WILLOW THE KING

WILLOW THE KING

The Story of a Cricket
Match

BY
J. C. SNAITH
AUTHOR OF “FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER,” “MISTRESS DOROTHY MARVIN,”
ETC., ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY LUCIEN DAVIS, R.I.

LONDON
WARD, LOCK AND CO. LIMITED
NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE

TO MY COLLEAGUES OF THE
NOTTINGHAM FOREST
AMATEUR CRICKET CLUB

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
The Night Before

IT was the eve of Little Clumpton versus Hickory. To those who are unfamiliar with these haunts of ancient peace this may seem a chronicle of the infinitely little. The Utopians, however, dwelling there remote, were quite aware that Waterloo, nay, even the Battle of Omdurman, was a picnic in comparison with Little Clumpton versus Hickory. Therefore let the nations heed.

Half our team were sitting in my billiard-room discussing the prospects of the morrow. Opinion really was unanimous for once: Little Clumpton must not lose.

“Lose!” said the Optimist grandly, “is it England, or is it Hickory?”

“Only Hickory,” said the Pessimist, “and the Trenthams.”

“It can be W. G. and Jackson, if they like to bring ’em,” said the Optimist; “and then they’ll finish sick. They’ll simply flop before Charlie’s ribsters, and Billy’s slows.”

“H’m!” said the Pessimist.

“Think so?” said the Worry.

“Certain,” said the Optimist. “Before now we’ve had ’em out for fifty.”

“Yes,” said the Pessimist, “and before now we’ve had ’em out for three hundred and fifty.”

“But,” said the Humourist, “I hadn’t developed my head-ball then.”

The Humourist would find it as difficult to exist without his “head-ball,” as Attewell without his gentle maiden.

“Well, I suppose it all depends upon the weather,” said the Worry, with his usual inconsequence. “How’s the glass?”

“Quite well, thank you,” said the Humourist, brandishing a huge whisky and Apollinaris.

“Going down,” said the Treasurer, with great gloominess. The Treasurer had been elected to his dignity because it was feared that he was Scotch on his mother’s side.

Here the Captain came into the conversation. He took his corn-cob slowly from his mouth, pressed the tobacco down with that air of simple majesty that is the hall-mark of the great, and then began to smoke again in a very solemn manner. This, for the Captain, was a speech. And as it is only the fool who can speak without giving himself away, this was as it should be. His words were fit though few. Hence the tradition, that though he didn’t say much his ideas were very beautiful. The Secretary regularly sat in a listening attitude behind his chair, so that if by any chance the great man did commit an utterance, he could jot it down upon his cuff. And it was an open secret that every time the Secretary changed his shirt he entered the Captain’s requests for a milk and soda or a pipe-light in the archives of the Club.

The Captain was the gentlest of men. There was a suavity in his coffee-coloured face and his pale blue eye that grew positively weird in one who was good for another fifty every time he had the screen moved. Though he had developed a peculiar habit of playing for the Gentlemen at Lord’s, he had a charity that covered a multitude of umpires, and when l.b.w. did not attempt to demonstrate to the pavilion by the laws of Sir Isaac Newton that the ball had not pitched straight by the vulgarest fraction of an inch. His mien had the wholly classic calm of those who have their biographies in Wisden. His language in its robustest passages was as fragile as Mrs. Meynell’s prose. If a small boy danced behind the bowler’s arm, it was claimed for the Captain that he actually employed “please” and “thank you.”[A] Even in the throes of a run out his talk retained its purity to a remarkable degree. His strongest expletive was a pained expression. His beverage seldom rose beyond a milk and soda. Life with him was a very chaste affair.

The Secretary was of another kidney. He always got up a bit before the lark, since his rule of life was to get a start of the rest of nature. He was eminently fitted for great place. Had he been other than Secretary to the Little Clumpton Cricket Club he must have been Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and dictated carefully chosen insults to the French and other dwellers in outer darkness. Nevertheless, he was all things to all men. He could be as persuasive as tobacco, he could unloose the wrath of Jove. If you came to him at the eleventh hour and said: “Beastly sorry, Lawson, but can’t possibly play to-morrow,” you could rely on his well of English being defiled. On the other hand, if he came to you and said: “I say, old man, Jordan’s lost his jolly aunt; Boulter’s split his blighted thumb, and I really can’t take no, you know, shall want your batting awful bad, you know,” his accent was a song. He was the only man who could subdue the best bowler when the slips weren’t snapping ’em. He was the only man who dared address the Captain on the field. He had the courage to explain to the fair sex, “what those strange things in white coats with mufflers round their waists are standing there for?” He could suggest to the intelligent foreigner that the criquette is a sport, not a religious exercise; and he was such a fine tactician that he always fielded point. Merryweather, known familiarly as “Jessop,” because of his audacity, was the one person who ventured to tell the Secretary that he couldn’t play to-morrow, “as I’m going golfing.” And even he, lion-hearted as he was, presently gave up that pastime for less violent amusements. “Billiards gone to grass,” the Secretary considered an insufficient phrase, but the Secretary’s views on golf are not going to be printed.

Lawson’s was not the highest form of cricket. His bowling was a jest; his batting was a comic interlude. Yet his Captain was wont to say, “Give me Lawson at a pinch, and I’ll give you Grace and Ranjitsinhji.” For his force of character was such that when the bowling was used up he would go on with lobs and take a wicket; when a rot set in, before going in to stop it, he would tell them to send him a cup of tea at five; whilst he was such a master in the art of playing for a draw that light-minded persons called him “Notts.” True, his style was not the style of Gunn and Shrewsbury, nor were his methods conspicuously pretty, but none the less he was the source of several letters to the M.C.C. As an instance of his powers, last year but one, against I. Zingari, he stayed two hours for seven, brought down the rain and saved the match. There was not a breath of vanity about him, and in appearance he looked quite a simple ordinary soul. But if it was an absolute necessity that Little Clumpton should win the toss, the Captain generally sent Lawson out to spin; and if the other side, in the innocence of their hearts, thought they knew a trick that Little Clumpton didn’t, the Secretary usually held it right to encourage them in that opinion.

Now though there was not a man present who would have admitted for a moment that he had the faintest fear of Hickory, there was no overriding the hard fact that the Captain had twice withdrawn his pipe from his mouth in the space of twenty minutes. The Secretary had noted this grim portent as he noted everything, and sat tugging his moustache with one hand, whilst with the other he worked out the Theory of the Toss (invented by himself) to five places of decimals. Indeed, such an air of gloom presently settled on us all that the Pessimist declared that we had got already a bad attack of the Trenthams. Perhaps we had. Never previously had we faced more than two members of this redoubtable family at a time, but report said that to-morrow we must suffer the full brotherhood of four. Their deeds that season had been more terrible than ever. A. H., of Middlesex, had helped himself to 146 against Surrey at the Oval the previous week, and was going out with Stoddart in the autumn. H. C. was reputed to be the best bowler either ’Varsity had seen since Sammy Woods, an opinion poor Oxford had subscribed to in July at Lord’s; Captain George, although he liked to call himself a veteran, had an average of 72·3 for the Royal Artillery; whilst T. S. M., the Harrow Captain, had enjoyed the Eton match very much indeed, and rather thought he should enjoy the match with Little Clumpton too. As if this was not enough, the General Nuisance presently sauntered in, exactly an hour behind his time as usual. And to the consternation of us all the General Nuisance wore his most expansive simper.

“He’s only heard that the Trenthams are coming,” said the Worry. By trying to reassure us he sought to reassure himself.

“Confound you! are you going to dislocate your face?” said the Secretary, aiming a cushion and a string of unprintable expressions at the General Nuisance. “What’s up now? Is Charlie crocked? Is Billy drinking? Good Lord! I hope there’s nothing gone wrong with the bowling!”

“Not yet,” said the General Nuisance sweetly; “but there will be, I’ll give you my word.”

“We shall have to try that muck o’ yours then,” said the Pessimist.

