Clem Hill's Reminiscences

the occupants of the berth by making out that he was a man dying of consumption. Trumble knew of the joke and so did the captain, the purser and I. Muffling himself up in a heavy overcoat Phillips stole into the cabin late at night, and turned into the spare bunk and began coughing loudly. He continued throughout the night. Trumble, from beneath the bedclothes, watched the restlessness of McLeod and Johns as they tossed about uneasily. McLeod did not suffer as much as Johns as he was partly deaf. At daylight Johns had had enough. He went to the purser to complain of the serious interruption to his rest. The purser solemnly looked down the list of passengers and expressed the opinion that the intruder must be a second-class passenger who had been put in the cabin by a steward in error. Johns went to the captain and told him about the bad night he had had. The skipper was sympathetic. The number on the ‘sick man’s’ ticket in the part of the ship reserved for second-class passengers must, he concluded have corresponded with the number in the big, four-berth cabin. While this was going on McLeod was dressing. He was shaving his chin when the dying man gave a very loud cough and gurgle. McLeod left the cabin as soon as he could. He had never dressed so quickly before and been up so early. Phillips left as soon as the coast was clear. He had not had much sleep, but he had had a lot of fun. But these recollections are taking me away from the playing fields of England. In an early match this season we had to face the bowling of Bosanquet. He was then a fast bowler. It was not until some years later that he changed over to a slow bowler and introduced the ‘googly’. W.G.Grace played in this first Test match of the 1899 tour. It was his last. He was now 51 years of age, and yet he bowled 20 overs in the first innings and two in the second. He also made 28 runs, being opening batsman with C.B.Fry to the attack of Jones. What a great personality Grace was! W.L.Murdoch, captain of Australia and later captain of Sussex, was very friendly with Grace. Murdoch maintained that the full joys of cricket could be experienced only in Grace’s company. The moral effect of his presence was tremendous. He had a great sense of humour. ‘Where would you like to go in?’ he asked a cricketer playing for the first time. ‘Well, doctor’, the youth replied, ‘I don’t mind, but I’ve never made a duck.’ W.G. looked at him as at some rare bird. ‘What! Never made a duck’, he said, ‘then last is your place; you haven’t been playing long enough.’ With his immense frame and flowing beard W.G. was enough to frighten young players. He used to boast that he could get them out on meeting them for the first time. And he invariably did. He bowled a slow, curling dropping ball on the leg side, and with a cleverly placed field got many a victim. Grace always gave the palm to J.M.Blackham as the prince of wicket-keepers. He used to relate that Spofforth when asked to state how he learned to become a His Second English Tour 47