Lives in Cricket No 29 - AN Hornby

31 later, having found their land legs, the tourists took the field for their first match in Montreal. They played nine times in all, winning eight and drawing their final fixture in Boston. After the first match there was a banquet for the ‘Gentlemen of England’ at which Grace made a speech, which was to be heard again and again on similar occasions during the course of the tour. It went along the lines of ‘Gentlemen I beg to thank you for the honour you have done me (sic); I never saw better bowling than I have seen today and I hope to see as good wherever I go’. The mention of bowling was interchangeable with batting as the match situation dictated and Grace sometimes used the word ‘grand’ instead of ‘better’ to describe the bowling/batting. In Toronto on 6 September Hornby kept wicket for Fitzgerald’s XII against Grace’s XII to good effect with six stumpings in the two innings. They included snaring Grace, much, one would imagine, to the annoyance and irritation of the great man. The tourists reached London, Ontario, by 10 September, where, according to Fitzgerald, ‘The Monkey went in and caused much amusement by stealing runs’. Voyage of discovery 1 The American touring party. Back (l to r): A.Lubbock, W.G.Grace, T.C.Patteson, C.J.Ottaway. Centre: E.Lubbock, R.A.Fitzgerald, A.Appleby. Front: F.P.U.Pickering, G.R.C.Harris [who became Lord Harris a few weeks later], A.N.Hornby, W.M.Rose, C.K. Francis.