Now came the question how many runs should be scored, for I had passed my fellow batsman in the race, having completed seven runs to his five.  Eventually it was decided to split the difference and call it a sixer; the suggestion of a member of our side that seven should be scored to me and five to Mr.  “Podder” (making twelve in all) being rejected after careful consideration.

Thus, from the first ball bowled in this historic match there arose the whole of the remarkable events recorded above.  Therein is shown the complete performances with the bat of two renowned cricketers; for, alas I in once more trying to play up to the form of Dumkins, I was bowled “slick” the very next ball, “as hath been said or sung.”

There was much good-natured chaff flying about during the match, but no fighting and squabbling, save when a boundary hit was made, when the batsman always shouted “Three runs,” and the bowler “No, only one.”  The scores were not high; but I remember that we won by three runs, that the carpenter’s son got a black eye, that we had tea in an old manor house turned into an inn, and drove home in the glow of a glorious sunset, not entirely displeased with our first experience of “prehistoric” cricket.

Some of the pleasantest matches we have ever taken part in have been those at Bourton-on-the-Water.  Owing to the very soft wicket which he found on arriving, this place was once christened by a well-known cricketer Bourton-on-the-Bog.  Indeed, it is often a case of Bourton-under-the-Water; but, in spite of a soft pitch, there is great keenness and plenty of good-tempered rivalry about these matches.  Bourton is a truly delightful village.  The Windrush, like the Coln at Bibury, runs for some distance alongside of the village street.

The M.C.C., or “premier club”—­as the sporting press delight to call the famous institution at Lord’s—­generally get thoroughly well beaten by the local club.  For so small a place they certainly put a wonderfully strong team into the field; on their own native “bog” they are fairly invincible, though we fancy on the hard-baked clay at Lord’s their bowlers would lose a little of their cunning.

In the luncheon tent at Bourton there are usually more wasps than are ever seen gathered together in one place; they come in thousands from their nests in the banks of the Windrush.

If you are playing a match there, it is advisable to tuck your trousers into your socks when you sit down to luncheon.  This, together with the fact that the tent has been known to blow down in the middle of luncheon, makes these matches very lively and amusing.  What more lively scene could be imagined than a large tent with twenty-two cricketers and a few hundred wasps hard at work eating and drinking; then, on the tent suddenly collapsing, the said cricketers and the said wasps, mixed up with chairs, tables, ham, beef, salad-dressing, and apple tart, and the various ingredients of a cricket lunch, all struggling on the floor, and striving in vain to find their way out as best they can?  Fortunately, on the only occasion that the tent blew down when we were present, it was not a good wasp year.