Sir Kennington Oval was out,--out at the very first ball. There
could be no doubt about it, and Jack's triumph was complete. It was
melancholy to see the English Minerva, as he again shouldered his
spear and walked back to his tent. In spite of Jack's good play, and
the success on the part of my own countrymen, I could not but be
sorry to think that the young baronet had come half round the world
to be put out at the first ball. There was a cruelty in it,--an
inhospitality,--which, in spite of the exigencies of the game, went
against the grain. Then, when the shouting, and the holloaing, and
the flinging up of the ball were still going on, I remembered that,
after it, he would have his consolation with Eva. And poor Jack,
when his short triumph was over, would have to reflect that, though
fortunate in his cricket, he was unhappy in his love. As this
occurred to me, I looked back towards the house, and there, from a
little lattice window at the end of the verandah, I saw a lady's
handkerchief waving. Could it be that Eva was waving it so as to
comfort her vanquished British lover? In the meantime Minerva went
to his tent, and hid himself among sympathetic friends; and I was
told afterwards that he was allowed half a pint of bitter beer by
Dr MacNuffery.

After twenty minutes spent in what seemed to me the very ostentation
of success, another man was got to the wickets. This was Stumps,
one of the professionals, who was not quite so much like a Minerva,
though he, too, was prodigiously greaved. Jack again set his ball,
snap went the machine, and Stumps wriggled his bat. He touched the
ball, and away it flew behind the wicket. Five republican Minervas
ran after it as fast as their legs could carry them; and I was told
by a gentleman who sat next to me scoring, that a dozen runs had been
made. He spent a great deal of time in explaining how, in the old
times, more than six at a time were never scored. Now all this was
altered. A slight tip counted ever so much more than a good forward
blow, because the ball went behind the wicket. Up flew on all sides
of the ground figures to show that Stumps had made a dozen, and two
British clarionets were blown with a great deal of vigour. Stumps was
a thick-set, solid, solemn-looking man, who had been ridiculed by our
side as being much too old for the game; but he seemed to think very
little of Jack's precise machine. He kept chopping at the ball, which
always went behind, till he h