Page:The Cricket Field (1854).djvu/50

"calcanda semel via leti." A man is sure never to take his eyes off the ground, and if there's a bit of stick in the way he kicks it instinctively with the side of his shoe. Add, that cruel post mortem examination into your "case," and having to answer the old question, How was it? or perhaps forced to argue with some vexatious fellow who imputes it to the very fault on which you are so sore and sensitive. All this is trying; but since it is always happening, an "inseparable accident" of the game, it is time that an unruffled temper should be held the "differentia" of the true cricketer and bad temper voted bad play. Eleven good-tempered men, other points equal, would beat eleven sulky or eleven irritable gentlemen out of the field. The hurling of bats and angry ebullitions show inexperience in the game and its chances; as if any man in England could always catch, or stop, or score. This very uncertainty gives the game its interest. If Pilch or Parr were sure of runs, who would care to play? But as they make sometimes five and sometimes fifty, we still contend with flesh and blood. Even Achilles was vulnerable at the heel; or, mythologically, he could not stop a shooter to the leg stump. So never let the Satan icagency of the gaming-table brood on those "happy fields" where, strenua nos exercet inertia, there is an energy in our idle hours, not killing time but enjoying it. Look at