In addition to the regular corps of caddies there was an irregular body of younger depredators who had no official position, and earned a precarious livelihood by stealing or retrieving balls. They enjoyed considerable opportunities, because there were on the Common a good many muddy ditches--the only natural hazards--and along the edges of these ditches the youth of Barnwell took up strategic positions at stated intervals. Sometimes considerations of policy dictated that they should retrieve the errant ball, and return it to its owner for a penny. Sometimes they would dexterously stamp the ball into the mud, pretend to hunt for it with a great show of energy, and pocket it at their leisure when the owner had abandoned the search. This was an easy matter enough, for the mud was of the softest and thickest, and the ball would frequently bury itself on alighting without any help from the human foot. How our visitors from Blackheath and Yarmouth could bear it I now find a difficulty in understanding, and it says much for their enthusiasm and friendliness that they came to play against us year after year. They put up with it manfully, and very jolly matches we used to have. Indeed, to quote J. K. S., "the smile on my face is a mask for tears," and I could almost wish to strike another ball at Coldham. I must admit to having enjoyed myself very much there, almost as much as on another course of woeful greens and superlative muddiness--the old Athens course at Eton. Coton I do not know well, but though an enthusiastic captain of Cambridge once told me that the greens were as good as the best seaside ones, I am disposed to think he was romancing. There is another flourishing course on the Gog-Magog hills, where there is at least a charming view, and twelve or thirteen miles away is Royston. Here there is a truly splendid view over miles and miles of the flat country, for the course lies on a piece of breezy downland perched high above its surroundings. A very jolly place it is whereon to play golf, though the golf perhaps is not of the highest class. It is a course of steep hills and deep gullies, and there is much climbing to be done and much putting on perplexing slopes. Some of these gullies form wonderful natural amphitheatres, and I always like to think that in one of them was fought the battle for the championship of England between Peter Crawley, the 'Young Rump Steak,' and Jem Ward, 'the Black Diamond.' That the fight took place on Royston Heath we know from _Boxiana_, but the exact battlefield has become obscured by the mists of time.