20. Write down the chorus to each verse of Mr. S. Weller’s song, and a sketch of the mottle-faced man’s excursus on it. Is there any ground for conjecturing that he (Sam) had more brothers than one?
23. “She’s a swelling visibly.” When did the same phenomenon occur again, and what fluid caused the pressure on the body in the latter case?
24. How did Mr. Weller, senior, define the Funds, and what view did he take of Reduced Consols? in what terms is his elastic force described, when he assaulted Mr. Stiggins at the meeting? Write down the name of the meeting?
30. Who, besides Mr. Pickwick, is recorded to have worn gaiters?
In connection with this examination reference may be made to the “Death of Mr. Pickwick,” by Messrs. W. Besant and J. Rice in “The Case of Mr. Lucraft, and other Tales.”
The Battle won by the Wind.
By the author of the “Picnic Papers,” “Barnaby Fudge,” &c.
Night! Night and a thick darkness on the dreaming city. It was o’er all—that pitchy veil—o’er lone deserted streets and broad suburban roads, along which wagons with their great clamped wheels jolt forward to the early market—o’er square and terrace, and stately dome and carved pinnacle—a deep dense obscurity, into which tower and steeple rose and were lost to the eyes of the gazer from below!
Night! black, stormy, dreary night. Driving in long dim lines athwart the starless sky—lashing the sloping roofs of dripping houses—flooding kennel and gutter and choked-up drain—pattering like a loud chorus of rolling spectre drums at rattling windows and on streaming sky-lights—down—in one steady, uninterrupted, continuous pour—drove the wild storm of lashing hail and rain! A dismal night! A night for the well-housed to snoozle themselves up beneath the bed-clothes, and listen all crouchingly to the roaring of the tempest! A night for the homeless pauper to lie down on the lee side of hedge and stack—and stretching his stiffening limbs in the icy sludge, wait patiently until Death came by and touched him with its sceptre!
Night—a dreary, dismal, rainy, windy night! A night of unchained gale and unbridled hurricane! How the fierce wind roared, to be sure! How it roared in its wrath, and muttered in its sulkiness, and sung in its glee, and howled and shrieked and whistled and raved in the full swing of its fury. It was a jubilee—be certain of it—a time of jubilee with the Wind!—a night when it had full license and authority, and power and sanction, to do its best and its worst—by sea and by land—above and below. And did not the fierce wind avail itself of the opportunity? Did it not muster its forces, and its energies, and its powers, far up amongst the dim-driving clouds, preparing for the onset—preparing for its night of empire and of pillage and of mischief? And then, when its time of liberty came, did it not burst out with a roar, and a shout, and a clang, as of victorious trumpets—did it not career all madly over land and sea, beating down the weak and broken corn, and roaring over the stark brown moors, and catching the big leafy limbs of gnarled trees—gnarled old mighty trees which had stood there for centuries—and wrenching them all torn and riven and splintered from the groaning trunks, and then grappling and wrestling with them as strong men fight, until the victorious wind, with a loud shriek of triumph, would drag the huge branch out, and toss it contemptuously away!