“Unfortunately I’m not playing to-morrow; I’m going fishing,” said the General Nuisance affably.

“Eh? What?”

It was the voice of the Secretary from behind the Captain’s chair. It was a psychological moment. Each man present had that nightmare of a feeling that afflicts you in the long-field when A. H. Trentham lifts one to you steeples high, curling some fifteen ways at once, which all the time you are hopelessly misjudging and that you know you are bound to drop. However, I had the presence of mind to distract the General Nuisance with a drink, while the Captain laid a soothing hand on the Secretary’s knee, and appealed to his moral nature. Brandy and soda, one grieves to say, inflamed rather than appeased the personal appearance of the General Nuisance. His simper became a grin.

“Pipe up,” said that heroical man, the Treasurer, preparing for the worst; “out with it.”

“You will be very brave?” said the General Nuisance.

“Comfort, you blackguard,” said the Secretary, “Why do you grin? Speak or die!”

When the General Nuisance grinned, homicidal tendencies soiled minds of the most virgin whiteness.

The Captain took his pipe out and tapped it on his boot. It was a command that even the revolutionary spirit of the General Nuisance dared not disregard. It had the authority of an Act of Parliament.

“Well, brethren,” said the General Nuisance, “they are bringing Carteret and Elphinstone, that’s all.”

“And the Trenthams, too?” said I.

“And the Trenthams, too,” said he.

“It’s a good job we’re a good team,” said the Humourist.

It is true that the Secretary sat behind the Captain’s chair, but in the course of three minutes he contrived to emit such a quantity of language of a free and painful character, that to relieve the tension the Humourist kindly propounded this conundrum. Why is Bobby Abel batting like Lawson’s small talk? Because to look at ’em you’d wonder how they could. This, I regret to say, is quite in the Humourist’s early manner, ere art had chastened nature. It lacks the polished pathos of those slow-drawn agonies at which the world grew pale. But as the Humourist strutted in his title because he took himself quite seriously, do not let us forget that this offspring of his wit was born in an hour of mental stress.

CHAPTER II
Coming Events

AT six next morning my man found me in pyjamas, flourishing a bat up and down a chalk line on the bedroom carpet.

“Are you quite sure it’s perfectly straight, William?”

“Quite straight, sir; but mind the wardrobe door, sir!”

“I think I’ll try that blind hit of Gunn’s between point and cover.”

“All right, sir; if you’ll just wait while I move the water-jug. Your left leg a little more across—just a little; and how’s the late cut this morning, sir?”

“Never healthier in its life. Here you are. Look out!”

Crash! Plop! The glass in the wardrobe door had met the fate of its predecessors. The aggravating thing about the wardrobe door is that if you have it of glass you must inevitably break it; yet should you have a plain panel you can’t see what angle your bat’s at and where your feet are.

“I was hoping all the time that you’d smash it, sir,” said William in a confidential tone. “It’s a strange thing, sir, but every time you smash the wardrobe door you never get less than 50. If you remember, when you got that 82 last year against the Free Foresters you smashed it the morning of the match. Then that 61 against M.C.C. (O’Halloran and Roche an’ all), same thing occurred, if you recollect. And it’s my belief that you’ve smashed it worse this morning, sir, than you’ve ever done before. It might be the century to-day, sir.”

“I wonder if the water-jug or washhand-stand would help it,” said I reflectively; “because, William, if you really think they would——”

“Somehow,” said William hastily, “I haven’t quite the same faith in that there water-jug. I remember once you cracked it right across the spout and got ‘run out 3’ on that particular mornin’. Captain Cooper called you, and then sent you back, if you remember, sir, when you was halfway down the pitch.”

“I remember,” I groaned. “Those are the tragedies of which our little life is made!”

“And the washhand-stand ain’t no good at all, sir. Why, when you knocked the leg off it in giving Mold the wood, you bagged a brace at Pigeon Hill that day on what they called a wicket, but what was really a hornamental lake.”

“Spare me the horrible details, William,” I said. A cold sensation was creeping down my spine.

Having tubbed and shaved I felt so fit as I walked down to have a look at the ground before breakfast that I had to restrain myself from jumping five-barred gates. It was a perfect morning, flushed with summer. The birds on the boughs were welcoming the young sun; the mists were running before him; the dew on the trees was dancing to him; whilst the drenched meadows and the cool haze receding to the hills promised ninety in the shade to follow. Evidently Nature, like a downright good sportsman, was going to let us have a real cricketers’ day for a true cricketing occasion. Such fragrance made the blood leap. Every muscle seemed electric. To snuff the chill airs was to feel as fit and full of devil as a racehorse. By Jove, I felt like getting ’em! There were clean off-drives in the eager brooks, clipping cuts for four in the sparkling grass, sweet leg glances in the singing hedgerows, inimitable hooks and behind-the-wicket strokes in the cheerful field noises and the bird-thrilled branches; and when the sun burst out more fully in premonition of what was to be his magnificent display at Little Clumpton versus Hickory later in the day, I said to an unresponsive cow, “How do you like that, H. C.?” for I had just lifted the best bowler at either ’Varsity since Sammy Woods, clean out of the ground for six. And having begun to this tune, of course I went on getting ’em. I continued cutting, driving, and leg hitting at such a pace, that by the time I had made the half-mile to the ground that morning, a mere five minutes’ walk, I was rapidly approaching my century. They may talk of Jessop, but I think this gives a long start to any performances of his, although it is possible that he may have had to meet bowling rather more “upon the spot.” I was in great form though.

I found the ground-man standing beside the wicket, looking at it lovingly. He had his head on one side, as he gazed with an air as of Michael Angelo surveying his masterpiece.

“Mornin’ to you, sir!”

“Mornin’ Wiggles. How’s the wicket?”

“This ain’t no wicket, sir. It’s a bloomin’ billiard-table wot Dawson’s a’ inviting of Roberts to come and play on. And Lord, sir, have you seed the side that Hickory’s a-bringing—a bloomin’ county team. There’s them there Trenthams, all the boiling of ’em, and Carteret and Elphinstone of Kent. They do say as how Francis Ford and Fry’s a-coming, too, as Hickory’s a bit weak in batting like, seeing as how Billy Thumbs the cobbler’s short o’ practice. Well, sir, I on’y hopes they comes, and Ranjy with ’em, because, if you come to think on it, Hickory ain’t got no side at all. And such a piece of concrete wot’s awaiting ’em! ’Tween you and me, sir, I think if I was a bowler I should take to batting for to-day.”

“We had better win the toss then,” I said gloomily.

“That’s a very good idea, sir, for I’m thinking whoever gets in on this, somebody’ll be so tired afore six-thirty.”

Looking at that wicket and brooding on the awful array of batsmen Hickory was bringing, and what the result must be if they only got in first, I was tempted of the devil. The turf was soft with dew. I had merely to press my heel once into that billiard-table to nip some of their prospective centuries in the bud. And who shall say whether human frailty had prevailed against the wiles of evil had it not remembered that Hickory were not obliged to go in first.

I went home to breakfast trying to restrain my excess of “fitness.” For cricket is cussedness incarnate. You rise in the morning like a giant refreshed: your blood is jumping, the ball looks as big as a balloon, and you have a go at one you ought to let alone, and spoon it up to cover. Excess of “fitness” gets more wickets than Lohmann ever took.

I was in the middle of the Sportsman and my fourth egg when William appeared with a countenance of tragedy.

“I can’t find it, sir; it’s clean gone!” he said.

“Not the bat with the wrapping at the bottom?” I gasped, turning pale.

“No, sir; worse than that,” he said.

“Speak!” I cried; “what is it?”

“Your cap,” he said. “The one you made the 82, the 61, and 67 not out in.”

“What, the Authentics! It must be found, or I don’t go in to-day. Couldn’t get a run without that cap.”

The sweat stood on my brow.

“It’s my belief, sir,” said William darkly, “that this here’s a bit O’ Hickory. They knows how, like W. G., its always one particular cap you gets your runs in, and they’ve had it took according.”

