CHAPTER I

SNAP

A LEGEND OF THE LONE MOUNTAIN

BY

C. PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY

AUTHOR OF 'SPORT IN THE CRIMEA AND CAUCASUS' ETC.

[Illustration: Snap]

_WITH THIRTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. G. WILLINK_

NEW EDITION

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET

1892

_All rights reserved_

_TO SMALL CLIVE._

_I suppose that you'll cost me the deuce of a lot,

I suppose I must pay and look pleasant,

Though you're only a small insignificant dot--

My three-year-old warrior--at present._

_But if ever you need the paternal 'tip,'

If ever you sin and must suffer,

Be brave and go straight, or I'll 'give you gyp'--

If I don't you may call me 'a duffer.'_

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. FERNHALL V. LOAMSHIRE

II. 'MOP FAUCIBUS HÆSIT'

III. SNAP'S REDEMPTION

IV. THE FERNHALL GHOST

V. THE ADMIRAL'S 'SOCK-DOLLAGER'

VI. THE BLOW FALLS

VII. LEAVE LIVERPOOL

VIII. THE MANIAC

IX. 'THAT BAKING POWDER'

X. AFTER SCRUB CATTLE

XI. BRINGING HOME THE BEAR

XII. BRANDING THE 'SCRUBBER'

XIII. WINTER COMES WITH THE 'WAVIES'

XIV. A NIGHT OF ADVENTURE

XV. FOUNDING 'BULL PINE' FIRM

XVI. BEARS

XVII. IN THE BRÛLÊ

XVIII. THE LOSS OF 'THE CRADLE'

XIX. THE GAMBLERS 'PUT UP'

XX. LONE MOUNTAIN

XXI. AT THE TOP

XXII. AT THE END OF THE ROPE

XXIII. READING THE WILL

XXIV. SNAP'S SACRIFICE

XXV. THE FLIGHT OF THE CROWS

XXVI. SNAP'S STORY

XXVII. CONCLUSION

ILLUSTRATIONS.

IN THE CHIMNEY . . . _Frontispiece_ [missing from source book]

THE ADMIRAL FISHING

'GOOD-BYE' [missing from source book]

SNAP AND THE MADMAN

TONY AND THE SCRUBBER

IN THE WOOD

IN THE BRÛLÉ

'HANDS UP'

ON THE FACE OF THE CLIFF

'GOOD-BYE, PARD'

SNAP'S SACRIFICE

SNAP

CHAPTER I

FERNHALL _v._ LOAMSHIRE

'What on earth shall we do, Winthrop?' asked one of the Fernhall

Eleven of a big fair-faced lad, who seemed to be its captain.

'Do! I'll be shot if I know, Wyndham,' he replied. 'It is bad

enough to be a bat short, but really I don't know that we _can_ spare

a bowler.'

'Ah, well,' suggested another of the group, 'though Hales did very

well for the Twenty-two, it isn't quite the same thing bowling

against such a team as Loamshire brings down; he might not "come off"

after all, don't you know.'

A quiet grin spread over the captain's face. No one knew better than

he did the spirit which prompted Poynter's last remark.

Good bowler though he was, Poynter had often been a sad thorn in

Winthrop's side. If you put him on first with the wind in his

favour, Poynter would be beautifully good-tempered, and bowl

sometimes like a very Spofforth. Only then sometimes he wouldn't!

Sometimes an irreverent batsman from Loamshire who had never heard of

Poynter's break from the leg would hit him incontinently for six, and

perhaps do it twice in one over. Then Poynter got angry. His arms

began to work like a windmill. He tried to bowl rather faster than

Spofforth ever did; about three times as fast as Nature ever meant

John Poynter to. The result of this was always the same. First he

pitched them short, and the delighted batsman cut them for three;

then he pitched them up, and that malicious person felt a thrill of

pleasure go through his whole body as he either drove them or got

them away to square leg. Then Winthrop had to take him off. This

was when the trouble began. Sullenly Poynter would take his place in

the field--and it was not every place in the field which suited him.

