And though we liked digging for its own sake, we were not unmindful of the possibilities of a good big hole. From its cool depths we could obtain a new aspect of the sky; and, cunningly roofed over with branches and earth, it made a snug retreat for a harassed brigand and a surprising pitfall for the unwary gardener. In smaller cavities we concealed treasure of stones decked with the colours left behind by the painters at the last spring-cleaning, and if we could not wholly convince ourselves of their intrinsic value, they at least bore adequate resemblance to the treasures of Aladdin’s cave, as revealed to us in pantomime. We kept the knowledge of the spots where these treasures were buried a close secret, even from each other, and it was etiquette for the finder of one of these repositories to remove its contents and conceal them elsewhere. The conflict between seeker and finder never languished, and men who rose up millionaires would go to bed paupers.
Like all sincere artists, we did not allow our own efforts to hinder a just appreciation of those of others, and we had the utmost admiration for rabbits, down whose enchanted burrows we would peer longingly, reflecting wisely how fine a home it must be that had so romantic and fascinating an entrance. For us half the charm of “Alice” lay in the natural and sensible means by which she reached her wonderland, though we could never bring ourselves to forgive the author for pretending that his clearly veracious narrative was only a dream. This, we recognised, was an obvious grown-up device for preventing the youthful from slipping away from governesses to wonderlands of their own, and true enough we found rabbit-holes oddly reluctant to admit our small bodies, even though we widened their mouths with our trowels. Looking-glasses, it may be mentioned, proved no less refractory, and at this day, it is said, children find it impossible to emulate the flying feats of “Peter Pan,” though they carefully follow the directions. It is clear that these grown-up authors are not wholly straightforward with their youthful readers, but guard the Olympian interests by concealing some essential part of the ritual in these matters. Sooner or later the children find them out, and expel them from all nurseries, playrooms, gardens, and places where youth and wisdom congregate.
But if we could not tread those long corridors into which the rabbits scuttled so featly on our approach, there was nothing to hinder us from digging a tunnel to fairyland of our own. The grand project formed, all the forces of the garden would unite, and we would dig seriously for an hour or so. At the end of that time somebody’s foot would be hurt by a spade, or some bright spirit would suggest that we should fill the hole with water and call it a lake. Or, perhaps, it would be teatime—at all events, we never got to fairyland at all. Or did we? As we grow old our memories fade, but dimly I seem to remember a garden that was like no garden I have found in grown-up places. It is possible that we did reach fairyland, treading the same road that Alice and Cinderella and Aladdin had trod before us. Perhaps a grown-up writer may be pardoned for forgetting.
REAL CRICKET
I am willing to leave to other and more skilful hands the pleasure of narrating the joys and trials of county cricket, club cricket, and the splendid cricket of country houses and village greens. Not that my task is the more modest, for, having a just regard for relative values, I think that it is of cricket I write, such cricket as small boys play in dreams (ah, me, those sixes that small boys hit in dreams!); such cricket as the ghosts enjoy at nights at Lord’s. It is well for the eye to take pleasure in shining flannels and ivory-white boots; there is a thrill in the science of the game, the swerve of the new red ball, the quick play of the batsmen’s feet; but I think that when good cricketers die it is not to such elaborate sport as this that they betake themselves in the happy playing-fields. To mow the astonished daisies in quick retort to the hardly gentlemanly sneak; to pull like Mr. Jessop because one knows no better; to be bowled by every straight yorker; to slog at full pitches with close-shut eyes; thus and thus only is the cricket of Arcadia.
