The Snowball bicker owns an armistice—and Kit North—that is, we of the olden and the golden time—advance into the debatable ground between the two armies, with a frozen branch in our hand as a flag of truce. The Mad Dominie loved us, because then-a-days—bating and barring the cock and the squint of his eye—we were like himself a poet, and while a goose might continue standing on one leg, could have composed one jolly act of a tragedy, or book of an epic, while Bob—God bless him!—to guard us from scathe would have risked his life against a whole craal of tinkers. With open arms they come forward to receive us; but our blood is up—and we are jealous of the honour of the School, which has received a stain which must be wiped out in blood. From what mixed motives act boys and men in the deeds deemed most heroic, and worthy of the meed of everlasting fame! Even so is it now with us—when sternly eyeing the other Six, and then respectfully the Mad Dominie, we challenge—not at long bowls—but toe to toe, at the scratch on the snow, with the naked mawlies, the brawny boy with the red shock-head, the villain with the carrots, who, by moonlight nights,
"Round the stacks with the lasses at bogles to play,"
had dared to stand between us and the ladye of our love. Off fly our jackets and stocks—it is not a day for buff—and at it like bull-dogs. Twice before had we fought him—at our own option—over the bonnet; for 'twas a sturdy villain, and famous for the cross-buttock. But now, after the first close, in which we lose the fall—with straight right-handers we keep him at off-fighting—and that was a gush of blood from his smeller. "How do you like that, Ben?" Giving his head, with a mad rush, he makes a plunge with his heavy left—for he was ker-handed—at our stomach. But a dip of our right elbow caught the blow, to the loud admiration of Bob Howie—and even the Mad Dominie, the umpire, could not choose but smile. Like lightning, our left returns between the ogles—and Ben bites the snow. Three cheers from the School—and, lifted on the knee of his second, James Maxwell Wallace, since signalised at Waterloo, and now a knighted colonel of horse, "he grins horribly a ghastly smile," and is brought up staggering to the scratch. We know that we have him—and ask considerately, "what he means by winking?" And now we play around him,
"Just like unto a trundling mop,
Or a wild-goose at play."
He is brought down now to our own weight—then nine stone jimp—his eyes are getting momently more and more pig-like—water-logged, like those of Queen Bleary, whose stone image lies in the echoing aisle of the old Abbey Church of Paisley—and bat-blind, he hits past our head and body, like an awkward hand at the flail, when drunk, thrashing corn. Another hit on the smeller, and a stinger on the throat-apple—and down he sinks like a poppy—deaf to the call of "time"—and victory smiles upon us from the bright blue skies. "Hurra—hurra—hurra! Christopher for ever!" and perched aloft, astride on the shoulders of Bob Howie—he, the Invincible, gallops with us all over the field, followed by the shouting School, exulting that Ben the Bully has at last met with an overthrow. We exact an oath that he will never again meddle with Meg Whitelaw—shake hands cordially, and
"Off to some other game we all together flew."
And so ended the famous Snowball Bicker of Pedmount, now immortalised in our Prose-Poem.
Some men, it is sarcastically said, are boys all life-long, and carry with them their puerility to the grave. 'Twould be well for the world were there in it more such men. By way of proving their manhood, we have heard grown-up people abuse their own boyhood—forgetting what our great Philosophical Poet—after Milton and Dryden—has told them, that
"The boy is father of the man,"
and thus libelling the author of their existence. A poor boy indeed must he have been, who submitted to misery when the sun was new in heaven. Did he hate or despise the flowers around his feet, congratulating him on being young like themselves? the stars, young always, though Heaven only knows how many million years old, every night sparkling in happiness which they manifestly wished him to share? Did he indeed in his heart believe that the moon, in spite of her shining midnight face, was made of green cheese? Not only are the foundations dug and laid in boyhood, of all the knowledge and the feelings of our prime, but the ground-flat too built, and often the second story of the entire superstructure, from the windows of which, the soul looking out, beholds nature in her state, and leaps down, unafraid of a fall on the green or white bosom of earth, to join with hymns the front of the procession. The soul afterwards perfects her palace—building up tier after tier of all imaginable orders of architecture—till the shadowy roof, gleaming with golden cupolas, like the cloud-region of the setting sun, set the heavens ablaze.