If you put him in the deep field, he growled at the folly which

risked straining a bowler's arm by shying. If you put him close in,

he grumbled at the risk he ran of having those dexterous fingers of

his damaged by a sharp cut or a 'sweet' drive. For of course he

always expected to be put on again, and from the time that he reached

his place until the time that he was again put into possession of the

ball he did nothing but watch his rival with malicious envy, making a

mental bowling analysis for him, in which he took far more note of

the hits (or wides if there were any) than he did of the maiden overs

which were bowled.

But Frank Winthrop was a diplomatist, as a cricket captain should be,

so, though he grinned, he only replied, 'That's true enough, Poynter,

but I must have some ordinary straight stuff, such as Hales's, to

rest you and Rolles, and put these fellows off their guard against

your curly ones.'

'Yes, I suppose it is a mistake to bowl a fellow good balls all the

time. It makes him play too carefully,' replied the self-satisfied

Poynter.

'Well, but, Winthrop,' insisted the first speaker, 'if you don't do

without a change bowler, what will you do? That other fellow in the

Twenty-two doesn't bowl well enough, but there are lots of them

useful bats.'

'I know all that, but I've made up my mind,' replied the young

autocrat. 'I shall play a man short, if I can't persuade Trout' (an

irreverent sobriquet for their head-master) 'to let Snap Hales off in

time.'

When a captain of a school eleven says that he has made up his mind,

the intervention of anyone less than a head-master is useless, so

that no one protested.

As the group broke up Wyndham put his arm through Winthrop's, and

together they strolled towards the door of the school-house.

'Are you going up to see "the head," Major?' he asked.

'Yes,' replied Winthrop.

'What! about Snap Hales?' demanded Wyndham.

'Yes,' again replied Winthrop, 'about that young fool Snap.'

'What has he been up to now?' demanded his chum.

'Oh, he has been cheeking Cube-root again. It seems old Cube-root

couldn't knock mathematics into him anyhow, so he piled on the

impositions. Snap did as many lines as he could, but even with three

nibs in your pen at once there is a limit to the number which a

fellow can do in a day, and Master Snap has so many of these little

literary engagements for other masters as well as old Cube that at

last he reached a point beyond which no possible diligence would

carry him.'

'Poor old Snap!' laughed Wyndham.

'Then, as he had just got into the eleven,' continued Winthrop, 'he

didn't like to give up his half-hour with the professional; the

result of all which was that yesterday old Cube asked him for his

lines and was told--

'"I haven't done them, sir."

'"Haven't done them, sir: what do you mean?" thundered Cube.

'"I hadn't time, sir," pleaded Snap.

'"Not time! Why, I myself saw you playing cricket to-day for a good

half-hour. What do you mean by telling me you had not time?" asked

Cube.

'"I had not time, sir, because----" Snap tried to say, but Cube

stopped him with that abominable trick of his, you know it.

'"Yēēs, Hales, yēēs! Yēēs, Hales, yēēs! So you had no time, Hales!

Yēēs, Hales, yēēs!"

'"No, sir, I was obliged to----"

'"To tell me a lie, sir! Yēēs, Hales, yēēs."

'Here Snap's beastly temper gave out, and instead of waiting till he

got a chance of telling his story properly to old Cube, who, although

he loves mathematics and hates a lie, is a good chap after all, he

deliberately mimicked the old chap with--

'"Nōō, sir, nōō! Nōō, sir, nōō!"

'Of course the other fellows went into fits of laughter, and old Cube

had fits too, only of another kind, and I expect I shall get "fits"

from the Head for trying to get the young idiot off for this match.

But I really don't see how we can get on without him,' Winthrop

added, as he left his friend at the door, and plodded with a heavy

heart up to the head-master's sanctum.

