Thomas Redworth facing him, bat in hand, she sat up, greatly interested.  Sir Lukin stopped the carriage at the gate, and reminded his wife that it was the day of the year for the men of his estate to encounter a valley Eleven.  Redworth, like the good fellow he was, had come down by appointment in the morning out of London, to fill the number required, Copsley being weak this year.  Eight of their wickets had fallen for a lament able figure of twenty-nine runs; himself clean-bowled the first ball.  But Tom Redworth had got fast hold of his wicket, and already scored fifty to his bat.  ‘There! grand hit!’ Sir Lukin cried, the ball flying hard at the rails.  ’Once a cricketer, always a cricketer, if you’ve legs to fetch the runs.  And Pullen’s not doing badly.  His business is to stick.  We shall mark them a hundred yet.  I do hate a score on our side without the two 00’s.’  He accounted for Redworth’s mixed colours by telling the ladies he had lent him his flannel jacket; which, against black trousers, looked odd but not ill.

Gradually the enthusiasm of the booth and bystanders converted the flying of a leather ball into a subject of honourable excitement.

‘And why are you doing nothing?’ Sir Lukin was asked; and he explained: 

‘My stumps are down:  I’m married.’  He took his wife’s hand prettily.

Diana had a malicious prompting.  She smothered the wasp, and said:  ‘Oh! look at that!’

‘Grand hit again!  Oh! good! good!’ cried Sir Lukin, clapping to it, while the long-hit-off ran spinning his legs into one for an impossible catch; and the batsmen were running and stretching bats, and the ball flying away, flying back, and others after it, and still the batsmen running, till it seemed that the ball had escaped control and was leading the fielders on a coltish innings of its own, defiant of bowlers.

Diana said merrily:  ‘Bravo our side!’

‘Bravo, old Tom Redworth’; rejoined Sir Lukin.  ’Four, and a three!  And capital weather, haven’t we:  Hope we shall have same sort day next month —­return match, my ground.  I’ve seen Tom Redworth score—­old days—­over two hundred t’ his bat.  And he used to bowl too.  But bowling wants practice.  And, Emmy, look at the old fellows lining the booth, pipe in mouth and cheering.  They do enjoy a day like this.  We’ll have a supper for fifty at Copsley’s:—­it’s fun.  By Jove! we must have reached up to near the hundred.’

He commissioned a neighbouring boy to hie to the booth for the latest figures, and his emissary taught lightning a lesson.

Diana praised the little fellow.

‘Yes, he’s a real English boy,’ said Emma.

’We ’ve thousands of ’em, thousands, ready to your hand,’ exclaimed Sir Lukin, ‘and a confounded Radicalized country . . .’ he murmured gloomily of ’lets us be kicked! . . . any amount of insult, meek as gruel! . . . making of the finest army the world has ever seen!  You saw the papers this morning?  Good heaven! how a nation with an atom of self-respect can go on standing that sort of bullying from foreigners!  We do.  We’re insulted and we’re threatened, and we call for a hymn!—­ Now then, my man, what is it?’