Play
In all the many centuries of our history there have been boys and
girls; and, whatever has been going on in the world around them,
they have found time to play. In the Great War our soldiers could
not but be struck by the way in which the children in places under
bombardment took advantage of any lull in the firing to come out of
their hiding places, and go on with their games, in spite of the
ruin and desolation and danger all round them.
Many of our English games go back so far in the history of man that
their origin is forgotten. Yet there are games which children play
now just as they did in the days of Queen Elizabeth; and those
queer rhymes, which you know so well, and understand nothing about,
have been repeated, some of them, since England began to be England.
There is plenty to say about games, but not enough space to say it
all here. There are some games which come and go as regularly as
the seasons. The queer part of it all is: Who starts the game? As
sure as the early spring evenings arrive you will find boys playing
at marbles. Town or country, it does not matter, all at once
"marbles are _in_". Nobody says it is "marble season"; nobody ever
yet found the boy who brings out the first marble of the season.
Somehow a _something_ inside a boy tells him it is "marble" time,
and the marbles appear in his pocket.
[Illustration: _The Game of Bob-apple, Fourteenth Century._
_From an illustration in a manuscript in the British Museum_]
It is just the same with "tops"; they come and they go with
absolute regularity. They come as if by magic, and by magic they
disappear. When the errand-boy, who has left school a month or two,
stops, basket on arm, to watch the game, you may be sure that it
is the height of the season. When the ground is occupied by the
little chaps who have just come up from the infant school, and
the errand-boy passes whistling by on the other side, it is quite
certain that the season is over and gone.
These are games that want no clubs, associations, nor
subscriptions. Yet they are governed by time-honoured rules, which
have never been written down, but must be strictly observed, or
there is much talking and wrangling over the game.
Sports have an important place in the life of towns and villages
nowadays; but, though cricket and football are old games really,
they have not always been as popular as they are now. Cricket, in
some form or other, was played in the thirteenth century when it
was played with a crooked or clubbed stick called a "cryc". Indeed
all games where a ball is used are more or less ancient. It seems
to have been played at Guildford as early as 1598, but modern
cricket only dates from the middle of the eighteenth century. Kent
seems to have led the way, and Hampshire was the home of the game
in 1774.
[Illustration: CRICKET, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
After a painting made in 1745 by Francis Hayman, R.A.]
Tennis, or "fives" was a favourite game for many centuries, and
it was quite a common thing in some places for it to be played
against the church tower, which was a very convenient place for
the game. Complaints were frequently made of the damage done to
and around the churches by the playing of unlawful and disordered
games of many kinds. At times attempts were made to put down the
playing of tennis. But by the time of Queen Elizabeth it had come
into favour, and the privilege of keeping tennis-courts was eagerly
sought for, and the game became very popular indeed later on; but
it went out of fashion again towards the end of the eighteenth
century, only to be revived again in our own times.
[Illustration: _Boys' Sports. From a woodcut published in 1659_
_1, Bowling stones. 2, Throwing a bowl at nine pins, 3. 4,
Striking a ball through a ring, 5, with a bandy. 6, Scourging a
top with a whip, 7. 8, Shooting with a "trunck" or a bow, 9. 10,
Going on stilts. 11, Tossing and swinging on a "merry-totten"._]
It is only within the last forty years that football has become
popular. Football of some kind has been played for many centuries,
especially in the streets of towns. Kingston, Chester, and Dorking,
amongst other places, have a custom of playing football on Shrove
Tuesday. The story as to how the custom arose is the same in most
of these places.
Far back in the ninth century a party of Danes ravaged the district
and attacked the town. The townsmen made a brave stand against them
till help came. Then the Danes were defeated, their leader slain,
his head struck off, and kicked about the streets in triumph. That
is said to have given rise to the custom; but it was a very ghastly
football.
[Illustration: _Diagrams of Layouts for a Boy's Game_]
Football was not always regarded with favour. Folk often wanted to
play football when their lords and masters wanted them to practise
shooting with their bows and arrows; but they were frequently
told what a dangerous game it was, and over and over again it was
forbidden. Football was always apparently a game over which the
players fell out, much as they do now. Nearly four hundred years
ago a worthy gentleman wrote of the game:--
"It is nothyng but beastely fury and extreme violence, whereby
procedeth hurte, and consequently rancour and malice do remayne
with thym that be wounded".
There are some places where the schoolboys of long, long ago
have left their marks. In the cloisters at Westminster Abbey, at
Canterbury, at Norwich, at Salisbury and at Gloucester Cathedral,
for instance, are some roughly cut marks in the old benches,
forming the "tables" or "boards" on which they played some almost
forgotten games with stones.
Then, too, there is "hop-scotch" which at some seasons of the year
makes the sidewalks of many bye-streets so untidy with its rudely
chalked courts; rounders and "tip-cat"; battledore and shuttlecock,
to say nothing of skipping and many another game--all old, old
games, which are ever new, and never out of date.