What happened there the narrator of this truthful story does not

pretend to know. The inside of a headmaster's library was to him a

place too sacred for intrusion, and it was only through the foolish

persistence of certain unwise under-masters that he was ever induced

to enter it. Whenever he did, he left it with a note of

recommendation from that excellent man to the school-sergeant. It

was not quite a testimonial to character, but still something like

it, and always contained an allusion to one of the most graceful of

forest trees, the mournful, beautiful birch. I am told that this is

the favourite tree of the Russian peasant. I dare say. I am told he

is still uneducated. It was education which, I think, taught me to

dislike the birch.

But I am wandering. The only words which reached me as I stood

below, wondering if my leave out of bounds would be granted or

not--and I had very good reasons for betting on the 'not'--were these:

'Very well, if he is no good as a bat it won't much matter. I'll do

what I can for you, only win the toss and go in first.'

He was a good fellow, our Head, and from Winthrop's face as he came

downstairs I expect that he thought so.

I was quite right about that leave out of bounds. The head-master

felt, no doubt quite properly, that on such a day as the day of the

Loamshire match, when there were sure to be lots of visitors about,

it would not do for one of the school's chief ornaments to be absent.

It was very hard upon me because, you see, I could only buy twelve

tarts for my shilling at the tuckshop, whereas if I had got leave out

of bounds I could have got thirteen for the same money, only four

miles from school! That sense of duty to the public which no doubt

will lead me some day to take a seat in the House of Commons enabled

me to bear up under my trouble, and about two o'clock I was watching

the match with my fellows on the Fernhall playing fields.

Ah, me! those Fernhall playing fields! with their long level

stretches of green velvet, their June sunshine and wonderful blue

skies! What has life like them nowadays? On this day they were

looking their very best, and, though I have wandered many a thousand

miles since then, I have never seen a fairer sight. Forty acres

there were, all in a ring fence, of level greensward, every yard of

it good enough for a match wicket, and the ring-fence itself nothing

but a tall rampart of green turf, twelve or fourteen feet high, and

broad enough at the top for two boys to walk upon it abreast.

Out in the middle of this great meadow the wickets were pitched, and

I really believe that I have since played billiards on a surface less

level than the two-and-twenty yards which they enclosed. The lines

of the crease gleamed brightly against the surrounding green, and the

strong sun blazed down upon the long white coats of the umpires, the

Fernhall eleven (or rather ten, for Snap was still absent), and two

of the strongest bats in Loamshire.

But, though fourteen figures had the centre of the ground to

themselves, there was plenty of vigorous, young life round its edges.

There, where the sun was the warmest, with their backs up against the

bank which enclosed the master's garden, sat or lay some four hundred

happy youngsters, anxiously watching every turn of the match, keen

critics, although thoroughgoing partisans. Like young lizards,

warmed through with the sun, lying soft against the mossy bank, the

scent of the flowers came to them over the garden hedge, and the soft

salt breeze came up from the neighbouring sea. You could hear the

lip and roll of its waves quite plainly where you lay, if you

listened for it, for after all it was only just beyond that green

bulwark of turf behind the pavilion. Many and many a time have we

boys seen the white foam flying in winter across those very

playing-fields, and gathered sea-wrack from the hedges three miles

inland. By-and-by, when the match was over, most of the

two-and-twenty players in it would race down to the golden sands and

roll like young dolphins in the blue waves, for Fernhall boys swam

like fishes in those good old days, and such a sea in such sunshine

would have tempted the veriest coward to a plunge.

