table state of that patched round
frock, and the ragged condition of those unpatched shoes, which would
encumber, if anything could, the light feet that wear them. But why
should I lament the poverty that never troubles him? Joe is the merriest
and happiest creature that ever lived twelve years in this wicked world.
Care cannot come near him. He hath a perpetual smile on his round ruddy
face, and a laugh in his hazel eye, that drives the witch away. He works
at yonder farm on the top of the hill, where he is in such repute for
intelligence and good-humour, that he has the honour of performing all
the errands of the house, of helping the maid, the mistress, and the
master, in addition to his own stated office of carter's boy. There he
works hard from five till seven, and then he comes here to work still
harder, under the name of play--batting, bowling, and fielding, as if
for life, filling the place of four boys; being, at a pinch, a whole
eleven. The late Mr. Knyvett, the king's organist, who used in his own
person to sing twenty parts at once of the Hallelujah Chorus, so that
you would have thought he had a nest of nightingales in his throat,
was but a type of Joe Kirby. There is a sort of ubiquity about him; he
thinks nothing of being in two places at once, and for pitching a ball,
William Grey himself is nothing to him. It goes straight to the mark
like a bullet. He is king of the cricketers from eight to sixteen,
both inclusive, and an excellent ruler he makes. Nevertheless, in the
best-ordered states there will be grumblers, and we have an opposition
here in the shape of Jem Eusden.

Jem Eusden is a stunted lad of thirteen, or thereabout, lean, small, and
short, yet strong and active. His face is of an extraordinary ugliness,
colourless, withered, haggard, with a look of extreme age, much
increased by hair so light that it might rather pass for white than
flaxen. He is constantly arrayed in the blue cap and old-fashioned coat,
the costume of an endowed school to which he belongs; where he sits
still all day, and rushes into the field at night, fresh, untired, and
ripe for action, to scold and brawl, and storm, and bluster. He hates
Joe Kirby, whose immovable good-humour, broad smiles, and knowing nods,
must certainly be very provoking to so fierce and turbulent a spirit;
and he has himself (being, except by rare accident, no great player) the
preposterous ambition of wishing to be manager of the sports. In short,
h