to watch the sport of their youth without tiring their ancient limbs, while small urchins have no need to stray far from the cottage home to learn their first lessons in the game. Boys on their way to school have a chance of witnessing a few overs without going out of the straight path, and tradesmen can look on at the play from their shop doors. At one extremity stands the “King’s Arms,” with the sturdy old oak tree in front of it, past which, and all along the side of the common, runs the London road. Branching off from this at right angles, and forming the northern boundary of the cricket field, is the Sampley road, across which lies the rectory garden, with its three stately elm trees rising close behind the hedge.
Here, on a platform constructed with two wash-tubs reversed and a plank, stood two small boys aged respectively ten and six years, who were watching most intently a cricket match that was in progress. A wicket had just fallen, and a fresh batsman was walking into the field. He was a sturdy, well-built man with a round, red, good-humoured face. He was dressed in the whitest of duck trowsers and a snowy flannel jacket, and wore a shining black silk hat.
“Hi, Margy, look,” cried the elder of the boys, turning round to his nurse, a plump, rosy-cheeked lass. “Here’s Notchy Wood, your sweetheart!”
The girl blushed crimson and gave the boy a slap on the seat of his nankeen breeches, which, as he was probably inured, he did not seem to notice.
“Is he good, Tommy?” inquired the younger boy in an awestruck voice.
“He’s played for the County against all England, you young booby,” exclaimed brother Tommy scornfully. “You know Notchy, don’t you?”
“What, is it the same as him who’s always coming to see Margy?” innocently demanded the six-year-old, who had never beheld a real cricket match before.
“You better mind, Master Frankie,” remarked the red-faced Margy, “or I’ll serve you as I did last night.”
And raising her round arm she flattened out her palm suggestively.
“It’s all right, Margy,” observed Tommy cheerfully. “Daddy said Notchy was a very worthy young man, when I told him about you.”
“Fie! for shame on you, Master Tommy!” cried the angry nursemaid, biting her lip. “Did anyone ever hear on such a tell-tale tit?”
The present match, being a friendly game between two clubs, was a very easy task for the famous Notchy Wood, and he worried the bowlers and fielders for a long time. His hitting was hard and strong, and although he made most of the runs in front of the wicket, a fierce cut occasionally, showing the strength and subtleness of his wrists, would have delighted his admirer Lord Bumper if he had been present. At last, after making forty notches, he was bowled.
“Hi, Margy, look,” cried Tommy a few moments later. “There’s Notchy coming down the road, and waving to you. Just look.”
The girl’s eager eyes had noticed this already, but her position rendered discretion necessary.
“Now, look ye here, Master Tommy and Master Frankie,” Margy remarked solemnly, “Notchy’s no concern of yourn, so mind that, and be good boys. Else I’ll remember it when you’ve got to have another slapping.”
“I won’t say nothing,” replied Tommy diplomatically.
Notchy Wood had now approached close to the hedge of the rectory garden, and was beckoning Margy to come to him.
With a look full of meaning at her young charges, the significance of which was not lost upon them, she skipped off with cheeks ablaze, and hurried to the place where her lover stood. The ground inside the garden dips down suddenly a little farther on where the gate leads into the road, and as the spot is surrounded on all sides by shrubs, and is well screened both from the common and the rectory windows, Notchy and Margy had found it most convenient as a trysting-place. In this spot a few seconds later they came face to face.
“We play our great game against Sampley to-morrow,” Notchy began, his arm still round his sweetheart’s waist after the first greetings were over.
“La, Notchy, it’s all cricket with thee,” answered the buxom Margy with a pout. “You talk ’bout nothing else.”
“Good reason, lass,” returned Notchy, his red, jolly face all over smiles. “My lord Bumper has promised me fifty guineas if Hamble Green wins. He’s backed us heavy. If I get the brass we can be wed as soon as the missus can let you off.”
Just then there was a rustling amongst the bushes, and turning her head Margy saw the mischievous Tommy slinking away, so tearing herself from her sweetheart’s arms she hurried after the young eavesdropper, vowing vengeance against him. As Notchy had to return to the cricket field they did not meet any more that day.
The next morning Hamble Green common