But the match was not over yet, although yellow-headed Frank Winthrop

began to think that it might almost as well be. He was beginning to

despair. It was a one-day match: the school had only made 156, while

the county had only two wickets down for 93; of course there was no

chance of a second innings; the two best bats in Loamshire seemed set

for a century apiece; Poynter had lost his temper and seemed trying

rather to hurt his men than to bowl them, and everyone else had been

tried and had failed. What on earth was an unfortunate captain to

do? Just then a figure in a long cassock and college cap, a fine

portly figure with a kindly face, turned round, and, using the back

of a trembling small boy for a desk, wrote a note and despatched the

aforesaid small boy with it to the rooms of the Rev. Erasmus

Cube-Root. A minute or two before, Winthrop had found time to

exchange half-a-dozen words with 'the Head' whilst in the long field,

and now he turned and raised his cap to him, while an expression of

thankfulness overspread his features. The two Loamshire men at the

wickets were Grey and Hawker, both names well known on all the

cricket-fields of England, and one of them known and a little feared

by our cousins at the Antipodes. This man, Hawker, had been heard to

say that he was coming to Fernhall to get up his average and have an

afternoon's exercise. It looked very much as if he would justify his

boast. He was an aggravating bat to bowl to, for more reasons than

one. One of his tricks, indeed, seemed to have been invented for the

express purpose of chaffing the bowler.

As he stood at the wicket his bat was almost concealed from sight

behind his pads, his wicket appeared to be undefended, and all three

stumps plainly visible to his opponent. Alas! as the ball came

skimming down the pitch the square-built little athlete straightened

himself, the bat came out from its ambush, and you had the pleasure

of knowing that another six spoiled the look of your analysis. If he

was in very high spirits, and you in very poor form, he would indulge

in the most bewildering liberties, spinning round on his heels in a

way known to few but himself, so as to hit a leg ball into the

'drives.' Altogether he was, as the boys knew, a perfect Tartar to

deal with if he once got 'set.'

Grey, the other bat, was quite as exasperating in his way as Hawker,

only it was quite another way. He it was who had broken poor

Poynter's heart. You did not catch _him_ playing tricks. You did

not catch _him_ hitting sixes, or even threes; but neither did you

catch him giving the field a chance, launching out at a yorker, or

interfering with a 'bumpy' one. Oh, no! It didn't matter what you

bowled him, it was always the same story. 'Up went his shutter,' as

Poynter feelingly remarked, 'and you had to pick up that blessed

leather and begin again.' Sometimes he placed a ball so as to get

one run for it, sometimes he turned round and sped a parting ball to

leg, and sometimes he snicked one for two. He was a slow scorer, but

he seemed to possess the freehold of the ground he stood upon. No

one could give _him_ notice to quit. Such were the men at the

wicket, and such the state of the game, when a tall, slight figure

came racing on to the ground in very new colours, and with fingers

which, on close inspection, would have betrayed a more intimate

acquaintance with the ink-pot than with the cricket-ball. Although

it would have been nearer to have passed right under the

head-master's nose, the new-comer went a long way round, eyeing that

dignitary with nervous suspicion, and raising his cap with great

deference when the eye of authority rested upon him. As soon as he

came on to the ground he dropped naturally into his place, and anyone

could have seen at a glance that, whatever his other merits might or

might not be, Snap Hales was a real keen cricketer. When a ball came

his way there was no waiting for it to reach him on his part. He had

watched it, as a hawk does a young partridge, from the moment it left

the bowler's hands, and was halfway to meet it already. Like a flash

he had it with either hand--both were alike to him--and in the same

second it was sent back straight and true, a nice long hop, arriving

in the wicket-keeper's hands at just about the level of the bails.

But Winthrop had other work for Snap to do, and at the end of the

over sent him to replace Rolles at short-slip.

'By George, Towzer, they are going to put on Snap Hales,' said one

youngster to another on the rugs under the garden hedge.

'About time, too,' replied his companion; 'if he can't bowl better

than those two fellows he ought to be kicked.'

'Well, I dare say both you and he will be, if he doesn't come off

to-day. I expect it was your brother who got him off his lines

to-day, and he won't be a pleasant companion for either of you if the

school gets beaten with half-a-dozen wickets to spare.'

Towzer, the boy addressed, was brother to the captain of the eleven,

and his fag. Snap Hales, when at home, lived near the Winthrops, so

that in the school, generally, they were looked upon as being of one

clan, of which, of course, Frank Winthrop was the chief. Willy

Winthrop was Towzer's proper name, or at least the name he was

christened by; but anyone looking at the fair-haired jolly-looking

little fellow would have doubted whether his godfathers were wiser

than his schoolfellows. No one would ever have dreamed of him as a

future scholar of Balliol, nor, on the other hand, as a sour-visaged

failure. He was a bright, impertinent Scotch terrier of a boy, and

his discerning contemporaries called him Towzer.

