force, and commenced a regular cannonade on the students.
“Halt, front!” cried the tall Africander, waving his great umbrella. “Give ’em fits, charge.”
The mob by this time must have been nearly two hundred strong, but so desperate and determined was the charge made by the students, that they were beaten and partially scattered. The Africander, with his great umbrella, was as good as any three men. The others fought chiefly with those huge bricks of ice that I have already mentioned; and no matter where a man was struck with one of these, down he went as if shot.
But the mob was beaten. They made a kind of running fight of it, back as far as the Castle-gate, and now the victorious students would willingly have retired.