“Ere the bat had flown
His cloistered flight: ere to black Hecate’s summons
The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums,
Had rung night’s yawning peal, there would be done
A deed of dreadful note.”
Two planets keep not their motion in one sphere, nor could two quarrelsome families move long in a small village, or freely patronize the same groggeries without a collision. Towards evening they met, some mounted and more on foot, and from low jests amongst themselves respecting each other’s lack of prowess upon former occasions, the controversy soon reached the point of positive contradictions. As the “lie direct” is equivalent to a well-developed kick to your average fighting man, hostilities soon commenced.
LIVELY WORK.
The Coates family opened the engagement with a brisk fusilade, and at the first fire the gray-bearded patriarch of the Frost faction went down with all his imperfections on his head.
The firing now became general. “From rank to rank, the volleyed thunder flew.”