Page:Seventy One Not Out.pdf/36

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OLD CLARKE.
19

department through having had the sight of his right eye destroyed at fives, at which game he excelled almost as much as at cricket. He would play this game for hours together, and made such hard work of it that when he leaned exhausted against the wall of the fives-court he often left a sort of silhouette of himself in perspiration on the wall! Clarke was above medium height and inclining to stoutness. He had a kind of half-grim, half-smiling expression, especially when he was getting wickets easily. The picture of him in the 'Cricket-Field' is an excellent one. He was always eager to get the best end of a wicket to bowl on. "I'll have this end, and you can have which you like!" he would say to his fellow-bowler. This remark has been lately attributed to Alfred Shaw, but Clarke was certainly the originator of it.

I have been told that when Clarke opened the Trent Bridge, and the chief matches at Nottingham were transferred there from the Forest, which was free of payment, the public were not at all pleased at having to part with their sixpences to witness a game, and that on the occasion of Clarke going in to bat in the opening match he was roundly hooted. The veteran had not been in long before he played a ball back to the bowler which grounded. The crowd, thinking he was out, cheered lustily. Clarke determined to play a joke on them, walked part of the way towards the pavilion, whereupon they