"WILLOW THE KING"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 18

"WILLOW THE KING"

A FORGOTTEN NOVEL

CRICKET IN LITERATURE

(Written for "The Post" by A.M.)

J, C. Snaith, the English novelist, died the other day. He had about twenty-five books to his credit, but I notice on looking at "Who's Who" that his once popular but now apparently forgotten cricket novel is not mentioned. Since, so I presume, authors included in "Who's Who" supply their own lists, it looks as if Mr. Snaith had considered "Willow the King" unworthy of him. Perhaps it was. I read it again a few years ago, and I had to admit that it thrilled me much less than when I was introduced to it many years earlier. That, however, may have been partly my own fault. It has been said that when one is young all beer is good beer, and all actresses beautiful, and it might be added that (provided you are a lover of cricket) all books on cricket are glamorous. However that may be, "Willow the King" gave me and many others so much pleasure that I feel I must say something about it. And the subject leads naturally to the consideration of cricket in fiction.

DICKENS TO CONAN DOYLE. There is a library of books on the playing of cricket, but not so much imaginative treatment of the game as: one might suppose. Byron played for Harrow, and was proud of haying; "notched" a few. It was he, I think, who wrote of "Cricket's manly toil." The match in "Pickwick" is not to bo taken seriously, but Dickens showed a genuine interest in the game. He wrote; that cricket "really places a thousand joys of life within the reach of thoso who, without their powers with the hat and ball, would find existence si very humdrum and monotonous affair," and asked if there was any week in England, or. in the world, like the Canterbury week. Probably the best cricketer among English authors of note was Conan Doyle, who played] fairly regularly, I believe, for on* of the M.C.C. grades. Conan Doyle wrote a remarkable short story about cricket which possibly has not received sufficient attention from worried English selectors and captains. A quite unknown player in the English country developed a full toss so puzzling in its flight as to be devastating. It fell straight on the top of the stumps. He •was discovered, put straight into a Teist match side, and routed the Australians. The high full toss, in my humtt.e opinion, is not used sufficiently; I have seen it get a wicket in a Test match. Raffles, the amateur cracksman created by E. W. Horning, was a firstclass bowler. One remembers, too, Ifin Hay's Pip, whose prowess as a lefthand bowler was discovered by a discerning master; how the boy justified his coach ranks high among faithful and vivid accounts of cricket matches. Nor does the lover of cricket forget the account of the Eton-Harrow matoh in H. A. Vachell's fine school "The Hill." The actual cricket is interesting enough to please everybody, and the background of the fashionable crowd is very well painted. In its way "The Hill" is a classic. Scaife, ■the gifted bounder who is a foil to the steady hero of the story, loses his wicket in the second innings through a shooter, and walks back with thunder on his brow. His display of temper, a violation of the tradition of good sportsmanship, is noticed by the discerning among the crowd. In Ihe language of one spectator, Scaife shows "the hairy heel." When I think of Ihe incident I am reminded of what an old cricketer and wise man of the world once said to me. "Take a youngster waiting in the pavilion for his turn to hat." He goes in and is bowled first ball. If he can come out smiling, he has learned a jolly valuable lesson."

The end of the match in "The Hill" Is among the most exciting things of the kind in fiction. I saw just the same ending in an interprovincial match in New Zealand, and I shall never forget it—two or three runs; to get and the last two men in; the batsman played a ball to cover-point ;and they ran; cover-point threw the ball in smartly, the bails were whipped off; there was a pause for a fraction of a second, and then the fieldsmen ran 3tor the pavilion.

