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He's been reading Tolstoy's books, and wants to live upon a shilling a day; while poor Lady Crossborough, who knows my cousin, Captain Blackham, very well, she's bored to death, and it will kill her if it goes on.
That means the Devil, you know." "And was he the Devil?" "No, Dimples, no. They called him that because he did such wonderful things with the ball." "Can the Devil do wonderful things with a ball?" Daddy felt that he was propagating devil-worship and hastened to get to safer ground. "Spofforth taught us how to bowl and Blackham taught us how to keep wicket.
The scene in Portman Square, the women's screams, the empty house, the black hangings, the talk concerning the duel, and his lordship's mysterious words about Captain Blackham never troubling him any more: they came upon me in a flash, and almost drove me silly. Not so my lord himself I had never seen him calmer. "Good-morning, constable," says he, "and what can I do for you?"
The first shell fell almost on the party, killing Colonel Jessop, the two orderlies, Bacchus and Blackham, and both horses. Colonel Jones was wounded in the hand, neck and thigh, fortunately not very seriously, though he had to be sent at once to England, having escaped death by little short of a miracle.
Even in good second-class cricket there were no more long-stops. We soon found plenty of good wicket-keeps like Alfred Lyttelton and MacGregor but it was Blackham who showed us how. To see Spofforth, all india-rubber and ginger, at one end bowling, and Blackham, with his black beard over the bails waiting for the ball at the other end, was worth living for, I can tell you."
Did they think he would put up with that? Not for a minute, and, seeing that you can't get law in such affairs in this country, he meant to do his own law-making. That very night he had asked Captain Blackham to come to this house that they might meet and have it out like gentlemen should do.
When I was young we always had another fielder, called the long- stop, who stood behind the wicket-keeper. I used to be a thick, solid boy, so they put me as long-stop, and the balls used to bounce off me, I remember, as if I had been a mattress." Delighted laughter. "But after Blackham came wicket-keepers had to learn that they were there to stop the ball.
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