converted into flags floating over the heads of magnanimous heroes that rushed to revenge they knew not what, in deadly battle with they knew not whom. The stalls and barrows were upset; and the pears, apples, oranges, mutton-pies, and masses of gingerbread, flew like missiles of fate in all directions. The _sanctum sanctorum_ of the ale was broken into, and the guardians of the Hesperian liquor were put to ignominious rout. Hats and wigs were hurled into the air, never to return to the heads from which they had suffered violent divorce. The collision of sticks, the ringing of empty ale-casks, the shrieks of women, and the vociferations of combatants, mingled in one deepening and indescribable tumult; till at length, everything else being levelled with the heath, they turned the mingled torrent of their wrath on the cottage of Mr. Corporate, to which they triumphantly set fire, and danced round the blaze like a rabble of village boys round the effigy of the immortal Guy. In a few minutes the ancient and honourable borough of Onevote was reduced to ashes; but we have the satisfaction to state that it was rebuilt a few days afterwards, at the joint expense of its two representatives, and His Grace the Duke of Rottenburgh. [Illustration: _Began to lay about him with great vigour and effect._] CHAPTER XXIII THE COUNCIL OF WAR The compassionate reader will perhaps sympathise in our anxiety to take one peep at Lord Anophel Achthar and the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, whom we left perched on the summit of the rock where Sir Oran had placed them, looking at each other as ruefully as Hudibras and Ralpho in their ‘wooden bastile,’ and falling by degrees into as knotty an argument, the _quaeritur_ of which was, how to descend from their elevation—an exploit which to them seemed replete with danger and difficulty. Lord Anophel, having, for the first time in his life, been made acquainted with the salutary effects of manual discipline, sate boiling with wrath and revenge; while the Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub, who in his youthful days had been beaten black and blue in the capacity of _fag_ (a practice which reflects so much honour on our public seminaries), bore the infliction with more humility. _Lord Anophel Achthar_ (_rubbing his shoulder_). This is all your doing, Grovelgrub—all your fault, curse me! _The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Oh, my Lord! my intention was good, though the catastrophe is ill. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. _Lord Anophel Achthar._ But the battle was to the strong in this instance, Grovelgrub, curse me! though from the speed with which you began to run off on the first alarm, it was no fault of yours that the race was not to the swift.