The most exciting match, I think, in which I ever took part was for Loretto against another school. In those days we were very weak indeed. When our last man went in, second innings, we were still four runs behind our opponent’s first score. This last man was extremely short-sighted, and the game seemed over. But his partner, a very steady player, kept the bowling, and put on some thirty-eight more. We put our adversaries in to get this, and had lowered eight wickets for twenty-eight. I was bowling, and appealed to the umpire of our opponents for a palpable catch at wicket. ‘Not out!’ Next ball the batsman was caught at long-stop, and a fielder triumphantly shouted, ‘Well, how’s _that_?’ ‘Not out,’ replied the professional again, and we lost the match by two wickets. If this had happened on the Border there would have been trouble, and perhaps the two clubs would not have met again for years. I have no doubt that a more equable feeling has come in among those clubs which retained a good deal of the sentiments of rival clans. The Borderers played too much as if we were still in the days of Scotts and Carrs, and as if it were still our purpose To tame the Unicorn’s pride, Exalt the Crescent and the Star. Sir Walter Scott encouraged this ardour at football when he caused to be unfurled, for the first time since 1633, the ancient banner of Buccleuch, with its broidered motto ‘Bellendaine.’ The dalesmen, the people from the waters of Yarrow, Ettrick, and Teviot, played against the souters of Selkirk, all across country, the goals being Ettrick and Yarrow. The townsmen scored the first goal, when the Galashiels folk came in as allies of the shepherds, and helped them to win a goal. ‘Then began a murder grim and great,’ and Scott himself was mobbed in the evening. But he knew how to turn wrath into laughter. ‘’Tis sixty years since,’ and more, but this perfervid ardour, while it makes Border cricket very exciting, is perhaps even now a trifle too warm. The great idea, perhaps, in all country cricket is not so much to have a pleasant day’s sport, win or lose, but to win merely. Men play for victory, as Dr. Johnson talked, rather than for cricket. This has its advantages; it conduces to earnestness. But it does not invariably promote the friendliness of a friendly game.