Coursing is as popular as ever among the Cotswold farmers.  These hills have always been noted for the sport.  Drayton tells us that the prize at the coursing meetings held on the Cotswolds in his day was a silver-studded collar.  Shakespeare, in his Merry Wives of Windsor alludes to the coursing on “Cotsall.”  There is an excellent club at Cirencester.  The hares in this district are remarkably big and strong-running.  The whole district lends itself particularly to this sport, owing to the large fields and fine stretches of open downs.

CRICKET.

In an agricultural district such as the Cotswolds it is inevitable that the game of cricket should be somewhat neglected.  Men who work day after day in the open air, and to whom a half-holiday is a very rare experience, naturally seek their recreations in less energetic fashion than the noble game of cricket demands of its votaries.  The class who derive most benefit from this game spring as a rule from towns and manufacturing centres and those whose work and interests confine them indoors the greater part of their time.  Among the Cotswold farmers, however, a great deal of interest is shown; the scores of county matches are eagerly pursued in the daily papers; and if there is a big match on at Cheltenham or any other neighbouring town, a large number invariably go to see it.  There is some difficulty in finding suitable sites for your ground in these parts, for the hill turf is very stony and shallow; it is not always easy to find a flat piece of ground handy to the villages.  A cricket ground is useless to the villagers if it is perched up on the hill half a mile away.  It must be at their doors; and even then, though they may occasionally play, they will never by any chance trouble to roll it.  We made a ground in the valley of the Coln some years ago, and went to some expense in the way of levelling, filling up gravel pits, and removing obstructions like cowsheds; but unless we had looked after it ourselves and made preparations for a match, it would have soon gone back to its original rough state again.  And yet two of the young Peregrines in the village are wonderfully good cricketers, and as “keen as mustard” about it; though when it comes to rolling and mowing the ground they are not quite as keen.  They will throw you over for a match in the most unceremonious way if, when the day comes, they don’t feel inclined to play.  We have often tried to persuade these two young fellows to become professional cricketers, there being such a poor prospect in the farming line; but they have not the slightest ambition to play for the county, though they are quite good enough; so they “waste their sweetness on the desert air.”

Old Mr. Peregrine, a man of nearly eighty years of age, is splendid fun when he is watching his boys play cricket.  He goes mad with excitement; and if you take them off bowling, however much the batsmen appear to relish their attack, he won’t forgive you for the rest of the day.