ractice over the downs before the twilight made the
balls invisible. And afterwards came Teutonic revelry or wanderings
under the summer starlight, as the mood might take him. For there was a
vein of silent poetry in the youth of this man.

He hates your modern billiard-table pitch, and a batting of dexterous
snickery. He likes "character" in a game, gigantic hitting forward,
bowler-planned leg catches, a cunning obliquity in a wicket that would
send the balls mysteriously askew. But dramatic breaks are now a thing
unknown in trade cricket. One legend of his I doubt; he avers that once
at Brighton, in a match between Surrey and Sussex, he saw seven wickets
bowled by some such aid in two successive overs. I have never been able
to verify this. I believe that, as a matter of fact, the thing has never
occurred, but he tells it often in a fine crescendo of surprise, and the
refrain, "Out HE came." His first beginning is a cheerful
anecdote of a crew of "young gentlemen" from Cambridge staying at the
big house, and a challenge to the rustic talent of "me and Billy Hall,"
who "played a bit at that time," "of me and Billy Hall" winning the
pitch and going in first, of a memorable if uncivil stand at the wickets
through a long hot afternoon, and a number of young gentlemen from
Cambridge painfully discovering local talent by exhaustive fielding in
the park, a duty they honourably discharged.

I am fond of my old cricketer, in spite of a certain mendacious and
malign element in him. His yarns of gallant stands and unexpected turns
of fortune, of memorable hits and eccentric umpiring, albeit tending
sometimes incredibly to his glory, are full of the flavour of days well
spent, of bright mornings of play, sunlit sprawlings beside the score
tent, warmth, the flavour of bitten grass stems, and the odour of
crushed turf. One seems to hear the clapping hands of village ancients,
and their ululations of delight. One thinks of stone jars with cool
drink swishing therein, of shouting victories and memorable defeats, of
eleven men in a drag, and tuneful and altogether glorious home-comings
by the light of the moon. His were the Olympian days of the sport, when
noble squires were its patrons, and every village a home and nursery of
stalwart cricketers, before the epoch of special trains, gate-money,
star elevens, and the tumultuous gathering of idle cads to jabber at a
game they cannot play.

CONCERNING A CERTAIN LADY

This lad