Was this, then, indeed ‘Number Three,’ and had Sojur Jim’s vengeful quest, his vow of bitter retaliation, ended at last? I believed so. But, as I gazed down upon the poor, scarred dead clay of a wasted and ruined life lying there, now so calm and still, all its fierce desires and useless repinings, all its feverish passions and longings for dread retribution at rest, forcibly came to my mind the words of the sacred and solemn injunction—‘Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord; I will repay.’
‘Frightfully dull, isn’t it?’ said the Doctor.
‘Dull’s no name for it,’ said the Clerk of Petty Sessions; ‘this is the awfullest hole I ever was in.’
‘Never knew it so bad,’ chimed in the Chemist and the Saddler, who were on this frosty night drinking whisky hot in the snug parlour of the Shamrock Inn in the little township of Crupperton.
‘I tell you what,’ said the C.P.S. presently; ‘I see by the paper they’ve started a football club at Cantleville. Why shouldn’t we do the same? It’ll help to pass away the time, anyhow.’
The Doctor pricked up his ears with interest. The Chemist seconded the motion enthusiastically.
‘A capital idea,’ said he, ‘and, although I never have played, I’ll go in for it. It’s simple enough, I should imagine.’
‘Simple!’ said the C.P.S., who had once seen a match in Sydney. ‘It’s as easy as tea-drinking. There’s no expense, except the first one of the ball. It’s not like cricket, you know, where you’re always putting your hands in your pockets for something or other.’
‘I’ll give ten shillings, Mr Brown,’ said the Doctor softly.
‘How do you play it?’ asked the Saddler, and the Blacksmith, and the Constable, who had just dropped in for a warm and a yarn that chilly evening.
‘Well,’ explained the C.P.S., who had ideas, ‘first you get your ball. Then you put up a couple of sticks with a cross one on the top of ’em. Then you measure a distance, say one hundred yards by, say, fifty, on a level bit of ground, and put up another set of sticks. Then you get your men, and pick sides, and pop the ball down in the middle, and wade in. For instance,’ he continued, ‘s’pose we’re playing Saddlestrap. Well, then, d’ye see, we’ve got one goal—that’s what they call the sticks—and they’ve got the other. We’ve to try and block ’em from kicking the ball over our cross-bar, and do our best, meantime, to send it over theirs. It’s just a splendid game for this weather, and nothing could well be simpler.’