Arrived on the grounds, they took opposite sides in a game of rounders, at that moment tossing heads or tails for innings.  These boys were slovenly players, and were made unhappy by Skepsey’s fussy instructions to them in smartness.  They had a stupid way of feeding the stick, and they ran sprawling; it concerned Great Britain for them to learn how to use their legs.  It was pitiful for the country to see how lumpish her younger children were.  Dartrey knew his little man and laughed, after warning him that his English would want many lessons before they stomached the mixture of discipline and pleasure.  So it appeared:  the pride of the boys in themselves, their confidence, enjoyment of the game, were all gone; and all were speedily out but Skepsey; who ran for the rounder, with his coat off, sharp as a porpoise, and would have got it, he had it in his grasp, when, at the jump, just over the line of the goal, a clever fling, if ever was, caught him a crack on that part of the human frame where sound is best achieved.  Then were these young lumps transformed to limber, lither, merry fellows.  They rejoiced Skepsey’s heart; they did everything better, ran and dodged and threw in a style to win the nod from the future official inspector of Games and Amusements of the common people; a deputy of the Government, proposed by Skepsey to his hero with a deferential eagerness.  Dartrey clapped him on the shoulder, softly laughing.

’System—­Mr. Durance is right—­they must have system, if they are to appreciate a holiday,’ Skepsey said; and he sent a wretched gaze around, at the justification of some of the lurid views of Mr. Durance, in signs of the holiday wasted;—­impoverishing the country’s manhood in a small degree, it may be argued, but we ask, can the country afford it, while foreign nations are drilling their youth, teaching them to be ready to move in squads or masses, like the fist of a pugilist.  Skepsey left it to his look to speak his thought.  He saw an enemy in tobacco.  The drowsiness of beer had stretched various hulks under trees.  Ponderous cricket lumbered half-alive.  Flabby fun knocked-up a yell.  And it was rather vexatious to see girls dancing in good time to the band-music.  One had a male-partner, who hopped his loutish burlesque of the thing he could not do.

Apparently, too certainly, none but the girls had a notion of orderly muscular exercise.  Of what use are girls!  Girls have their one mission on earth; and let them be healthy by all means, for the sake of it; only, they should not seem to prove that old England is better represented on the female side.  Skepsey heard, with a nip of spite at his bosom, a small body of them singing in chorus as they walked in step, arm in arm, actually marched:  and to the rearward, none of these girls heeding; there were the louts at their burlesque of jigs and fisticuffs!  ‘Cherry Ripe,’ was the song.

‘It’s delightful to hear them!’ said Dartrey.