This was very nice of William. His tact was charming. But the idea of my facing Hickory without my lucky cap was as monstrous as the captain going out to toss without his George II. shilling.

“William,” I said, “if you have to take the carpets up and have the chimneys swept, that cap must be found.”

William returned disconsolately to his search, whilst I fell into a train of dismal speculation. Falling to the Sportsman in despair my eye fell on a few items of a cheerful and peculiar interest:—

“Kent v. Notts.—Rev. E. J. H. Elphinstone, c Jones, b Attewell, 172; J. P. Carteret, b Dixon, 103.

“This brilliant pair of amateurs completely collared the Notts attack at Canterbury yesterday, and in the course of two hours and a quarter helped themselves to 254 for the second wicket.

“Middlesex v. Yorkshire.—A. H. Trentham, run out, 97.

“Yesterday, at Lord’s, that delightful batsman, A. H. Trentham, reduced the resourceful Yorkshire bowling to something that bore a family resemblance to common piffle. To the great disappointment of the enthusiastic company[B] he had the misfortune to be beautifully thrown out by F. S. Jackson when within three of the coveted three figures. Among his strokes were seventeen fours, including a couple of remarkable drives off Rhodes into the pavilion seats. Had he topped the century yesterday it would have been his fifth this season in county cricket. As it is, he is still second in the first-class averages; and we certainly think that the Old Country is to be congratulated on having A. H. Trentham to represent her in the forthcoming test games in Australia. His absolute confidence and his fine forcing method, it is not premature to say, will be seen to singular advantage on the fast and true colonial grounds.”

Reader (loquitur): “Damn his fine forcing method! I wonder why Wiggles hadn’t the sense to water that wicket. Anyway, I wish Jacker had let him have his fling. They’re always worse when they’ve been run out.”

“Household Brigade v. Royal Artillery.—Captain Trentham, c Wolseley, b Kitchener, 150.

“Playing for C.U.L.V.C. v. N. F. Druce’s XI. yesterday, H. C. Trentham, the crack Cambridge bowler, took nine wickets for eight runs. His performance included the ‘hat trick.’ The ball with which he bowled Prince Ranjitsinhji knocked one bail a distance of fifty-nine yards five and half inches. We believe we are correct in saying that this is a world’s record, providing that ‘up country in Australia,’ that home of the cricket miracle, is unable to furnish anything to beat it.

“Harrow Wanderers v. Gentlemen of Cheshire.—T. S. M. Trentham, not out, 205.”

“We have it from a reliable source,” says the Athletic News, “that the authorities at Old Trafford are making strenuous efforts to induce Mr. T. S. M. Trentham, this year’s captain at Harrow, and the youngest member of the famous brotherhood whose name he bears, to qualify for Lancashire. As doubtless our readers are aware, the authorities at Old Trafford have always been justly celebrated for their generous appreciation and encouragement of the cricketing talent of other counties, and in the case of young Mr. Trentham there is something peculiarly appropriate in the benevolence of their present attitude, as it is rumoured that Mr. Trentham once had an aunt who lived near Bootle.”

I could read no more. The Sportsman dropped from my unheeding hands, and I had just begun to whistle the opening bars of the “Dead March,” when two brown boots and the lower parts of a pair of grey flannel trousers wriggled from the lawn through the open window. They were surmounted two seconds later by a straw hat, a straw-coloured moustache, and an aquiline nose, which I identified as belonging to the General Nuisance. He had an exquisitely neat brown paper parcel under his arm, and a smile of fifty candle-power illuminating his classic features. I was horrified to see it.

“You’re early this morning,” I said resignedly. “It wants a quarter to eight yet. Have some breakfast?”

“Tha-anks,” he drawled, “but I’ve had my milk. I’ve called round to bring you yours.”

As he spoke he removed the string from the parcel in the most leisurely manner and disclosed a pile of carefully folded newspapers with names pencilled on the corners. Having discovered mine, he handed it to me with that air of benevolent condescension that head masters wear on speech day.

“How nice of you!” I said. However, I’m afraid this irony was so delicate that he didn’t feel it.

“My dear fellow, not at all,” he said. “There’s one for everybody. I’m delivering ’em to the whole team, don’t you know.”

Needless to say, he had presented me with an immaculate copy of the Sportsman. I picked up my own discarded sheet from under the table.

“Awf’ly obliged, old chap, but I’ve got one, thank you,” I said, pleasantly.

“That’s lucky,” said he, “you can give one to your friends. Rather pretty reading, isn’t it? Awf’ly decent set, Trenthams, Elphinstone, etcetera.”

“Git!” I said, gazing round for a boot-jack or a poker, or something equally likely to debase his physical beauty.

“Ta-ta then, see you later!”

To my infinite joy he appeared to be taking the hint. But he had only just conducted his infernal smile to the right side of the window, when he jerked it back again, and said:—

“Oh, I forgot! I say, Dimsdale, I ought to tell you this. I rather think Billy was drunk last night. His eyes are as red as a ferret’s this morning, and his housekeeper told me in confidence that when she got up this morning and went to call him she found master’s umbrella in bed and master sleeping in the umbrella-stand.”

“No, don’t say that,” I gasped, with a sinking at the heart. Alas! we’d only got two bowlers, and Billy was the one on whom we depended most.

“Fact!” said the General Nuisance cheerfully; “wouldn’t trouble you with it if I thought it wasn’t true. Lawson drove up with the Doctor as I came away. I implored our gentle secretary not to mourn, since a few Seidlitzs and a stomach-pump can do a lot in a very little time. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but it is generally slow bowlers who resort to intemperance, because as they’ve only got to lose their perfect length to embitter the lives of others, their possibilities become quite unbearable on a big occasion. At the M.C.C. match Lawson sat beside him at lunch both days counting his liqueurs. Poor old Lawson! I felt it my duty to assure him just now that it really took very little to make Billy lose his length. I also took the liberty of reminding him of what happened when he lost it once before, against Emeriti,—

5 overs.0 maidens.51 runs.0 wickets.

and Emeriti had got quite an ordinary side.”

Just as the muffineer arrived at the head of the General Nuisance, the General Nuisance was mean enough to duck. This act enabled the muffineer to crash through the plate-glass window.

“Timed that to a ‘T,’” said he. “Can see absolutely anything this morning. Certain to book fifty if I once get in, which I take to be a strong enough reason why an inscrutable Providence will cause us to lose the toss and keep me in the field all day.”

“Hope you will be there,” said I savagely, “and I’d like to see you taking long-field on both ends. And I hope you’ll drop a catch in front of the ladies’ tent. And I hope when you come racing round the corner to make that magnificent one-hand dive to save the four, the bally thing’ll jump and hit you in the teeth. And if you do go in to bat I hope you’ll be bowled neck and heels first ball.”

Ignoring this peroration he again appeared to be at the point of withdrawing his hateful presence. But too well did I know the General Nuisance to anticipate such a consummation. He merely seated himself on the sill in an attitude that would enable him to cope with sudden emergencies, and then said:—

“Oh, by the way, the youngest Gunter girl; you know, the little one with the green eyes and the freckles—just got engaged they say.”

“Who to?” I said fiercely. The General Nuisance certainly plumbed the depths of human fiendishness, but in conversation he had a command of topics that were irresistible.

“Who to?” I said.

“One of the Trenthams,” he smiled. “Ta-ta! See you ten-thirty.”

He was gone at last, and I had barely time to praise Heaven’s clemency that this was even so, when William entered with the face of an undertaker out of work.

“Clean gone, sir,” he said. “Abso-blooming-lutely! Looked high and low, and Mrs. Jennings ain’t no notion.”

“Looked in the lining of the bag?”

“Everywhere,” said the miserable William.

“Well,” said I, “unless it’s found I don’t get a run to-day.”

“I can tell you, sir,” said William, “that I’d rather lose my perquisites than that this should have ’appened at Little Clumpton v. Hickory. But there’s the Winchester, and the Magdalen, and the M.C.C. Couldn’t you get some in one of them, sir?”

