Page:A "Bawl" for American Cricket.djvu/31

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DARK DAYS OF CRICKET.
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each other. One day a sad quarrel arose between two of them; that opened the gentlemen's eyes too wide to close again to these practices. Two very big rogues at Lord's fell a quarrelling, and blows were given; a crowd drew round, and the gentlemen ordered them both into the pavilion. When the one began, 'You had 20l. to lose the Kent match, bowling leg long hops and missing catches.' 'And you were paid to lose at Swaffham—'Why did that game with Surrey turn about—three runs to get, and you didn't make them?' Angry words came came out fast, and, when they are circumstantial and square with previous suspiciens, they are proofs as strong as holy writ. In one single-wicket match,' he continued, 'and those were always great matches for the sporting men, because usually you had first-rate men on each side, and their merits known; dishonesty was as plain as this: just as a player was coming in (John B. will confess this, if you talk of the match) he said to me, 'You'll let me score five or six, for appearances, won't you, for I am not going to make many if I can?' 'Yes,' I said, 'you rogue, you shall if I can not help it.' But when a game was all but won, and the odds heavy, and all one way, it was cruel to see how the fortune of the day then would change about. In that Kent match,—you can turn to it in your book (Bentley's scores), played 28th July, 1807, on Pennenden Heath,—I and Lord Frederick had scored sixty-one, and thirty remained to win, and six of the best men in England went out for eleven runs. Well, sir, I lost some money by that match, and as seven of us were walking homewards to meet a coach, a gentleman who had backed the match drove by and said, 'Jump up, my boys, we have all lost together.