One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
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
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