“Daren’t risk it,” I said, “not at Little Clumpton v. Hickory. Yet, let me see, hasn’t Mr. Thornhill one of the Authentics?”

“Why, Lor’ bless me, that he ’ave, sir!”

“Well, get your bike at once, give my compliments and kind regards to Mr. Thornhill and tell him I’ve lost my Authentics and will he lend me his. Explain that it’s Little Clumpton v. Hickory, and that I can only get runs in the Authentics. It’s now eight-twenty, and it’s eighteen miles to Mr. Thornhill’s place. Can you bring it to me by eleven?”

“Well, sir, if I don’t, you’ll know I’ve burst a tyre.”

Within five minutes William was riding to Thornhill’s as if his life depended on it, with the stable-boy to pace him.

CHAPTER III
LITTLE CLUMPTON v. HICKORY

I CAME down to the ground at a little after ten. The match was to begin at eleven, sharp. The only sights of interest on my arrival were the ground-man marking out the crease, and the Worry at the nets in a brand-new outfit. The “pro” and three small boys were striving to knock a shilling off his middle.

“You’re touching ’em pretty this morning, Daunton,” said I, out of pure excellence of heart. I wished him to keep up his pecker.

“Think so?” he said nervously. “I’ve had an awful bad night, and I believe there’s something the matter with my wrist. I wish I wasn’t playing.”

The Worry’s life was a burden to him on match days. When he went in to bat he issued from the pavilion with a wild eye and a haggard mien, and a rooted idea that he was bound to be bowled first ball. This he invariably played forward to, as the strain on his nervous system was so severe that it was a physical impossibility for him to wait and receive it in his crease. He counted every run he got, and, if there was the faintest doubt about a snick, he would say, “I hope you noticed that I touched that, umpire.”

The crowd was already beginning to assemble. Vehicles and pedestrians were flocking in from twenty miles around. Hickory was a neighbouring village, only seven miles distant, but the rivalry was so keen that the local public-houses did no trade while the great match was in progress. It always had been so, and always would be. Even in the early forties Little Clumpton v. Hickory had become historical. Alfred Mynn and Fuller Pilch had actually graced the annual encounter in the Park. There was only one match a season; two would have been more than human endurance could have borne; and the Park, which generations of its noble owners had been very proud to lend for this nation-shaking function, was the only cricket-ground in the vicinity that could hope to accommodate the rival partisans. It might have been that once on a time the ’Varsity match had been played on other turf than Lord’s; but the Park was the only spot in England that had ever had the privilege of witnessing Little Clumpton v. Hickory on its velvet sward. Let kings depart and empires perish, but this always had been so and always would be!

To appear at Little Clumpton v. Hickory was not the lot of common men. Only the elect could hope to do so. To take wickets or make a score at this encounter was to become a classic in one’s lifetime. There were hoary veterans round about, whom the uninitiated might take to be mouldering mediocrities, but no—“see t’ owd gaffer theer? well, ’e wor a ’56 man; and t’ littlin theer across the rowad ’e wor ’59”—which being interpreted means that 1856 and 1859 were the dates of their distinction. Therefore do not let the young think, as unhappily they do just now, that they must write a book to become immortal. Why will not a few thousands of these seekers after fame, these budding novelists and early poets, take to cricket? For is it not more honourable, and certainly more glorious, to make a century at Little Clumpton v. Hickory, and make half a shire shout your praise, than to translate Omar Kháyyám and become a nuisance to posterity?

Presently I beheld a sight that nearly brought the tears into my eyes. The Optimist and the Pessimist were coming arm-in-arm across the grass. The lion lay down with the lamb at Little Clumpton v. Hickory. The Secretary walked alone with looks and words for none. He was so positively dangerous that the General Nuisance forbore to ask him what bowling we had got.

Having changed, I was sallying forth from the pavilion in the possession of bat and ball for the purpose of “having a knock” when a sudden palpitation made the crowd vibrate.

“’Ere’s Hickory! Good owd Hickory!”

A solid English-throated cheer announced that the enemy were in sight. A thrill ran through me as I gazed in the direction of their coming, for certainly the appearance of such a celebrated side was something to be seen. It was. A four-in-hand came bumping along the stretch of uneven meadow at a clipping pace. And to my indignant horror and bewilderment I saw that the reins were commanded by a person that wore nice white cuffs and a brown holland blouse. Conceive the cream of English cricket with their legs tucked up on the top of that rocking, creaking, jumping, jolting coach at the mercy of a person in a brown holland blouse! It was a thing that required to be very clearly seen before it could be accepted. In agony of mind I rubbed my eyes and looked more intently at the furiously on-coming vehicle. Never a doubt its pace was reckless, criminally reckless, considering the priceless freight it bore.

“What do you think of that?” I cried, turning in my distress to the man beside me. He happened to be the Ancient, so-called, because of his thoughtful air and his supernatural wisdom. “Just look at the confounded thing, I’m certain that girl’ll have it over. Gad! did you see her dodge that ditch by about three inches? Those men must be perfect fools! Why doesn’t that idiot beside her lend a hand? But some of these women are steep enough for anything. That girl ought to be talked to.”

“Well, suppose you do the talking,” said the Ancient, with his most reflective air. Then, as the drag lurched into our midst, wheels and harness grunting, the glossy animals in a lather; and they were drawn up with a sure hand in front of the pavilion while a cheering and gaping throng pressed about the wheels to impede the great men in their descent, the Ancient pensively continued, “Tell you what, my boy, I should rather like the chance of talking to that young person.”

To do her justice, she was certainly a source of comfort to the eye. When she yielded the reins and stood up on the footboard she had that air of simple resolution that is the source of England’s pride.

She was so tall and trim and strong, there was such a decision in her curves that her brown holland with white cuffs and collar, her Zingari tie, and hat-band of the same red and yellow brilliance round a straw, with heavy coils of hair of a proper country fawn-colour beneath, lent her that look of candid capability that nature generally reserves for cricketers of the highest order. I never gave the cracks from Hickory a second thought. Everything about her was so clean, so cool, so absolute, that before she had left the box I had quite convinced myself that whoever she might be she was a young person whose habit was to do things.

“Catch!” she cried, and threw down the Hickory score-book.

She then superintended the unlading of the coach roof of its pile of brown and battered cricket bags, whilst the crowd pressed nearer to the wheels and evinced the liveliest concern as to “which is A. H.? And who’s the tall chap? And who’s the Parson? And don’t he look a funny little cuss? And who’s the very tall chap? ’Im wi’ the big ’ead? H. C. o’ course. And who’s the lamp-post? And that theer fleshy bloke who’d got three boys to carry his bag, a fourth to carry his hat, and a fifth his newspaper, must be Carteret, because it said in the Daily Chronicle that he was the fattest short-slip in England and took life easily.” Of such are fame’s penalties!

The young person in brown holland having made it her business to see that the bags were bundled down with the necessary degree of violence, said: “I think you men had better go and change immediately. I’ll have a look at the wicket.”

She swung down from the step before any of the men below could lend a hand, and, while the whole eleven moved towards the pavilion with their luggage, the young person in brown holland made her way through the throng with the confidence of a duchess at a charity bazaar, and strode across the grass without the least suspicion of the Meredithian “swim.” And it was quite a coincidence that the Ancient and myself should choose a spot as near the wicket as the unwritten laws allowed, for the purpose of having a little practice.

The ground-man was lingering over the last touches to his masterpiece when the young person in brown holland actually set foot on the sacred earth that the general public is not even permitted to approach. The face of the ground-man was well worth looking at. When the feelings of a great artist are outraged it is a very painful sight. Alas, poor Wiggles! the agony of his countenance no pen could depict. He lifted up his head and emitted a slow-drawn growl. This had no effect whatever. Indeed, an instant later, this most audacious individual had the incredible effrontery to bring down a pretty solid brown boot, by no means of the “little mice” type either, twice upon the pitch itself. It was more than a merely human ground-man could endure.

