Page:The Hambledon Men (1907).djvu/185

 defence either.' Fennex, said he, was the first who played out at balls; before his day, batting was too much about the crease. Beldham said that his own supposed tempting of Providence consisted in running in to hit. '"You do frighten me there jumping out of your ground", said our Squire Paulet': and Fennex used also to relate how, when he played forward to the pitch of the ball, his father 'had never seen the like in all his days'; the said days extending a long way back towards the beginning of the century. While speaking of going in to hit, Beldham said, 'My opinion has always been that too little is attempted in that direction. Judge your ball, and, when the least overpitched, go in and hit her away.' In this opinion Mr. C. Taylor's practice would have borne Beldham out: and a fine dashing game this makes; only, it is a game for none but practised players. When you are perfect in playing in your ground, then, and then only, try how you can play out of it, as the best means to scatter the enemy and open the field.

'As to bowling,' continued Beldham, 'when I was a boy (about 1780), nearly all bowling was fast, and all along the ground. In those days the Hambledon Club could beat all England; but our three parishes around Farnham at last beat Hambledon.'

It is quite evident that Farnham was the cradle of cricketers. 'Surrey,' in the old scores, means nothing more than the Farnham parishes. This corner of Surrey, in every match against All England, was reckoned as part of Hampshire; and, Beldham truly said, 'you find us regularly on the Hampshire side in Bentley's Book.

'I told you, sir,' said Beldham, 'that in my early days all bowling was what we called fast, or at least a moderate pace. The first lobbing slow bowler I ever saw was Tom Walker. When, in 1792, All England played Kent, I did feel so ashamed of such baby bowling: but, after all, he did more than even David Harris himself. Two years after, in 1794, at Dartford Brent, Tom Walker, with his slow bowling, headed a side against David Harris, and beat him easily.