MATERIAL AND IMMATERIAL. THE body is left. Being wearied with toiling the live-long day, Paints a picture; flies; visits the sun and moon; But it goes alone, For the body can't enter that world afar. Poor body! Spirit, dream of me. The body is left. Once again has the spirit soared far away, From the barriers material where flesh must stay, Touch and hearing. But meanwhile its partner's flight Where the objects are all immaterial. Fancies --memories— Are these boundaries? None more narrow exist in that world afar. Poor body! Spirit, think of me. The body is left. The spirit, in praying, has taken wing To regions where flesh cannot go, poor thing! It may kneel with hands folded, and head down-bent, Doing all that it can to be reverent ; But the power of looking at things of Heaven, Is a privilege only to spirit given; Taking faith for guide, It roams far and wide, And is almost at home in that world afar. Poor body! Spirit, pray for me. Say, what link has the strength to unite a pair, To mate with spirit, When we three join again in the world afar? In death your hope doth lie. E. A. DILLWYN. A DRIVE TO A CRICKET MATCH THIRTY YEARS AGO. IN the cosy parlour of a well-known inn on the banks of the Upper Thames were seated, towards the end of last February, four friends, who had met together that afternoon in order to arrange a week's pike fishing before the season closed. The weather was favourable, the prospect of sport excellent; they had seen all their tackle was in first-rate condition for the business of the morrow, and having partaken of one of the good dinners for which mine host is so justly celebrated, had drawn round the fire in amicable terms with themselves and the rest of mankind, with the intention of having a final pipe and glass of grog before retiring to rest. The conversation for the last three hours had been on the subject of "Pennell flights," Chapman spinners, snap-tackle and paternosters, when the youngest of the party, a fair-haired, blue-eyed young fellow of twenty, who had taken up the Sporting Life, and was conning it over with the eye of a critic, suddenly exclaimed: "By Jove! We are going to have the Australian cricketers over again this year; they are a good set, they are, and will take a lot of beating." "I'm glad they are coming," remarked the man who sat next him a dark grave looking individual some years his senior, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "It will cause a little excitement, for, though cricket has increased tenfold during the last twenty years, I don't think there is the same interest taken in it as there used to be in days gone by. I'm not an old man, but can see the difference since I was a boy, and from what my father has told me the things are very different now to what they were in his time." "For my part," interrupted Dick Hatherway, a powerful man of some thirty-five summers, who, though not a cricketer, had rendered a good account of himself at other branches of sport, and who could not bear the idea of Englishmen being beaten at any game, and only on rare occasions would allow that the foreigner had any chance, "for my part, I hope they lose every match. Don't see what they want here at all.” "I cannot make out why you are so prejudiced against the Australians," replied Henry Watson, the dark man, who had pre viously spoken. "When Hanlan was here, you were one of his principal supporters, and surely an Australian is as much an Englishman as a Canadian. What say you, Dan ?" turning to the eldest of the party a jovial-looking man, well on in years-who had been quietly smoking his pipe, while listening with an amused smile to the conversation. Daniel Griffiths was a well-known authority on sporting matters, and his companions deferred to him on all subjects on which there were adverse opinions. "Well, I generally give my sympathy to the stranger," said he. "I think it is a good old English fashion. You may be sure he will have plenty against him, and a kind word now and then will often pull a good man through who would otherwise sink if he felt all were against him. A fair field and no favour,' and ' May the best man win,' that's my motto, though I must own I'd like to see my own countryman win, if he were good enough." "Bravo, Dan," exclaimed George Summers, the young fellow who had been reading the Sporting Life; "them's my sentiments exactly." "A boy like you has no business with sentiments," cried Dick, laughing at the turn the conversation had taken against himself. "Train up a child in the way he should go, etc.," said Watson, quietly. "Oh, come now," laughed Dick, "if you fellows cannot make anything but stale jokes, it is time to shut up. I vote Dan tells us one of his wonderful adventures; he always has a stock on hand. It's too early to go to bed yet." "Yes, tell us a story, Dan," simultaneously exclaimed the others. "It will be a capital wind-up to the evening." "I expect you've heard all my stories," replied the elder man ; "and you know you don't believe them when I do tell them; it's a waste of breath." "Nonsense, old chap; we swallow them like gospel truth, Mix yourself another rattling roaring tumbler of punch, and fire away." Dan shook his head, and smiled-but he mixed the grog, nevertheless-while his companions lighted fresh pipes and drew their chairs closer to the fire. "I don't know anything very striking," said the old man, "but you have been talking about cricket, and it has reminded me of a drive I once took to a cricket match which I'm not likely to forget in a hurry." "All right, Dan, tell us that. We are all attention." Dan smiled, cleared his throat, and commenced as follows: "Thirty years ago I was residing in Hertfordshire, and took part in many of the principal matches that were played throughout the county. This was the time when R. C. Tinley and Mr. V. E. Walker were at their best, in the good old days of cricket. 66 Amongst those who were often on the opposite side was a man called Steve Williams, a slow underhand bowler. He was a very popular, gentlemanly fellow, and considered by an old Harrovian, a prominent member of the M.C.C., to be the best slow bowler in England. However, I will not go so far as that, but must acknowledge he was very successful with the ball. "One day, after playing a match against a team on whose side he was engaged, he asked me if I would mind playing for him on the following Thursday, when a country club with which he was connected down the other side of Aylesbury was to play another club some five-and-twenty miles away. It was their annual match, and as his side was not strong, and had suffered defeat so often at the hands of their opponents, he thought it would not be a bad idea to introduce a new element in the shape of three likely players who were total strangers in that district. As an additional inducement for me to come, he told me Will Murray and Hugh Jackson, both first-class cricketers and personal friends of mine, had promised to make two, and he wanted one for the third. "Having nothing better on hand, I consented, and arranged to join Will Murray at St. Albans the next evening, who would drive Jackson and myself down to Steve's. I've forgotten to mention that Steve Williams kept an inn at a village the other side of Ivanhoe, and as no railway went near the place in those days, we had no option but to drive there. It was agreed that we should stop all night at the inn, and proceed with the rest of the team in the morning to the town where the match was to be played. "The next day a friend drove me to St. Albans, where a match was being played in which both Jackson and Murray were engaged. They were delighted to see me, and to hear I was to make the third in the forthcoming event. This "From them I gleaned that the club we were to play for consisted mostly of farmers, who would make any sacrifice rather than be defeated again, while on the opposite side there was a single wicket player who had beaten all about these parts, amateurs and professionals. He made a rule of challenging everyone on the ground, and had rendered himself obnoxious in many other ways, the worst part being that up to the present time, in spite of his brag, he had always come off victorious. roused our mettle, and we determined to get him to play Murray, whom, of course, he did not know, and who, besides being a good all-round man and one of the best single-wicket players in England, was as hard as nails and never tired, however long the day might be. So a match for twenty-five or fifty aside was talked about as likely to come off, and we were in great glee as to the results of the morrow's expedition. "The match at St. Albans being over, we adjourned to the hotel |