“Begging pardon, miss,” said he, “but are you aware, miss, that this here is a—a wicket?”

“Well, my dear man,” said the person thus addressed, “do you suppose I thought it was a bunker?”

The Ancient and I agreed that this was an achievement. For a member of the general public to retort effectually on a real live ground-man was as great a feat as to look at the Chinese Emperor. The face of Wiggles was a study. Meanwhile, the lady having sufficiently tried the adamantine surface with her boot, bent down and pressed on it with her thumb. A feather would have slain the miserable Wiggles at that moment. Was it possible that any human creature, let alone the sex, could presume to test, and criticise, and doubt his masterpiece in this way! But worse was coming. Apparently the young person in brown holland was determined to satisfy herself in regard to every detail.

“Ground-man,” she said, “has this turf any tendency to crumble?”

“No, it ain’t,” said the ground-man savagely.

Having laid her doubts in this direction, she proceeded to view the wicket lengthwise. Setting her alert tanned face in a precise line with the stumps, she said:—

“Ground-man, are you sure that these sticks are quite plumb!”

“If they ain’t it’s the fust time i’ thirty yeer.”

“But surely the leg peg your end wants pulling out a bit. That’ll do. It’s all right now.”

When the utterly demoralised Wiggles discovered that he had unconsciously obeyed the behests of the young person in brown holland, I never saw a man who more regretted his own inability to kick himself.

“Well, ground-man,” she said slowly and reflectively, “I think this wicket is good enough for a Test Match. Here’s a shilling for you.”

The hesitation of Wiggles was really painful. A shilling is a shilling always, but how could a self-respecting ground-man accept one in these humiliating circumstances? His views on political economy, however, reconciled his outraged feelings to this added insult. He took the shilling with a defiant air.

“And, ground-man,” she said, “mind that I tip you for every individual century that is got for Hickory to-day.”

“Thank you kindly, miss,” said Wiggles, with a groan. He was Little Clumpton to the marrow. The poor wretch cast a despairing glance at the Ancient and myself, while we practised in the most assiduous manner.

Suddenly a peal of laughter came from the young person in brown holland. It seemed that the sight-board in front of a dark fringe of trees behind the bowler’s arm had attracted her polite attention.

“Charlie’s arm’ll be over that,” she cried delightedly. “We’ll put him on that end.”

“Ancient,” said I, “do you hear what that—that girl’s saying? Why doesn’t that idiot Wiggles order her off the field? If she stops there much longer we’re a beaten team.”

Just then she turned her attention to us engaged in practice. Now the sight of this—this person who was so busily occupied in laying traps and pitfalls for Little Clumpton’s overthrow enraged me to that degree that I determined to get rid of her by uncompromising methods. She stood in the exact line of my crack to cover.

“Ancient,” I said, “just chuck up a nice half-volley on the off, and I’ll make this place a bit too hot for that young person in brown holland.”

The Ancient lost no time in becoming accessory before the fact, and, throwing my leg across, I put in every ounce I’d got.

“Oh, goo—od stroke! goo—od stroke!” cried our intended victim in a very joyful voice. And we had the privilege of witnessing the young person we were conspiring to remove calmly place her feet and hands together, as per Steel and Lyttelton, and field and return that red-hot drive in the neatest, cleanest, county style.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said I.

“If she’s fielding cover for them,” said the Ancient grimly, “somebody’ll be run out. We’d better advise Lennox and Jack Comfort not to try to steal ’em. I shan’t go for short ’uns, I can tell you.”

The Ancient owed his eminence to the fact that no detail was too mean for his capacious mind. Besides, he was as strenuous, serious, and self-centred as a novelist with a circulation of a hundred thousand copies.

Much to the relief of Wiggles and ourselves, the sight of a perfect broad-shouldered giant of a fellow issuing from the pavilion at this moment, clad in flannels, bat in hand, lured the young person in brown holland from her very inconvenient and highly dangerous station at the wicket.

“Hi, Archie, got a ball?” she cried at the pitch of a splendid pair of lungs.

“Hullo, Grace!” replied the giant in a voice by no means the inferior of her own. “You’re just the very chap. I want half a dozen down. Let’s cut across there to the nets. Here you are. Look out!”

Thereon the giant hurled a ball a terrific height into the eye of the sun. It seemed so perilously like descending on our heads that poor Wiggles put up his hands and began to run for his life. Not so the young person in brown holland. She stepped two or three yards backward, moved a little to one side, shaded her eyes a moment from the glare to sight the catch, and next instant had the leather tucked beautifully under her chin in a manner worthy of a G. J. Mordaunt.

“Wiggles,” said I, “do you happen to know who that lady is?”

“Wish I did, sir,” said Wiggles feebly. “She’s a terror, ain’t she? But I hope she don’t come here too often. I reckon she’s a Trentham, she is. That wor A. H. what just come out. Lord, and just look at that theer gal a bowlin’ at ’un. She sets ’un back on his sticks an’ all.”

We turned our attention to the nets, and beheld her bowling slow hanging length balls to A. H. Trentham, almost a facsimile of Alfred Shaw.

“I tell you, Dimsdale,” said the Ancient, “if this is what lovely woman’s coming to, it’s high time some of us crocks took to golf. I wonder if Miss Grace plays for M.C.C. I notice she’s got their colours on. I’ve always contended that they never look so well as when worn by W. G., but I’m hanged if this new Grace don’t give the Old Man points.”

CHAPTER IV
An Impossible Incident

THE great men were now coming out in twos and threes to have a knock.

“Hullo!” said I, “that’s Elphinstone. Remember him at ‘the House.’ There’s not much of him, but what there is is all-sufficing. And just look at those great big bounding Trenthams. Anyone of ’em could put the little parson in his pocket. And I say, Ancient, do you notice that the young one, about the build of Townsend—I mean the one clapping his hands for the ball—do you notice that he’s an enlarged copy of the young person in brown holland? Same hair, and eyes, and nose, and everything; same cheerful enterprising look. It’s a million to a hay-seed she’s a Trentham, too.”

But the Optimist approached, an encyclopædia of the scientific and the useful.

“Brightside,” said the Ancient, “we want to know who that girl is who’s sticking up A. H. like Alfred Shaw.”

“Better go and ask Lawson,” said the Optimist. “I’ve just suggested that he puts a placard up in the refreshment tent to the effect that the singularly interesting being in brown holland is Miss Laura Mary Trentham, yet another member of the world-famous cricket family of that name. Lawson’s being simply besieged with questions.”

“But A. H. called her Grace just now?”

“Her baptismal name is Laura Mary, but they call her Grace because she keeps five portraits of that hero on her bedroom mantelpiece. Rumour also says that she keeps strands of his beard stowed away in secret drawers. This she indignantly denies, however, as she swears that if she’d got them she’d wear them in a brooch.”

“H’m! And what an extraordinary resemblance there is between her and T. S. M.”

“They’re twins. She’s about an hour the older of the two, and I believe she bullies him outrageously. And I rather think she gives her honourable and reverend papa, and the remainder of the family, a pretty lively time. Why, here’s the old gentleman himself.”

The Captain and the Humourist were accompanying a fine old clergyman in an inspection of the wicket. He was gigantically built. His perfectly white hair lent him a venerable expression that was hardly borne out by his massive shoulders and athletic figure, for they had not the faintest suspicion of age.

“By Jove!” said the Optimist in enthusiastic tones, “that old boy’s been a player in his day. In the fifties he practically beat the Players single-handed more than once. In fact, the old buffers say at Lord’s that for three years he was the best amateur bowler that there’s ever been. Of course wickets have altered since his time, but up at Lord’s they swear that Spofforth at his best was never in it with ‘the Reverent.’”

“’Don’t wonder then,” said I, “that this Clerk in Holy Orders has got such a devil of a family. Look out, mind your heads!”

