And what Wykehamist of 1820-30 does not remember R---- Price? or what Fellow of New College down to 1847, when
has not enjoyed his merriment in the Common Room or his play on Bullingdon and Cowley Marsh? His were the safest hands and most effective fielding ever seen. To attempt the one run from a cover hit when Price was there, or to give the sight of one stump to shy at, was a wicket lost. When his friend, F. B. Wright, or any one he could trust, was at the wicket, well backed up, the ball, by the fine old Wykehamist action, was up and in with such speed and precision as I have hardly seen equalled and never exceeded. When he came to Lord’s, in 1825, with that Wykehamist Eleven which Mr. Ward so long remembered with delight, their play was unknown and the bets on their opponents; but when once Price was seen practising at a single stump, his Eleven became the favourites immediately; for he was one of the straightest of all fast bowlers; and I have heard experienced batsmen say, “We don’t care for his underhand bowling, only it is so straight we could take no liberties, and the first we missed was Out.” I never envied any man his sight and nerve like Price--the coolest practitioner you ever saw: he always looked bright, though others blue; and you had only to glance at his sharp grey eyes, and you could at once account for the fact that one stump to shy at, a rook for a single bullet, or the ripple of a trout in a bushy stream, was so much fun for R. Price.
Some of the most painful accidents have been of the same kind--from collision; therefore I never blame a man who, as the ball soars high in air, and the captain of his side does not (as he ought if he can) call out “Johnson has it!” stops short, for fear of three spikes in his instep, or the buttons of his neighbour’s jacket forcibly coinciding with his own. Still, these are not distinctively the dangers of cricket: men may run their heads together in the street.
The principal injuries sustained are in the fingers; though, I did once know a gentleman who played in spectacles, and seeing two balls in the air, he caught at the shadow, and nearly had the substance in his face. The old players, in the days of underhand bowling, played without gloves; and Bennet assured me he had seen Tom Walker, before advancing civilisation made man tender, rub his bleeding fingers in the dust. The old players could show finger-joints of most ungenteel dimensions; and no wonder, for a finger has been broken even through tubular india-rubber. Still, with a good pair of cricket gloves, no man need think much about his fingers; albeit flesh will blacken, joints will grow too large for the accustomed ring, and finger-nails will come off. A spinning ball is the most mischievous; and when there is spin and pace too (as with a ball from Mr. Fellowes, which you can hear humming like a top) the danger is too great for mere amusement; for when, as in the Players’ Match of 1849, Hillyer plays a bowler a foot away from his stumps, and Pilch cannot face him--which is true when Mr. Fellowes bowls on any but the smoothest ground--why then, we will not say that any thing which that hardest of hitters and thorough cricketer does, is not cricket, but certainly it is anything but _play_.