300 THE REV. J. G. WOOD. 



reports of leading matches as given in the daily news- 

 papers. For football I do not think that he ever cared 

 in the least. Lawn-tennis, of course, did not come into 

 fashion until his advancing years prevented him from 

 taking it up. Probably, the injury to his right hand 

 from the fall of 1874 would, in any case, have prevented 

 him from attaining to any proficiency in the game. 

 But he nevertheless took a very lively interest in it, 

 and would generally come out and watch us for a while 

 .as we played in the afternoon. 



Croquet, however, attracted him far more, and he 

 reduced it almost to the level of one of the exact 

 sciences. When we removed to the larger house at 

 Belvedere, he had the lawn carefully taken up and 

 re-laid, with a substratum of chalk, on the most ap- 

 proved principles. And then his custom was, when 

 tired with work, to come out and play a short game 

 with himself, blue balls against red. The game was a 

 very scientific one. Six hoops only, placed at sharp 

 angles to one another, at great distances apart, and no 

 more than five inches in width ; heavy balls, carefully 

 selected and tested, that they might run as accurately 

 as a billiard-ball ; and a large, heavily-loaded mallet, 

 with the handle carefully wrapped with string. These 

 were his requirements, and without them he did not 

 consider the game worth playing. Nothing annoyed 

 him more than to be compelled to take part in the 

 ordinary garden-party croquet. He always rebelled 

 against even the four-player game, holding that no real 

 opportunity for skill could be given unless the players 



