Carefully noting at which end the wicket-keeper was, I just as carefully went to the one at which he was not. The mighty H. C. Trentham was loosening his arm, and sending down a few preliminaries. I watched him as keenly as the black mists before my eyes allowed. He brought his long brown arm right over with a beautiful, easy, automatic swing. The ball slipped from his fingers at an ordinary pace, but as soon as it took the ground it spun off the pitch with an inward twist at three times the rate one would expect. He looked every inch a bowler, powerfully built in every part, his body supple as a cat’s, a remarkable length of limb, and, better still, a pair of extremely strong and heavy-timbered legs. However, the man preparing to resist him looked every inch a batsman, too. Lithe, alert, calm, he seemed quietly happy that he had got to face a bowler worthy of his artifice. The manner in which he asked for his guard, and took it, the elaborate process he went through to ensure the maintenance of “two leg,” the diligent way in which he observed the placing of the field, and the freedom with which he ordered the screen about, all pointed to the conclusion that if Hickory got him out for under fifty on that wicket, they would be able to congratulate themselves. There is as much difference between the first-class cricketer and the ordinary club-man as there is between a professional actor and the gifted amateur. The club-man may be a marvel of conscientiousness, discretion, and enthusiasm, and able to recite Steel and Lyttelton from the preface to the index at a moment’s notice, but he has not that air of inevitableness that emphasizes the county man scoring off the best of Briggs and Richardson, and apparently able to compass any feat in the batting line but the losing of his wicket.