Page:The Cricket Field (1854).djvu/130

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THE CRICKET FIELD.

them if ever after they dared to win. You'll try me once, and then you'll have me in a line like him of the mill last year.' No, sir, a man was a slave when once he sold to these folk: 'fool and knave aye go together.' Still, they found fools enough for their purpose; but rogues can never trust each other. One day, a sad quarrel arose between two of them, which opened the gentlemen's eyes too wide to close again to those 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 matches.' '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 come out fast; and, when they are circumstantial and square with previous suspicions, 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