cences, 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