My father bowled the first over, and a good one it was; not a run scored off it. Laughing was general when Mr. Williams commenced at the other end. He fell back on the old, old resource when everything else has failed underhand grubs! There was not quite so much laughing at the end of the over, when he had clean-bowled one man, and the scoring-sheet was still blank.
Snow had fallen during the day, and the wicket cut up badly. My father bowled as steadily and patiently as he had batted; and Mr. Williams slung in his grubs, and got a wicket nearly every other over. The match was all over by 4.45, and Bristol had scored something less than 50 runs. To say that the Bristol XI were laughed at, is to express very faintly what took place.
My uncle and Henry, when they got back to Downend, were chaffed unmercifully; and it was many a long day before they heard the last of that match.
During the rise and progress of the Mangotsfield and West Gloucestershire Clubs, great changes had been taking place in our home.
There was, as I have already mentioned, Henry, born 31st January, 1833. Then followed Alfred, born 17th May, 1840; Edward Mills, born 28th November, 1841; myself, born 18th July, 1848; George Frederick, born 13th December, 1850; and four girls between Henry and myself.
Downend House, where my father and mother had been living since Henry's birth, had now become rather straitened in accommodation, and a move was made to "The Chesnuts" across the road sometime in 1850, where my father and mother lived for the rest of their lives.
The change was an improvement in many ways. For one thing there was an orchard attached to it, which meant for my brothers and myself a more convenient
