CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



combat the strongest and most unhappy man in the 

 whole country — stripped to the bufF; and there he 

 stands, with 



" Jw eye like Mars^ to threaten and command i^ 



shoulders like Atlas — breast like Hercules — and arms 

 like Vulcan. The heart of Benjamin the waggoner dies 

 within him — he accepts the challenge for a future day 

 — and retreating backwards to his clothes, receives a 

 right-hander as from a sledge-hammer on the temple, 

 that fells him like an ox. The other carters all close 

 in, but are sent spinning in all directions as from the 

 sails of a windmill. Ever as each successive lout seeks 

 the earth, we savage schoolboys rush in upon him in 

 twos, and threes, and fours, basting and battering him 

 as he bawls; at this very crisis — so fate ordained — 

 are seen hurrying down the hill from the south, leav- 

 ing their wives, sweethearts, and asses in the rear, 

 with coal-black hair and sparkling eyes, brown brawny 

 legs, and clenched iron fists at the end of long arms, 

 swinging flail -like at all times, and never more than 

 now, ready for the fray, a gang of Gipsies! while ^ 

 beautiful coincidence! — up the hill from the north 

 come on, at double-quick time, an awkward squad of 

 as grim Milesians as ever buried a pike in a Protes- 

 tant. Nor question nor reply; but in a moment a 

 general melee. Men at work in the hay-fields, who 

 [80] 



