est where the redbreasts covered
the unfortunate babes over with leaves when they laid down and died.
But it was of no use to be disappointed; they must wait till another
day, and, therefore, they went into the field to play cricket till
dinner-time.

Cricket is a capital game: it looks well to see light, active figures
chasing the ball when the batsman has thrown all his power into the leg
hit, and sent the ball bounding and skimming far away beyond the farther
fielder; then backwards and forwards run the men at the wickets, while
the onlookers cheer and shout at the bowler's prowess, as he stops the
thrown-up ball, and hurls it at the wicket-keeper, who, with apparently
one motion for catching and knocking off the bailes, puts the hard
hitter out.

Ah, it's a noble game, is cricket! it puts muscle on young bones,
sharpness in young eyes, tone in constitution, and a readiness to meet
difficulties and to parry them. Health, that rosy-cheeked goddess,
seems to have chosen the game for her own, and to love to place the
reflection of her own cheeks upon those of the players, and to make them
ruddy brown as well. But, somehow or other, cricket grows to be rather
dull and tedious when the players are idle and will not work.
Everything, if it is worth doing at all, is worth doing well: the heart
must be in it, and it must be done, as the sailors say, "with a will."
When you go to play cricket, it must not happen that you have your mind
out in Beechy Wood seeking for woodpeckers' nests; or else it will be
something the same with you as it was with our lads on that bright July
day, when things would keep going wrong. Harry would bowl too swiftly,
and send the ball right past the wicket ever so far, for Philip to fetch
back; and then, again, Philip would hit so savagely, and make Fred run
so far after the rolling ball, which in its turn was obstinate, and
would keep creeping amongst the long grass, and getting lost; or amongst
the stinging-nettles, where Fred, who did not know their qualities, was
stung, and had to be rubbed with dock leaves, when they could find any,
which, either from idleness or their unrule-like absence, was not for
some time. Then Harry sent the bailes flying with a vicious ball as
soon as Fred went in for his innings, and so they were lost, and had to
be found; and soon after, while Harry was in, Fred threw the ball up so
sharply, that Phil, in catching, missed it, and received a blow in the
stomach