Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/106

Rh deadly and stern ; for our grosser parts cannot be godlike. I know I held my breath at times, and almost expected that the brothers would drop down lifeless at once; and Henry Sandilands himself, the instigater of the whole, proposed separating them; and yet he knew by this time it would be a measure fraught with danger.

At length the Dangerfields came to the ground so entwined together, their limbs encircling the lightsome ball, for the possession of which each struggled, that for some time they lay panting like coiled creatures, and almost bereft of breath. We gathered around them, and looked on next to awe-struck.

When they began to recover their strength, and were able to give utterance to their intentions, they in broken sentences mutually proposed and agreed to separate once more, twelve paces distant; to have the foot-ball placed in the very centre of the interval, and at Henry Sandilands' word to start for a renewal of the trial. All was done as indicated. Like two roes the rivals bounded to the critical spot. Each had so precisely calculated the distance, the scope of his stride, and the most advantageous application of the right foot, that when they met the opposing blows, like those of two hammers of equal weight, wielded with equal strength, and striking at the same instant of time upon an inferior angle of some intervening body, made the ball whirl perpendicularly in the air, the players upon something like the same resisting principle once more falling together upon the ground, from which they were unable to rise before the foot-ball had been cut to pieces, and the doctrine of brother twinship pronounced perfect,-the equality miraculous.

But the day's work was not finished: who was to call Henry Sandilands to an account ? In truth, it began to appear that the fiat of the foot-ball would have again to be appealed to. However, this reference was avoided by "Pugnacity's self" admitting that there were none such as the Dangerfields, and that though he owned himself to have been wrong, in past times with regard to them, he would now fight any one who might dare to say they were not the champions of the school.

It was not long after the occurrence of the events now described, when the Dangerfields were visited by their parents. Their father had been in the army, had a patrimonial estate, consisting of two considerable farms, and on retiring, after doffing the soldier's uniform, had married his first love. They were, at the time I speak of, a handsome and exceedingly inte-