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.

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[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!”