Captain George, of the Artillery, had chosen that moment to open his shoulders to the youthful T. S. M. with the result that a lovely skimming drive dropped twenty yards in front of the pavilion and bounced with a rattle on to the corrugated iron roof. We had barely time to observe this when a buzz of amazement went round the crowded ring. It seemed that at last A. H., of Middlesex, had “had a go” at one of the insidious deliveries of Miss Grace, his sister, with the result that he lifted her from the far net clean over the ladies’ tent.

“Yes,” said the Ancient, “they appear to be a thoroughly amiable, courteous, carefully brought-up, gentle-mannered family. There they go. It’s H. C.’s turn now. He’s very nearly killed a little boy. They seem to bowl like hell, and hit like kicking horses!”

This brought misfortune to us in hard reality. The General Nuisance strolled up with his permanent simper.

“Oldknow,” said he, “unwillingly I heard the profane utterance of your pagan mind. It is grievous for a man of your parts and understanding to give way to language of that character. But you will be glad to hear that our esteemed Secretary, Lawson, is suffering at this moment from an attack of incipient paralysis. It appears that that blackguard of a Billy is confined to bed.”

“The brute!”

“The beast!”

“The pig!”

“What I we are actually left to face a team like this with one bowler?” said I, the first to recover from the shock.

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” said the General Nuisance, with his geniality rising almost to the point of hysteria. “We aren’t even left with one. As a matter of fact we haven’t a bowler of any sort. It’s true that we’ve any amount of the usual small change. I can bowl three long hops and two full tosses in an over, so can you; so can all of us; and that, dear friends, is what we’ve got to do.”

“But you are forgetting Charlie,” said the Optimist of the lion heart.

“Oh dear, no,” said the General Nuisance, “’wouldn’t forget him for the world. If you would only wait and let me break the news with my usual delicacy. Charlie’s just wired to say that his mother-in-law has been taken seriously ill, and that he and Mrs. Charlie have been obliged to go to town.”

Straightway the Ancient wheeled about, and fled—fled with a curse into the recesses of the pavilion, far from the madding crowd, the pitiless sun, the perfect wicket, and those dreadful men from Hickory loosening their arms.

“Tha-ank you! Tha-ank you!” called the bowler, as a pretty little leg hit from J. P. Carteret struck the inoffensive Optimist between the shoulder-blades.

“Comfort,” said I, addressing myself to the General Nuisance, “if there had been the least sense of propriety in that rotten played-out thing called Providence, that ball had hit you on the head.”

“Dear friends,” said the General Nuisance, “don’t you think that Charlie’s mother-in-law well maintains the traditions of her tribe?”

“The abandoned old woman!” cried I.

“Never mind, I think it’s our turn to win the toss,” said the Optimist, unconquered still.

They ought to grant the Victoria Cross to men of this heroic mould, who remain wholly invincible to circumstance. Some credit was due to me as well, for I had the presence of mind to behave as custom, nay, etiquette, demands, when things are going wrong. I broke out into loud and prolonged abuse of the harmless necessary Secretary.

“Lawson is an utter and consummate ass!” said I. “A man with the intelligence of an owl would surely know that his bowlers were bound to let him down at the eleventh hour. They always do. They always consult their own book before they think about their side. I shall suggest at the next meeting of committee that Lawson be asked to resign. Nature never designed a fool to be a secretary; besides, one looks for foresight in a secretary. Here he’s actually not made the least provision for a case of this sort, which a man with the penetration of the common hedgehog would have anticipated at the beginning of the season. And, Comfort, what’s he doing now? Surely he knows that Middlesex aren’t playing, and of course he’s had the sense to wire for Hearne and Albert Trott.”

“No, I believe not,” drawled the General Nuisance; “but we must give credit, my dear Dimsdale, where credit’s due, for even that submerged Secretary of ours has, impossible as it may appear, gone one better than even your intelligence suggests. He’s just cabled to Australia for Jones and Trumble. They’re not so well known to the Hickory cracks as Jack Hearne and Trott; besides, they’ve been resting all the winter, don’t you know.”

Here the pavilion bell pealed lustily as a signal for the ground to clear immediately, it being now within a few minutes of eleven o’clock. It was a real relief that our conversation with the General Nuisance had at length been interrupted, since I for one could feel a quantity of awful consequences fairly itching in my finger-tips. If nature had not a habit of going out of its way to encourage original sin in all its phases, the General Nuisance must have died with a jerk at a comparatively early period of his development.

The summons was promptly obeyed. The players came trooping in from the remote corners of the playing-piece; and it was observed that while Hickory walked confident, lusty, and obtrusively cheerful, Little Clumpton were in that state of nerves when strong men pluck at their moustaches and their ties. When we entered the dressing-room we found the Captain and the Secretary conferring together in tragic whispers. This in itself was sufficient to strike a chill into the boldest heart; and we stood apart out of pure respect and appreciation for the solemn sight. Presently the Captain rose, and a shudder went through us all, for we saw by his intense expression that he was going out to toss. And we remembered that the Captain was the unluckiest man in England with the spin; that he had won the toss against Hickory last year; that our so-called bowling was absolutely unworthy of the name; that the wicket was perfection; and that the finest batting side that had ever appeared for Hickory was drinking stone-ginger beer and cracking rude jokes in their dressing-room across the way.

Alas, no jokes and ginger beer for Little Clumpton! Even the Humourist forbore to make a pun; the Optimist was silent as the tomb; and two large-hearted persons sat on the face of the General Nuisance, partly in the public interest, and partly that manslaughter might be averted for a time. When the Captain, pale but stern, went forth to toss, the Worry tottered from his seat and softly closed the door. We had no desire for publicity. As for the preliminaries and suspense of the sacred rite itself, in that direction madness lay. The Pessimist alone dared to interrupt the holy peace that pervaded this dull and miserable dressing-room; but he was a man without any of life’s little delicacies, and utterly devoid of the higher instincts and the finer feelings.

“I say, you men,” said he, “we might be a set of Hooligans riding to the assizes in Black Maria to make the acquaintance of Mr. Justice Day. Why doesn’t somebody smile? Suppose you try, Brightside, as you’re always such a jolly cheerful sort o’ Johnny.”

“Shut up,” said the Secretary, “if you desire to avoid what’s happened to that blasted Comfort!”

This pointed reference appeared to touch the General Nuisance in his amour propre, for after a violent struggle he was able to sufficiently disengage his mouth from the vertebral columns of his guardians to painfully suggest:—

“S’pose I give—compliments—club—to—Grace Trentham and ask her to come and—bowl a bit—for Lil Clumpton. She can—give such—a long start—to—the refuse we’ve——”

Here, however, his custodians, by half garrotting him, and the judicious application of Merryweather’s “barn door,” were able to get their refractory charge in hand again.

And now the door opened softly, and the Captain stalked in, saying nothing. The fell deed was accomplished. Yet who was going in, not one of us knew, and not one of us had the courage to inquire. Those inscrutable eyes and that high expansive brow were as impassive as the Sphinx. Not a muscle twitched, not a line relented in the Captain’s face, and not a man of us dared frame the ingenuously simple question:—

“Halliday, have you won the toss?”

We noted the Captain’s smallest movements now with wild-eyed anxiety. We saw him wash his hands, we saw him part his hair, and when he said: “Chuck me that towel, Lennox,” in sepulchral tones, his voice startled us like an eighty-one ton gun. Then he proceeded to divest himself of his blazer. “We are fielding!” flashed through our inner consciousness; but—but he might be going in first. He rolled his sleeves up with horrible deliberation. Oh, why had not that wretched Lawson, miserable Secretary as he was, the pluck to say: “Halliday, have you won the toss?” Surely it was the Secretary’s place to do this, else what was the good of having a Secretary if he couldn’t ask the Captain who was going in, and simple things of that sort?

The Captain hung his blazer up reflectively on one of the pegs of his locker; he foraged in his cricket bag; he drew forth a pair of pads. “He’s taking wicket!” was the thought that made our flesh creep, since he had been known to undertake these thankless duties on very great occasions. But—but he might be going in first. And at least he might have had the common humanity to put us out of our misery. He had buckled on one pad, and was carefully folding his trousers round his ankle prior to adjusting the second, when he looked up sadly and addressed me familiarly by name.

