To hear my remarks on the Cricket, in the Pavilion, you might think
that I had been a great player entirely, in my day. "Who is that
fine old English sportsman," you might ask, "who seems to have been
so intimate with MYNN, and FULLER PILCH, and CARPENTER, and HAYWARD
and TARRANT and JACKSON and C.D. MARSHAM? No doubt we see in him the
remains of a sterling Cricketer of the old school." And then when I
lay down the law on the iniquity of boundary hits, "always ran them
out in _my_ time," and on the tame stupidity of letting balls to the
off go unpunished, and the wickedness of dispensing with a long stop,
you would be more and more pursuaded that I had at least, played for
my county. Well, I _have_ played for my county, but as the county I
played for was Berwickshire, there is perhaps nothing to be so very
proud of in that distinction. But this I will say for the Cricketing
Duffer; he is your true enthusiast. When I go to Lord's on a summer
day, which of my contemporaries do I meet there? Not the men who
played for the University, not the KENNYS and MITCHELLS and BUTLERS,
but the surviving members of College Second Elevens in the old days of
Cowley Marsh, when every man brought his own bottle of Oxford wine for
luncheon. These are the veterans who contribute most to the crowd of
lookers-on. They never were of any use as players, but their hearts
were in the game, and from the game they will never be divorced. It is
an ill thing for an outsider to drop a remark about Cricket among us,
at about eleven o'clock in a country house smoking-room. After that
the time flies in a paradise of reminiscences, till about 4 A.M. or
some such "wee, short hour ayont the Twal'," if one may quote BURNS
without being insulted by all the numerous and capable wits of
Glasgow. Why is it that the Duffer keeps up his interest in Cricket,
while the good players cease to care much about it? Perhaps _their_
interest was selfish; his is purely ideal, and consequently immortal.
To him Cricket was ever an unembodied joy of which he could make
nothing palpable; nothing subject to the cold law of averages. Mine
was 0.3.
[Illustration]
My own introduction to Cricket, as to Golf, was peculiarly poignant. I
and my brother, aged more or less about six or seven, were invited to
play by the local Club, and we each received exactly one very slow and
considerate lob. But his lob took him on the eye, and mine, kicking on
a bad wicket, had me on the knee-pan. The subsequent proceedings did
not interest us very much, but there is nothing like entering children
early at a manly pastime.
Intellectual application will, to some extent, overcome physical
difficulties. By working at least five hours a day, and by reading the
_Cricket Field_ daily and nightly, I did learn to bowl a little, with
a kind of twist. This, while it lasted, in a bowlerless country, was
a delightful accomplishment. You got into much better sporting society
than you deserved, and, in remote parts of the pastoral districts
you were looked up to as one whose name had been in _Bell's Life_;
we still had _Bell's Life_ then. It was no very difficult matter to
bowl a rustic team for a score of runs or so, and all went merry as a
wedding bell. But, alas, when Drumthwacket played Tullochgorum, there
was a young Cambridge man staying with the latter chieftain. I began,
as I usually did, by "yorking" Tullochgorum's Piper and his chief
Butler, and his head Stalker, and then SMITH of King's came in. The
ground, as usual, had four sides. He hit me over the enclosure at
each of the four sides, for I changed my end after being knocked for
five fours in his first over. After that, my prestige was gone. The
rustics, instead of crawling about their wickets, took to walking
in and smacking me. This would not have mattered, if any of the
Drumthwacket team could have held a catch, and if the wicket-keeper
had not let SMITH off four times in one over. My character was lost,
and all was ended with me north of the Grampians, where the wickets
are peculiarly suitable to my style of delivery.