In its simplest form we played it in the garden after dinner, but even here environment and our imaginations combined to make it complicated. The lawn was small, and there were flower-beds and windows to be considered. The former did not trouble us very much; indeed, we lopped the French lilies with a certain glee, but a broken window was a more serious business, and lofty drives to the off were therefore discouraged. Yet once, I recollect, the ball was sent through the same window three times in an afternoon. Of course, the unfortunate batsman who allowed his enthusiasm thus to outdrive his discretion was out, as also was he who hit the ball into the next garden. But this latter rule was rather conventional than imposed by necessity, for we were fortunate in the possession of a charming neighbour; and sometimes youth, adventuring in search of cricket-balls, would be regaled with seed-cake and still lemonade, and return rampant to his comrades. But the great zest of our games lay in our impersonation of real famous cricketers. We would take two county sides, and divide the rôles of their members amongst us, so that each of us would represent two or three members of each team. The score-sheets of these matches would convey a strange impression to the erudition of the New Zealander. For the greatest cricketers failed to score frequently, and, indeed, inevitably if they happened to be left-handed bats. So far our passion for accuracy carried us, but, like Tom Sawyer, we had to “lay on” that we bowled left-handed when it was in the part, while realistic impersonations of lightning bowlers were too dangerous to the batsman to be permitted.
These great contests did not pass without minor disagreements. The rights of age were by no means waived, and in those days I was firmly convinced that the l.b.w. rule had been invented by the M.C.C. to assist elder brothers in getting their rights. Moreover, there was always high argument over the allocation of the parts of the more popular cricketers. My sister, I remember, would retire wrathfully from the game if she were not allowed to be K. J. Key, and so, when Surrey was playing, we had to permit her to be titular captain. Girls are very keen at cricket, but they are not good at it. Or perhaps in the course of the game “W. G.” would find it necessary to chase Lockwood all over the field for bowling impudently well. Yet while we mimicked our elders we secretly thought Olympian cricket a poor, unimaginative game without any quarrels. It was thrilling to bat for the honour of Mr. Fry, or to make a fine catch in the long field for Mr. Mason’s sake, but our personal idiosyncrasies also had their value.
When we went away for our holidays it was ours to adventure with bat and ball on unaccustomed grounds: meadow cricket was tiresome, for the ball would hide itself in the long grass; and seaside cricket, though exhilarating, was too public a business to be taken really seriously. But cricket in the pinewoods was delightful—almost, I think, the best cricket of all. The soft needles made an admirable pitch, and we had all the trees for fielders. If you hit the ball against a tree full-pitch, you were out, and it was strange how those patient, silent fieldsmen, who never dropped catches, seemed to arrange themselves, as the game progressed, in the conventional places in the field. Point would be there, and mid-off, and some safe men in the slips. Overhead the birds would call in the trees, and there were queer echoes when you hit the ball hard, as though Pan were watching from some dim pavilion and crying his applause. Really I wonder how we dared, or perhaps it were fitter to wonder why we dare no longer.
The oddest cricket I ever played was with a gardener, a reticent, impassive man, who came and played with me when sudden mumps had exiled me from my holiday-making comrades. He would bowl to me silently for hours, only parting his lips now and again to murmur the name of the stump which he proposed to hit with his next ball, and no efforts of mine could prevent his grim prophecies from being fulfilled. When I gave him his innings he would pat my widest and most wily balls back to me politely until he thought I was tired, and then he would let me bowl him. This unequal contest was not cricket as I knew it, but it fascinated me nevertheless. At night in my bed I would hit his bowling all over the world and upset his stumps with monotonous ease. By day I could only serve his humour. The devil was in the man.
The bats with which we played were normal save in size, but the balls varied. In times of prosperity we had real leather cricket-balls, but the balls known as “compos” were more common. When new they had a noble appearance, but use made them rough and like dry earth in the hand, and then they were apt to sting the fingers of the unwary cricketer. The most perilous kind of ball of all was the size of a cricket-ball, but made of solid rubber, and deadly alike to batsman and fieldsman. For some reason or other the proper place in which to carry a cricket-ball was the trousers, or rather knickerbockers, pocket. The curious discomfort of this practice lingers in the mind. Soft balls are of no use in real cricket; but if you bore a hole in them and fill them with water they make very good bombs for practical anarchists.