“Dimsdale,” he said slowly and meekly, “have you any very rooted disinclination to going in first with me?”

The Secretary jumped up and literally fell upon the Captain’s neck. The General Nuisance was immediately released. The Optimist and the Pessimist were as brothers, identified in joy. The Worry amused himself in a quiet way by turning cart-wheels across the floor. Indeed, it was a moment when life was very good.

Now the honour was so stupendous that had been conferred upon me, that it was more than a young and ambitious man with his name to make could realize at first. It was beyond my most highly-tinted dreams that I should be singled out to go in first with the Captain in my first Little Clumpton v. Hickory. Why should I, of all the talented men our team possessed, be chosen for this distinction? Was there not the Humourist, with his dauntless “never-saw-such-bowling-in-my-life air”; the Pessimist, who had played for the county twice this season; the Ancient, with all the weight of his accumulated wisdom, his guile, and his experience; the Worry, who if allowed to stay ten minutes, neither men nor angels could remove; the General Nuisance, too, who must have been an almost superhuman bat to be allowed to play at all? It was a moment of my life when I said with all becoming modesty: “Thanks, old chap,” and proceeded to put on my pads with hands that trembled.

“First wicket, Ancient,” said the Captain, writing down the order. It was wonderful how merry the room had suddenly become: the buzz of tongues, the whistling of the music of the music hall, the Humourist working at his pun, the General Nuisance veiling his satisfaction in gin and ginger beer, all testified that cricket was a noble sport, and that life was really excellent.

“I say, you men,” said the Captain, “remember that our game’s to keep in. No risks, mind; no hurry for runs, you know. We haven’t got a bit of bowling, and somebody’s told ’em so.”

I was in the act of testing the handle of my bat, when I recollected with a pang that I was minus my Authentics. What should I do? William had not appeared with its substitute, yet in a couple of minutes I should be going in to bat on perhaps the biggest occasion of my career. Heaven knew I was horribly nervous as it was, so nervous, that when I thought of marching out to that wicket, before that crowd, to face that bowling, I began to desire a gentle death and a quiet funeral. It was now five minutes past eleven, and still that confounded William had not come! What should I do? The more I thought of the Magdalen, the Winchester, and the M.C.C., the more impossible they became.

“Ready?” said the Captain.

“Ye—es,” said I; “q—quite ready.”

“Hickory aren’t out yet,” said the kind-hearted Optimist, looking through the window.

“’Wonder why they don’t hurry,” said the General Nuisance; “I can see that Dimsdale’s positively trembling to get at ’em. Besides, the umpires have been out quite five minutes.”

“They’re funking us,” said the Humourist.

Ah, these humourists, what lion hearts they’ve got!

“Perhaps they are being photographed,” some enlightened mind suggested.

The Worry opened the door, although I vainly assured him that there really was no hurry, to have a look at what Hickory were up to.

“Why,” said he breathlessly, “they’re playing two wicket-keepers.”

Sure enough, two men with pads on stood conversing in the doorway of their dressing-room, and looking across at us.

“’Never heard of such a thing before,” said the Secretary, with a puzzled air, “as a side having two wicket-keepers. H.C. must be a blooming hurricane. But I’m not quite sure whether this is altogether legal. Who’s got a copy of the rules?”

“Why, what are you fellows up to?” demanded Captain George from the other side, gazing earnestly at Halliday’s pads and mine.

“The very thing I want to ask you,” said Halliday.

“We’re waiting for you to take the field,” said Trentham; “the umpires have been out some time.”

“We are quite ready when you are,” said Halliday.

“We’ve been ready the last five minutes.”

“Then why don’t you go out?”

“How can we go out until you are in the field?”

The position of Halliday’s jaw announced that he was completely at a loss.

“Anyway,” said he, “what are Elphinstone and Archie doing with their pads on?”

“We want to know why you two have got yours on?”

“I told you we should go in,” said our Captain.

“But I said that we should,” said theirs.

“But I thought you were joking.”

“And I thought you were.”

“But I won the toss.”

“Pardon me, Halliday, but I won the toss.”

“Pardon me, Trentham, but you are quite wrong.”

“My dear Halliday, this is absurd!”

“Well, who called?”

“Hanged if I know; but I know I won the toss. But who did call?”

“I don’t know; but I’m certain that I won the toss.”

A howl of laughter broke from the light-minded persons in the other room. But on our part we preserved a very religious gravity, I can assure you. The dismay that had seized the whole team was terrible to contemplate.

“Well, who saw us toss?” said their Captain confidently.

“Yes; who saw us toss?” said ours, with an equally full-toned conviction.

Yet, unhappily or happily, sure I know not which, neither side could produce a single witness.[C]

What was to be done? The crowd was growing highly impatient, and cries of “Play up!” assailed us as we stood and argued.

“I don’t think there’s anything in the rules that provides for both sides going in to bat,” drawled the General Nuisance; “therefore, suppose we send in a man, you send in a man; you have a bowler on at one end, we have one on at the other, and all field? That practically obviates the difficulty, doesn’t it? And it’ll be ever so much nicer for everybody.”

Though this solution was hailed by us as the height of ingenuity, and “nice” to the last degree, singularly enough Hickory were blind to its beauties. Therefore when our Captain said, “We’d better toss again, hadn’t we?” it struck George Trentham that this was a rather good idea.

This time, that there might be no mistake, both sides crowded round their irresponsible skippers. Hickory had a tendency to view the thing as the finest joke they’d ever heard, but Little Clumpton to a man wore a funereal gravity. Trentham produced a coin, and sent it spinning to the ceiling.

“Tails!” cried our Captain.

The coin dropped on the wooden boards of the pavilion, and proceeded to run round on its edges, as though enjoying the proceedings thoroughly, whilst several enterprising men ran round after it.

“Tails it is!” said Lawson, who always arrived just a short head before everybody else.

“Then I think,” said our Captain, with a most statesmanlike deliberation, “all things considered, we shall be justified in going in.”

A minute later Hickory streamed into the field, and were greeted with great cheering. And as they issued forth the breathless William appeared with Thornhill’s cap, just in the nick of time.

CHAPTER V
The Cussedness of Cricket

HAD I been in less of a tottering funk, I might have taken the admirably timed arrival of the Authentics as an omen of good luck. But I was in that suicidal frame of mind when a man wishes that he is anything but what he is, anywhere but where he is, and that he has to do aught but what he has to do. It is a frame of mind that can give for deep-seated torture a long start to nightmares, weddings, sea-sickness, and public speaking. If I were only going in first wicket, I shouldn’t care! If I’d only an inkling of what the bowling was like! If only it wasn’t Little Clumpton v. Hickory! If only the crowd wasn’t so beastly big and demonstrative! If only it wasn’t such a glaring hot day! If only this abject cap was not two sizes too small! If it was only my own, and it didn’t look and feel so supremely ridiculous! If I could only cut away to a prompt and very private death! Cricket is quite a gentle, harmless game, but he is a lucky man who has not to sweat some blood before he’s done with it.

“Ready, Dimsdale?” said the Captain.

I followed him sickly, fumbling at my batting-glove with nervous fingers.

“Wish you luck, old man,” said some person of benevolent disposition, as I issued forth. It is never exactly kind, however, to wish luck to the keenly sensitive, as it leads them to think that they’ll certainly need luck, and plenty of it, if they’re going to stay long. From the Artistic Standpoint (capital letters, please, Mr. Printer!), it is a thousand pities that I cannot say that when I stepped from the pavilion on this great occasion to open the innings with my Captain, a man whose name had penetrated to the remotest corners of the cricket world, I held my head up with an air of conscious power. Why was I not, as the Hero of this story, prepared to do the thing in style, in the manner of the most accepted writers? Of course I ought to have marched to the wicket, my heart big with courage, calm in the knowledge that the Hero never does get less than fifty. I ought to have been ready to chastise Villainy in the person of the Demon Bowler, by hitting his length balls for six on the slightest provocation. I am sure that no less than this is expected of me by every right-minded reader. Nor am I blind by any means to my obligations; yet somehow it is so much easier to get runs with the pen than with the bat. At least I have always found it so!

