: The Terriford mystery by Lowndes Marie Belloc -

@FreeBooksThu 08 Jun, 2023

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Terriford village, a peaceful, exquisite corner of old England. Houses, cottages, and great raftered barns spread over a rising stretch of what was once primeval woodland. No dwelling-place is less than fifty years old and many are of much older date.

At the apex of the broad, well-kept village street stands the pre-Reformation gray stone church. It rises from what appears to be a well-tended and fragrant garden, though here and there lichened stones and crosses show it to be what old-fashioned folk still call a graveyard.

But at the time my story opens sudden death, and all the evils the most normal death implies in our strange, transitory existence, seem very far from the inhabitants of Terriford. All the more remote because the group of people who are soon to be concerned with a mysterious and terrible drama of death are now one and all happy, cheerful, and full of life and excitement. For they are present as privileged spectators at the first appearance of the great Australian cricket team.

Why, it may well be asked, should quiet Terriford village be so honoured? It is because Harry Garlett, the man who stands to the hamlet in the relation of squire, is the most popular amateur cricketer in the county and the owner of the best private cricket ground in England. Not only money, but a wealth of loving care combined with great technical knowledge and experience, has brought it near to absolute perfection--this fine expanse of English turf, framed in a garland of noble English elms and spreading chestnut trees.

Months ago in the dreary winter, when the tour of the Australian test match team was being arranged, Garlett had invited the visitors to come to Terriford immediately on landing from the boat and "play themselves in" after the long voyage. He undertook to collect a strong team of amateurs, stiffened with two or three professionals, that the Australians might have something worth tackling, and he did not fail to point out that at Terriford the visitors would most quickly become accustomed to English pitches and the soft English light, so different from the hard dry sunshine and matting wickets of Australia.

Harry Garlett knew that the merits of his private ground were well known over there, on the other side of the world, but all the same he could not feel sure. And so it was one of the happiest moments of a life which had been singularly happy and fortunate when he received the cable informing him that the Australian team would accept with pleasure his kind invitation.

To-day, on this bright spring morning, the closing day of the great match, there could be no more characteristically English scene than this mixture of country-house party, garden party, and enthusiasts for the national game.

The cricket is serious, but not so serious as to risk interfering with good fellowship, the more so that this match does not count in the tour for records and averages. The spirit of the whole affair is one of pure good sportsmanship, and the small group of newspaper experts whom Garlett has invited are all eager to see how the visitors shape and how they compare with the great Australian teams of the past.

These connoisseurs are also full of admiration for the eleven which their host has collected. It is indeed a cleverly composed combination. Youth is represented by some brilliant young players from Oxford and Cambridge, cheerful fellows who are equally likely to hit up centuries or to make the two noughts familiarly known as "a pair of spectacles." But these lads are as active as monkeys in the field and can save seemingly certain runs and bring off seemingly impossible "catches."

Then there is a sprinkling of somewhat older, but still young men, who have proved their mettle in the great county teams. Last, but not least, there are three professionals--men whose names are known wherever cricket is played and who are past-masters in all the subtleties of the great game.

Decidedly the Cornstalks, though the odds are slightly in their favour, will have to play all out if they are to win.

Any one who envied Harry Garlett his manifold good fortune, his popularity, his good looks, his ideal life in "Easy Street," for he is a prosperous manufacturer as well as a famous cricketer, might argue that were it not for the long voyage from Australia the Garlett eleven would be beaten to a frazzle. But the general feeling is that it is just that handicap on the visitors which equalizes the chances and makes the match one of real sporting interest.

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