water;, and for the accommodation of the smokers, the ostler, who always appeared in his Sunday best costume, which consisted of a 'Sam Weller' waistcoat with black calico sleeves, brown drab breeches, and top-boots, provided a stable horn lanthorn, the candle in which he lit with the aid of the flint and steel tinder box, and brimstone matches; for lucifers were not yet invented.
Another honour belonged to the knights of the round table: as the cricket ground was bounded on the southern side by the high road, and as coaches were passing all day, the drivers never forgot the 'Coachman's Salute' with whip and elbow and nod of the head as they drove by, and this was always returned by a cheery wave of the hand from the cricket ground. The patriarchs of the village had a form to themselves on the left hand of the booth; and old Billy Coppin, the half-pay naval purser, who had a snug little house on the bank of the roadside, sat outside his door waving his pipe and crying out, 'Make sail, my lads, make sail,' whenever a good hit was made.
When the match was over, one of the villagers, an illtempered thatcher, who was always ready for a set-to, picked a quarrel with someone from a neighbouring parish, and they adjourned to a quiet corner close to our grand stand behind the booth, pulled off their shirts and had a pretty stiff rough and tumble fight, which I described, in my innocence, at supper when I went in, and thereby got the gardener into a scrape for allowing me to see it. A very serious relative told me that she was 'cock sure' of the future fate of the two men who fought, quoting cases out of Dr. Watts's hymns. Let us hope that some of the Doctor's tips have proved wrong.
'Would you be surprised to hear,' as Lord Coleridge was always saying, that, with the exception that cricket has much improved as regards grounds and some of the implements in general use, old-fashioned village cricket in its true and pure spirit still flourishes in many rural districts, and not very far from London even, now? You will find this happy state of things mostly where village greens exist in a real cricketing .county;
