Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/425

 Hill or Geoffrey Eager, or Moule or Hovenden Hely, alert at cover-point or slip, mid-wicket or long-stop.

Ah me! those days have gone, and how many of those who then ran and shouted in all the glee of youthful spirits and health! Those who remain are growing old, if not in the 'serious and yellow' stage, and the young ones are coming on, doubtless to fill their places, 'in arms, in arts, in song.' When Hugh Hamon Massie made that 206 score for the Australian team against Oxford, our British cousins were probably of the same opinion. His triumph on that occasion was by no means a solitary one, and successive teams have demonstrated that in Australians our kin beyond sea will always find foemen worthy of their steel. Long may the friendly rivalry last; and in the deadlier contests to come—as surely they must come—may they always stand, like Highlanders, 'shouther to shouther.'

Next to the outside of a horse—even, perhaps, as regards the coast towns, before that instinctively natural position—your true Australian is most at home in a boat. Those who watch the appearance of Sydney Harbour on a holiday must come to the conclusion that as a nursery for seamen it is excelled by few sea-boards in the world. Gay is the sea-lake with every kind of sailing craft, from the fifty-ton yacht, brand new and not launched under a cost of ₤2000 or ₤3000, to the canvas dingy flying along, bows under, with a big sail, and the youthful crew perched like seagulls on the weather gunwale. When a capsize occurs, which with these craft is a matter 'quite frequent,' they dive like a brood of wild-ducks, as they right their frail craft, and are soon bowling along as reckless as ever.

With such aquatic habits, small wonder if we have bred or trained the men who have beaten with the sculls not only old England but the world—ay, the world!—at this particular sport. Not only is it now demonstrated that we possess equal skill in all the manlier exercises—the boast of the island Briton, and at which he was long held to be unrivalled—but that in strength, stature, and the desperate courage which prolongs the contest to the last dangerous degree of exhaustion and afterwards, our men, Australian-born or reared, are equal to the best Briton that ever trod a plank, or to the best