Time passed on, and the practice on the Little Christchurch ground was continued. Several accidents happened, but the cricketers took very little account of these. Jack had his cheek cut open by a ball running off his bat on to his face; and Eva, who saw the accident, was carried fainting into the house. Sir Kennington behaved admirably, and himself brought him home in his curricle. We were told afterwards that this was done at Eva's directions, because old Crasweller would have been uncomfortable with the boy in his house, seeing that he could not in his present circumstances receive me or my wife. Mrs Neverbend swore a solemn oath that Jack should be made to abandon his cricket; but Jack was playing again the next day, with his face strapped up athwart and across with republican black-silk adhesive. When I saw Bobbs at work over him I thought that one side of his face was gone, and that his eye would be dreadfully out of place. "All his chance of marrying Eva is gone," said I to my wife. "The nasty little selfish slut!" said Mrs Neverbend. But at two the next day Jack had been patched up, and nothing could keep him from Little Christchurch. Bobbs was with him the whole morning, and assured his mother that if he could go out and take exercise his eye would be all right. His mother offered to take a walk with him in the city park; but Bobbs declared that violent exercise would be necessary to keep the eye in its right place, and Jack was at Little Christchurch manipulating his steam-bowler in the afternoon. Afterwards Littlebat, one of the English professionals, had his leg broken, and was necessarily laid on one side; and young Grundle was hurt on the lower part of the back, and never showed himself again on the scene of danger. "My life is too precious in the Assembly just at present," he said to me, excusing himself. He alluded to the Fixed Period debate, which he knew would be renewed as soon as the cricketers were gone. I no doubt depended very much on Abraham Grundle, and assented. The match was afterwards carried on with fifteen on each side; for though each party had spare players, they could not agree as to the use of them. Our next man was better than theirs, they said, and they were anxious that we should take our second best, to which our men would not agree. Therefore the game was ultimately played with thirty combatants.
"So one of our lot is to come back for a wife, almost immediately," said Lord Marylebone at our table the day before the match was to be played.
"Oh, indeed, my lord!" said Mrs Neverbend. "I am glad to find that a Britannulan young lady has been so effective. Who is the gentleman?" It was easy to see by my wife's face, and to know by her tone of voice, that she was much disturbed by the news.
"Sir Kennington," said Lord Marylebone. "I supposed you had all heard of it." Of course we had all heard of it; but Lord Marylebone did not know what had been Mrs Neverbend's wishes for her own son.
"We did know that Sir Kennington had been very attentive, but there is no knowing what that means from you foreign gentlemen. It's a pity that poor Eva, who is a good girl in her way, should have her head turned." This came from my wife.
"It's Oval's head that is turned," continued his lordship; "I never saw a man so bowled over in my life. He's awfully in love with her."
"What will his friends say at home?" asked Mrs Neverbend.
"We understand that Miss Crasweller is to have a large fortune; eight or ten thousand a-year at the least. I should imagine that she will be received with open arms by all the Ovals; and as for a foreigner,—we don't call you foreigners."
"Why not?" said I, rather anxious to prove that we were foreigners. "What makes a foreigner but a different allegiance? Do we not call the Americans foreigners?" Great Britain and France had been for years engaged in the great maritime contest with the united fleets of Russia and America, and had only just made that glorious peace by which, as politicians said, all the world was to be governed for the future; and after that, it need not be doubted but that the Americans were foreign to the English;—and if the Americans, why not the Britannulists? We had separated ourselves from Great Britain, without coming to blows indeed; but still our own flag, the Southern Cross, flew as proudly to our gentle breezes as ever had done the Union-jack amidst the inclemency of a British winter. It was the flag of Britannula, with which Great Britain had no concern. At the present moment I was specially anxious to hear a distinguished Englishman like Lord Marylebone acknowledge that we were foreigners. "If we be not foreigners, what are we, my lord?"
"Englishmen, of course," said he. "What else? Don't you talk English?"