You came down the field like a shaft from a bow
The vision remains with me yet.
I hastened to check you: the sequel you know:
Alas! we unluckily met.
You rushed at the ball, whirled your stick like a flail,
And you hit with the vigour of two:
A knight in his armour had surely turned pale,
If he had played hockey with you.
They gathered me up, and they took me to bed:
They called for a doctor and lint:
With ice in a bag they enveloped my head;
My arm they enclosed in a splint.
My ankles are swelled to a terrible size;
My shins are a wonderful blue;
I have lain here a cripple, unable to rise,
Since the day I played hockey with you.
Yet still, in the cloud hanging o'er me so black,
A silvery lining I spy:
A man who's unhappily laid on his back
Can yet have a solace. May I?
An angel is woman in moments of pain,
Sang Scott: clever poet, _he_ knew:
It may, I perceive, be distinctly a gain
To have fallen at hockey with you.
For if you'll but nurse me (Come quickly, come now),
If you'll but administer balm,
And press at my bidding my feverish brow
With a cool but affectionate palm;
If you'll sit by my side, it is possible, quite,
That I may be induced to review
With a feeling more nearly akin to delight
That day I played hockey with you.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Major Bunker_ (_who has been persuaded to join in a game
of hockey for the first time, absent-mindedly preparing to drive_).
"Fore."]
* * * * *
[Illustration: OUR LADIES' HOCKEY CLUB
Miss Hopper cannot understand how it is she is always put "in goal." But
really the explanation is so simple. There's no room for a ball to get
past her.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Extract from Mabel's Correspondence._--"We had a scratch
game with the 'Black and Blue' club yesterday, but had an awful job to
get any men. Enid's brother and a friend of his turned up at the last
moment; but they didn't do much except call 'offside' or 'foul' every
other minute, and they were both as nervous as cats!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: OUR LADIES' HOCKEY CLUB
One of the inferior sex who volunteered to umpire soon discovered his
office was no sinecure.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: HARE AND HOUNDS--AND MAY THEIR SHADOWS NEVER GROW
LESS.--_Mrs. Miniver._ "How exhausted they look, poor fellows! Fancy
doing that sort of thing for mere pleasure!" _Little Timpkins_ (_his
bosom swelling with national pride_). "Ah, but it's all through doing
that sort of thing for _mere pleasure_, mind you, that we English
are--_what we are_!"
[_Bully for little Timpkins!_
]
* * * * *
[Illustration: HARE AND HOUNDS--AND DONKEY
"Seen two men with bags of paper pass this way?"--"No!" "Did they tell
you to say no?"--"Yes."]
* * * * *
[Illustration: HAPPY THOUGHT.--The good old game of "Hare and Hounds,"
or "Paper-Chase," is still played in the northern suburbs of London
during the winter. Why should not young ladies be the hares?]
* * * * *
[Illustration: A MEETING OF THE "BANDY" ASSOCIATION