As to batting, there is little that is pleasant to confess. As soon as
I got a distant view of a ball, I was ever tempted to whack wildly in
its direction. There was no use in waiting for it, the more I looked
at it the less I liked it. So I whacked, and, if you always do this,
a ball will sometimes land on the driving part of the bat, and then it
usually happened that my companion, striving for a five or a six, ran
me out. If he did not, I did not stay long. The wicket-keeper was a
person whose existence I always treated as _une quantité négligeable_,
and sometimes the ball would bound off his pads into the stumps. The
fielders would occasionally hold a catch, anything _may_ happen. On
the other hand there was this to be said for my style of batting,
that the most experienced Cricketer could not tell where or in what
direction I would hit any given ball. If it was on the off, that was
no reason why I should not bang it to square-leg, a stroke which has
become fashionable since my time, but in those old days, you did not
often see it in first-class Cricket. It was rather regarded as "an
agrarian outrage." Foreigners and ladies would find Cricket a more
buoyant diversion if all the world, and especially LEWIS HALL and
SHREWSBURY, played on my principles. Innings would not last so long.
Not so many matches would be drawn. The fielders would not catch cold.
To speak of fielding is to revive unspeakable sorrows. For a
short-sighted man, whose fingers are thumbs, no post in the field
is exactly grateful. I have been at long-leg, and, watching the game
intently, have perceived the batters running, and have heard cries of
"well fielded!" These cries were ironical. The ball had been hit past
me, but I was not fortunate enough to observe the circumstance. A
fielder of this _calibre_ always ends by finding his way to short-leg.
A prudent man can do a good deal here by watching the umpire, dodging
when he dodges, and getting behind him on occasion. But I was not
prudent. I observed that a certain player hit very much behind the
leg, so there, "in the mad pride of intellectuality," I privily
stationed myself. He _did_ it very fine, very fine indeed, into my
eye. The same misfortune has attended me at short-slip; it should have
been a wicket, it was a black eye, or the loss of a tooth or two, as
might happen. In fact, I sometimes wonder myself at the contemptuous
frankness of my own remarks on the fielding at Lord's. For if a catch
could be missed (and most catches can), I was the man to miss it.
Swift ones used to hit me and hurt me, long ones I always misjudged,
little simple poppy ones spun out of my fingers. Now the unlucky thing
about Cricket, for a Duffer, is that your misfortunes do not hurt
yourself alone. It is not as in a single at Golf, it is not as in
fishing, or riding, or wherever you have no partner. To drop catches
is to madden the bowler not unnaturally, and to lengthen the period
of leather-hunting. Cricket is a social game, and its proficients
soon give the cold shoulder to the Duffer. He has his place, however,
in the nature of things. It is he who keeps up the enthusiasm, who
remembers every run that anybody I made in any given match. In fact,
at Cricket, the Duffer's mission is to be a "judge of the game;" I
don't mean an Umpire, very far from that. If you once let the Duffer
umpire he could ruin the stoutest side, and secure victory to the
feeblest. I may say that, at least in this capacity, I have proved
really useful to my party in country matches. But, in the long run,
my capacity even for umpiring came to be doubted, and now I am only
a critic of Cricket. There is none more relentless, not one with a
higher standard, at least where no personal feelings are concerned.
For I have remarked that, if a Cambridge man writes about an Oxford
victory (which he seldom has to do), or if an Oxford man writes on a
Cambridge victory (a frequent affliction), he always leaves you with
the impression that, in spite of figures, his side had at least a
moral triumph. These admirable writers have all been Duffers.
* * * * *
[Illustration: TIMES CHANGE.
_Shade of William the Conqueror._ "WHAT! THE PEOPLE OBJECT TO
ENCLOSING A FEW ACRES OF THIS OPEN SPACE FOR STATE PURPOSES--FOR THEIR
OWN BENEFIT? BY THE SPLENDOUR OF HEAVEN! I SHOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE
HEARD THE VARLETS OBJECT TO MY MAKING MILES OF IT SUCH--FOR _MINE_!"
_Secretary for War._ "AH, YOUR MAJESTY HAD IN _YOUR_ TIMES NO _TIMES_
TO RECKON WITH!"]
* * * * *