et. How the Lord's men were out
by half-past twelve o'clock for ninety-eight runs. How the Captain of
the School eleven went in first to give his men pluck, and scored
twenty-five in beautiful style; how Rugby was only four behind in the
first innings. What a glorious dinner they had in the fourth-form
School, and how the cover-point hitter sang the most topping comic
songs, and old Mr. Aislabie made the best speeches that ever were heard,
afterwards. But I haven't space, that's the fact, and so you must fancy
it all, and carry yourselves on to half-past seven o'clock, when the
School are again in, with five wickets down and only thirty-two runs to
make to win. The Marylebone men played carelessly in their second
innings, but they are working like horses now to save the match.

There is much healthy, hearty, happy life scattered up and down the
close; but the group to which I beg to call your especial attention is
there, on the slope of the island, which looks towards the
cricket-ground. It consists of three figures; two are seated on a bench,
and one on the ground at their feet. The first, a tall, slight, and
rather gaunt man with a bushy eyebrow and a dry humorous smile, is
evidently a clergyman. He is carelessly dressed, and looks rather used
up, which isn't much to be wondered at, seeing that he has just finished
six weeks of examination work; but there he basks, and spreads himself
out in the evening sun, bent on enjoying life, though he doesn't quite
know what to do with his arms and legs. Surely it is our friend the
young master, whom we have had glimpses of before, but his face has
gained a great deal since we last came across him.

[Illustration: THE CONVERSATION DURING THE MATCH. P. 342.]

And by his side, in white flannel shirt and trousers, straw hat, the
captain's belt, and the untanned yellow cricket shoes which all the
eleven wear, sits a stropping figure near six feet high, with ruddy
tanned face and whiskers, curly brown hair and a laughing dancing eye.
He is leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, and dandling
his favourite bat, with which he has made thirty or forty runs to-day,
in his strong brown hands. It is Tom Brown, grown into a young man
nineteen years old, a praepostor and captain of the eleven, spending his
last day as a Rugby boy, and let us hope as much wiser as he is bigger
since we last had the pleasure of coming across him.

And at their feet on the warm dry ground, simi