His brows, slightly lined upward at the temples, converging to a knot about the well-set straight nose; his full grey eyes, open nostrils, and planted feet, and a gentlemanly air of calm and alertness, formed a spirited picture of a young combatant.
As for Ripton, he was all abroad, and fought in school-boy style--that is, he rushed at the foe head foremost, and struck like a windmill.

He was a lumpy boy.

When he did hit, he made himself felt; but he was at the mercy of science.

To see him come dashing in, blinking and puffing and whirling his arms abroad while the felling blow went straight between them, you perceived that he was fighting a fight of desperation, and knew it.

For the dreaded alternative glared him in the face that, if he yielded, he must look like what he had been twenty times calumniously called; and he would die rather than yield, and swing his windmill till he dropped.