A WOMAN CRICKETER. There are, however, few novels devoted entirely to cricket, and probably this was ooe reason for the success of "Willow the King." The most interesting character was Grace, the vicar's daughter, who lived for cricket, understood the game thoroughly, had "a tongue that would clip, a hedge" as they say in Irehmd, bowled excellent slows, and was reputed to cherish a strand of W.G.'s beard. The narrator of the story goes in first in a one-day country match to face the bowling of one of the best fast bowlers in England, and his feelings are described with knowledge and humour. Playing forward to the first ball he drives it perfectly through the covers for 4, and his confidence rises, but alas, a few minutes later, in trying to pull a long-hop from the slow bowler, he is out lbw. That is the sort of thing that happers so often in cricket. Through his early dismissal, however, Dimsdale is introduced to Grace, who has come with the visiting side and is busy captaining it from "the bank." He falls in love on the spot, but what hope has he, not even a county player, of winning one who lives for the game and describes her own brother, about to go to Australia with Stoddart, as a "fair rustic bat"? From the humours and excitements of this one-day country match the scene shifts to the Rectory where Grace lives. Dimsdale challenges Graze to a single wicket match on the rectory field, his fate to depend on the issue. The house party of cricketers do the fielding. Dimsdale manages to scratch a few runs against her wily bowling, with the help of the thoroughly sympathetic field. Worse is to come, however, for while Grace is a good bat, Dimsdale '. can't bowl at all. Grace scores easily, but after waiting vainly for Dimsdale to bowl a straigh; ball, settles the match against herself by calmly knocking down her own wicket. It is a slight, breezy story, lively with the snappy back-chat of the gane. It has, however, its value as a social document. This little group of people set in the beauty of the English countryside, all, except the rector (and he.had been a famous player in his day), preoccupied with cricket, is a microcosm, of a larger society. Many a match, county or Test, many, a battle of politics or war, has been von or lost on that shady rectory field. "THE CRICKET MATCH." Giving the term "novel" a wide definition, perhaps the best novel of cricket is Hugh de Selincourt's. "The Cricket Match." It has no plot in the accepted sense of the word, and no love interest, but I take it that a story may lack both and still be a novel. It is a story of a one-day inter-village match, but it begins in the earlymorn-

ing with the preparations for the game and the thoughts of some of those involved, and goes on to the exciting end of the game in the evening. There is, for example, a boy, thrilled at being included in the team, and there is a village worker whose wife has to bustle to get his flannels ready. The game itself is described in detail, and every one of the twenty-two players stands out in a sharp character sketch. I don't know any book that gives so faithful and impressive a picture of the democracy of country cricket, and of the variety of character and calling that makes up village sides. In the top flights of the game there is far more uniformity; players at times seem to be all of a pattern, like their clothes. In village cricket individuality has more scope. In county cricket, for example, certain strokes may be barred as too risky; no one would think of trying to stop the village blacksmith from making that scythelike shot which may send the bestlength ball for four. Conditions are so very different The village game lasts but one day, and four innings may be compressed into that time. The struggle is an intimate affair, in which players are known personally to spectators, and good humour is mingled with fervent local patriotism. OLD PLAYERS. An important difference between first-class cricket and country-club and village cricket is the age of survival. In these minor grades men continue playing to astonishing ages. In England I met a good club side, the captain of which had been connected with it for fifty years. He still led the side in the field, and a keener cricketer you couldn't find. Twice a member of the side told me on coming home from a one-day match that he had played that day against so-and-so, mentioning international players of many a year since, one of them a household word. In this country few first-class cricketers continue to play after they drop out of senior grades. .There is little or no opportunity for them to do so, for cricket has not developed here the large body of "friendly" matches that are played In England. At Home there is more cricket played for the fun of the thing, the pure love of the game. So much attention is focused on county and Test cricket that this huge body of club and village cricket is apt to be overlooked. Here no change of rules is required; the bowler is quite sufficiently master of the situation as it is. And here are the truest delights of the game—cricket in its natural state, unburdened by the obligations and solemnities of county championships and "Ashes"; ' cricket related closely to the savours and oddities of character; cricket with its smell of summer grass and its sunlit trees, whose shadows lengthening on the golden sward warn player and spectator of the silent foot o{ time. It is not surprising that the writer in search of material looks rather to this cricket than to the gladiatorial fiercely illuminated contests at Lord's, the Oval, and Sydney.