of bread and soap (as we with annual jocosity christened our school cheese: this being, by the way, the only day in all the year we had the chance of tasting it), and how eager we rushed out to see what old fellows had come, and to hear what rumours were afloat anent their playing. The ground had been marked out at least a week ago (and woe-betide the fag whose foot between whiles had been seen on it!), and long before breakfast the wickets had been pitched, and an Argusy of eyes had tested their exactness. What a cheer there is when our Eleven win the toss, and magnanimously suffer their opponents to go in: and what handclapping there is as every wicket falls, and how we hope our shouts of triumph will strike terror to the foe, whom we impartially abstain from in any way encouraging. Haply one of the masters plays, to fill a vacant place, and then how we rejoice to see his stumps sent flying, or to laugh at him when scampering for a ball he should have stopped. But our loudest exultation is when one of our Eleven hits a “skyer” over Cloisters, or far into Under Green, and after running a good fiver scores another one or two by a clumsy throwing up. Shrill hurrahs and rounds of hand-clapping salute the heroes as, to rest themselves, they sit upon their bats: and the only damper thrown upon our spirits is when, perhaps emboldened too much by our applause, one of the heroes not long after by a sad fate gets run out.
Nor was our pleasure over with the ending of the game: for after it came the supper (known to us as the “tuck out”), and to some inglorious minds this was by no means least looked forward to among the day’s delights. The “Uppers” of the school enjoyed the envied privilege of sitting down with the “Elevens,” and when their fames was exempta, and they got up from their seats, we fags who were in waiting made a rush into their places, and feasted on the fragments as fast as we could eat. Kind masters would secure an emptied pie-dish or a salad-bowl, and fill it before leaving with whatever their fags brought them, so that layers of cold fowl would alternate with strata of raw currants, creams, and custards, and on a tipsy cake foundation would be raised successive storeys of jam-tart and lobster salad, grapes, trifle, and spiced-beef. O dura ilia puerorum! What would aldermen not give for the elastic powers of appetite wherewith we used to pitch into these horrifying mixtures, and the freedom from dyspepsia evinced by sleeping after them! Other cricket-suppers than those enjoyed at Greyfriars live yet among my pleasantest remembrances. Will the next age have the like joys to look back upon? Except in the remotest of our rural districts, cricket-suppers are becoming sadly out of fashion, and I fear it is considered somewhat vulgar to indulge in them. Late dinners perhaps have helped to put them out of date; but whatever be the cause, I think it a great pity that they should be extinct, and I hope to see, ere long, an effort made for their revival. Not that I agree quite with the widely-accepted maxim that we Englishmen can do nothing, whether in business or in pleasure, without plenty of eating and drinking. But the meet after the match affords a pleasant time for chat, and many a life-friendship which is first formed upon the field is cemented in the supper-room. Men now are much too business-like to please me in their pastimes. They hurry home from hunting as they do out of a theatre, and they cut away from cricket, scarcely bidding a good-bye, and as though glad to get it over. Now this is surely an ill-compliment to those they have been playing with, and for many other reasons I think it a mistake. The drive through pleasant country from a well-contested match is to me far more enjoyable when taken leisurely and calmly in the cool of the late evening, with one’s supper safe inside one, than when you hurry off the ground as hard as you can pelt, hot, and, may be, hurt, or freshly smarting from defeat.
I have had some slight experience in getting up a club, and know a little of the duties of those who undertake its management; and I think success depends in a very great degree upon the rules laid down at starting for the management of matches, and the spirit of obedience, good temper, and good-will with which such regulations as seem needful are observed. In choosing an Eleven, I consider it essential to elect a proper captain, and, when chosen, to invest him with absolute authority. It saves a world of trouble to place in his sole hands the appointment of the field, and uncontrolled decision in cases of dispute. Many a match is lost for want of a good general; and if the captain be held responsible for failure, he will keep his wits about him and lose no chance to win. It will be for him to say when to try a change of bowling (I have often seen a wicket drawn by taking off a good bowler and putting on a bad one): and his practised eye will note the style of play in each new batsman, and tell him how to vary the disposal of the field. Nothing more displays the skill of the professional Elevens than their quickness in discovering the favourite hits of players, and taking steps to stop them. A peculiar hit is made, and a run or two obtained; a similar ball is bowled and it is similarly hit, but by the beckoning of the captain a fieldsman has been moved, and the player is caught out. Very many of the victories the Elevens have obtained over Sixteens and Twenty-twos have in great measure been gained by dodges of this sort: and young players may learn much by watching such good generalship, and seeing how to take advantage of an enemy’s weak points.
As a rule, I fear that fielding is terribly neglected, and, like bowling, is not practised half enough by amateurs. We at Greyfriars used often to have afternoons for practice, thirteen only playing, so as to have two batsmen in rotation at the wickets and the rest at their appointed places in the field. There cannot well be sides in such a game as this; but to keep the interest up it is as well to take the score, and the man who makes most runs may be held winner of the game. At any rate, such play is vastly more improving than a game at “tip-and-run,” which is all very good fun for muffs who only blind-swipe, and have a wish to exercise their lungs as well as legs. And it is vastly more amusing, at least in my opinion, than the “practice” that one sees upon nine club-days out of ten, and which consists in simply pitching some half score of wickets some
