“Who hit Maginnis?” cried he in Gaelic; and even the Maginnises roared with laughter. Nay, grim Horsa, too, was observed to smile; for he knew their language well, having learned it during his many incursions into Gaul. But, just at this moment, Hengist riding up, and seeing our men seated on the ground, and laughing, as though at a show, flew into a rage; for, like his maternal uncle, Ariovistus, he was of an ungovernable temper; and asked his brother Horsa what in the Walhalla he meant. “Do you call this business?” added he,—for he was an Anglo-Saxon. “I am giving them time to knock out each other’s brains,” replied Horsa, in his slow-spoken way. “Then will you wait till doomsday,” replied the humorous monarch; and galloping back to his lines, well pleased with his sally, he ordered an immediate advance upon the pictured Macgregors in his front. We charged too. (I have read the account so often that I cannot help thinking I was there.) And it was then that Horsa discovered the meaning of a reddish line along the top of the wall in his front. Observing no signs of missile weapons among the enemy, he had flattered himself that he would easily have the mastery over them, with his terrible battle-axes against their shillalehs. But when we got within thirty feet of them (not before) they stooped as one man and rose again. An instant more and we thought that Thor was raining his thunder-bolts upon our shields. Our men went down by hundreds. A reddish mist filled the air. ’Twas brick-dust! With such prodigious force did they hurl their national weapon (shamrock is the pretty name of it in the Gael) against our shields, that, where it did not go through, it was reduced to powder. We stood a long while, stunned, blinded, bewildered; suffering heavily, doing nothing in reply. At last there was a slight lull in the storm of missiles; for as they had each brought over but a peck of ammunition, in their corduroys, the more impetuous among them were beginning to run short; and it was then that our sturdy ancestor showed the stuff he was made of. Assuming command (for Horsa, with Alfred Hvaecere by his side, lay insensible upon the grass), “Men,” cried he, “why do we stand here? Remember Quintilius Varus and his legions! To your axes! to your axes!” And the whole line staggered forward, with Ethelbert well in front and bearing down upon Maginnis. (The same,—though his mother would scarcely have known him, with that blue-black bulge in his forehead.) And it is mainly from an observation that Maginnis made at this juncture that I am inclined to give in my adhesion to the hypothesis of the later historians, who claim that these men were not Scots. “Erin go bragh!” cried the undaunted chieftain, reaching down into his trousers for a reserve brick,—an heirloom,—black, glistening, hard as flint, mother of wakes—