I daresay that, except for being a trifle pale, I looked quite happy to all but the trained observer. I don’t suppose that ten persons of the shouting thousands present had the faintest notion that the trim-built chap of medium height who walked in with H. J. Halliday, his bat tucked beneath his arm, as he fastened on his glove, had limbs of paper and a heart of fear. There was nought to indicate that there was a dreadful buzzing in his ears, a black mist before his eyes, that his knee-joints were threatening to let him down at every step, and that he was praying to be bowled first ball, to be put out of his misery at once.

When you go in to bat, it is not that you dread aught special and particular. You would cheerfully endure anything rather than your present ordeals. You are not afraid of getting a “duck.” On the contrary, you’ll be almost happy if you get one. It is the mere sensation of an impending something, you know not what, that plays skittles with your impressionable nature.

“’Mind taking first ball, Halliday?” I said hoarsely.

“If you like,” said he; then added, “Just play your usual, and you’re bound to get ’em.”

True cricketers are the soul of kindness.

Carefully noting at which end the wicket-keeper was, I just as carefully went to the one at which he was not. The mighty H. C. Trentham was loosening his arm, and sending down a few preliminaries. I watched him as keenly as the black mists before my eyes allowed. He brought his long brown arm right over with a beautiful, easy, automatic swing. The ball slipped from his fingers at an ordinary pace, but as soon as it took the ground it spun off the pitch with an inward twist at three times the rate one would expect. He looked every inch a bowler, powerfully built in every part, his body supple as a cat’s, a remarkable length of limb, and, better still, a pair of extremely strong and heavy-timbered legs.

However, the man preparing to resist him looked every inch a batsman, too. Lithe, alert, calm, he seemed quietly happy that he had got to face a bowler worthy of his artifice. The manner in which he asked for his guard, and took it, the elaborate process he went through to ensure the maintenance of “two leg,” the diligent way in which he observed the placing of the field, and the freedom with which he ordered the screen about, all pointed to the conclusion that if Hickory got him out for under fifty on that wicket, they would be able to congratulate themselves. There is as much difference between the first-class cricketer and the ordinary club-man as there is between a professional actor and the gifted amateur. The club-man may be a marvel of conscientiousness, discretion, and enthusiasm, and able to recite Steel and Lyttelton from the preface to the index at a moment’s notice, but he has not that air of inevitableness that emphasizes the county man scoring off the best of Briggs and Richardson, and apparently able to compass any feat in the batting line but the losing of his wicket.

The terrific H. C. Trentham was now ready to deal destruction. Anxiously had I observed the placing of the field, the most noticeable items of which were the wicket-keeper standing a dozen yards behind the sticks, and the four men in the slips still deeper, with their hands on their thighs, and their noses on a level with the bails. The bowler measured his distance, and scratched up the turf at his starting-point. The batsman set himself. The bowler walked a couple of yards, then broke into a trot, that gradually grew into a run, and when he arrived at the crease, with the velocity of a locomotive he hurled the ball from his hand, and his body after it, almost faster than the eye could follow. The Captain fairly dug his bat into his block-hole, and the ball came back straight down the pitch, whizzing and rotating in half-circles. It was a most determined and barefaced attempt to “york” the captain, and the bowler smiled all over his countenance in a very winning manner. The Captain set himself again. The next ball was of perfect length, a few inches on the off, and turned in suddenly, with the ungenerous idea of hitting the top of the off stump; but the Captain, watching it all the way, met it very warily, his right leg well against his bat, and blocked it gently back again to the bowler. The third had a very similar design, but happening to be pitched a little farther up, it came back as though propelled from a gun. The bowler neatly picked it up one hand, and drew the first cheer from the crowd. The fourth was full of guile. It was a trifle on the short side, wide of the off stump, and instead of turning in, was going away with the bowler’s arm. The Captain drew himself erect, held up his bat, and never made the least attempt to play it. The bowler smiled more winningly than ever. A London critic unburdened his mind by shouting “Nottingham!” The fifth was wickedness itself. The bowler covered his fifteen yards of run with exactly the same action and velocity, hurled down the ball with the same frantic effort of arms and body, but, behold, the ball was as slow as possible, and the eye could distinctly follow it as it spun in the air with a palpable leg-bias. Even the great batsman who had to receive it was at fault. He played a little bit too soon, but, happily for Little Clumpton, the ground was so hard and true that it refused to take the full amount of work, and instead of its curling in and taking the Captain’s middle, as the bowler had intended, it refused to come in farther than the leg stick, which was conscientiously covered by the Captain’s pad. There it hit him, and rolled slowly towards the umpire, whilst the wicket-keeper pelted grotesquely after it.

“Come on!” I cried, seizing the opportunity, for I was very, very anxious for the Captain to take first over from the other end. Accordingly, we scuttled down the pitch, and I got home just as the wicket-keeper threw down my citadel.

“Well bowled, Charlie!” said the Captain. But I think there was more in this than may appear, as I believe the thoughtful Captain wished to attract my careful attention to that particular ball. Meantime the bowler had been grinning so violently at his own exceeding subtlety that mid-off politely requested him not to commit such an outrage on the handiwork of nature.

“Tom, you have a try that end,” said Captain George, throwing the ball to T. S. M. “Set the field where you want ’em.”

“Left-hand round the wicket!” the umpire announced to the batsman; “covers ’em both, sir.”

It was plain, by the irregular arrangement of the field, which had three men out, that T. S. M. was slow.

“You don’t want a third man; send him out into the country, and bring point round a bit!”

Now as these commands were issued most distinctly from the top of the coach, and as Miss Grace Trentham was at that moment the sole occupant of the same, she must be held responsible for them. A wide smile flickered in the face of every fielder, including that of the happy-go-lucky Hickory captain. But let it be observed, in passing, that there are captains to whom this advice, however Pallas-like, would not appear “good form.” It was evident that Miss Grace knew her man.

“By Jove! she’s right,” said the good-humoured soldier; “get round, Jimmy.”

“She always is,” said the Harrow captain, her youngest brother; “and I wish she wasn’t. She knows a jolly sight too much.”

“Why don’t she qualify for Kent,” said J. P. Carteret, as he waddled off to deep square-leg.

The Harrow boy began with a singular sort of movement that must have had a resemblance to the war-dance of the cheerful Sioux, or the festive Shoshanee, which developed into a corkscrew kind of action that was very puzzling to watch, and imparted to the ball a peculiar and deceptive flight. He was quite slow, with a certain amount of spin and curl. The Captain played right back to him every time, and, like the old Parliamentary hand he was, there was very little of his wicket to be seen, as his legs did their best to efface it. The Captain had come in with the determination to take no liberties. He meant to play himself thoroughly well in before turning his attention to the secondary matter of making runs. If T. S. M. had been a Peate, his first over could not have been treated with a more flattering respect. The consequence was that he opened with a maiden also.

My turn had now arrived. I was called on to face the finest amateur bowler in England. Judging by the one over of his that I had had the privilege of witnessing, he appeared to combine the pace of a Kortright with the wiles of a Spofforth. Taking him altogether, he did not seem to be the nicest bowler in the world for a man of small experience and ordinary ability to oppose. But I remembered vaguely that the wicket was perfection, and that a straight bat would take a lot of beating. Besides, the black mists had lifted somewhat from my eyes, and the beastly funk had considerably decreased, as it often does when one is actually at work. All the same, I took my guard without knowing exactly what I did; I observed the field without knowing precisely how it was arranged, yet could see enough of it to be aware that point was looking particularly grim, and half inclined to chuckle, as though saying to himself, “Oh, he’s a young ’un, is he?”