to the off-side of the wicket, when it would twist full in upon the stumps. Before he had got into this knaclc, he was once bowling against the Duke of Dorset, and, delivering his ball straight to the wicket, it curled in, and missed the Duke's legstump by a hair's breadth. The plainspoken little bumpkin, in his eagerness and delight, and forgetting the style in which we were always accustomed to impress our aristocratical playmates with our acknowledgement of their rank and station, bawled out—'Ah! it was tedious near you, Sir!' The familiarity of his tone, and the genuine Hampshire dialect in which it was spoken, set the whole ground laughing. I have never seen but one bowler who delivered his balls in the same way as our Little Farmer; with the jerkers the practice is not uncommon. He was a very civil and inoffensive young fellow, and remained in the club perhaps two or three seasons.
With Tom Taylor the old eleven was completed. There were, of course, several changes of other players, but these were the established picked set the elite. Tom was an admirable field certainly one of the very finest I ever saw. His station was between the point of the bat and the middle wicket, to save the two runs; but Tom had a lucky knack of gathering in to the wicket, for Tom had a license from our old General; so that, if the ball was hit to him, he had so quick a way of meeting it, and with such a rapid return (for no sooner was it in his hand than with the quickness of thought it was returned to the top of the wicket), that I have seen many put out by this manreuvre in a single run, and when the hit might be safely calculated upon for a prosperous one. He had an excellent general knowledge of the game; but of fielding, in particular, he was perfect
