Читать книгу The Oaken Heart онлайн

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On that day our luck held. At half-past five the sky was grey with the mist which means heat to come, and when Norry arrived with the trestles borrowed from the village hall and the baskets of crockery which Vic was lending us he assured me we were in for a scorcher, and we agreed that in view of this an extra firkin of beer ought to be set aside "in case."

At eleven the Pontisbright team arrived, and with them came their wives and children, mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts and everybody else who remembered us--sixty-odd of them.

We had once lived in Pontisbright, fifteen miles from Auburn, and had always had relations there; while Chrissie is Pontisbright born, so that this was another reunion, as important as the previous one on the Friday. Len was there, of course. He is the sexton and their slow bowler, and I have known the time at Pontisbright when half the team was helping to dig like fury all the morning so that he might be free to uphold the honour of the village on the green in the afternoon.