But we must leave Towzer for the present and stick to Snap. Everyone

was watching him now, and none more closely or more kindly than the

man whom Snap considered chief of his born enemies, 'the Head.'

'Yes, he is a fine lad,' muttered that great man, 'I wish I knew how

to manage him. He has stuff in him for anything.' And indeed he

might have, though he was hardly good-looking. Tall and spare, with

a lean, game look about the head, the first impression he made upon

you was that he was a perfect athlete, one of Nature's chosen

children. Every movement was so easy and so quick that you knew

instinctively that he was strong, though he hardly looked it; but his

face puzzled you. It was a dark, sad-looking face, certainly not

handsome, with firm jaw and somewhat rugged outlines, and yet there

was a light sometimes in the big dark eyes which gave all the rest

the lie, and made you feel that his masters might be right, after

all, when they said, 'There is no misdoing at Fernhall of which "that

Hales" is not the leader.'

At any rate he appeared to be out of mischief just now.

'Round the wicket, sir?' asked the umpire as Snap took the ball in

hand.

'No, Charteris, over,' was the short reply, as Hales turned to

measure his run behind the sticks.

'What! a new bowler?' asked Hawker of the wicket-keeper as he took a

fresh guard; 'who is he?'

'An importation from the Twenty-two; got his colours last week,'

answered Wyndham, and a smile spread over Hawker's face, as he saw in

fancy a timid beginner pitching him half-volleys to be lifted over

the garden hedge, or leg-balls with which to break the slates on the

pavilion.

But Hawker had to reserve his energy for a while, being much too good

a cricketer to hit wildly at anything. With a quiet, easy action the

new bowler sent down an ordinary good-length ball, too straight to

take liberties with, and that was all. Hawker played it back to him

confidently, but still carefully, and another, and another, of almost

identical pitch and pace, followed the first. 'Not so much to be

made off this fellow after all,' thought Hawker, 'but he will get

loose like the rest by-and-by, no doubt.' Still it was not as good

fun as he had expected. The fourth ball of Snap's first over was

delivered with exactly the same action as its predecessors, but the

pace was about double that of the others and Hawker was only just in

time to stop it. It was so very nearly too much for the great man

that for a moment it shook his confidence in his own infallibility.

That momentary want of confidence ruined him. The last ball of the

over was not nearly up to the standard of the other four; it was

short-pitched and off the wicket, but it had a lot of 'kick' in it,

and Hawker had not come far enough out for it. There was an ominous

click as the ball just touched the shoulder of his bat, and next

moment, as long-slip remarked, he found it revolving in his hands

'like a stray planet.'

Don't talk to me of the lungs of the British tar, of the Irish stump

orator, or even of the 'Grand Old Man' himself! They are nothing,

nothing at all, to the lungs we had in those days. It was Snap's

first wicket for the school, and Snap was the school's favourite, as

the scapegrace of a family usually is, and caps flew up and fellows

shouted until even Hawker didn't much regret his discomfiture if it

gave the boys such pleasure. He was very fond of Fernhall boys, that

sinewy man from the North, and, next to their own heroes, Fernhall

liked him better than most men. Even now they show the window

through which he jumped on all fours, and many a neck is nearly

dislocated in trying to follow his example.

In the next over from his end Hales had to deal with Grey, and he

found his match. He tried him with slow ones, he tried him with fast

ones, he tried to seduce him from the paths of virtue with the

luscious lob, to storm him with the Eboracian pilule or ball from

York. It was not a bit of good, up went the shutter, and a maiden

over left Snap convinced that the less he had to do with Grey the

better for him, and left Grey convinced that Fernhall had got a

bowler at last who bowled with his head. Was it wilfully, I wonder,

that Snap gave Grey on their next meeting a ball which that steady

player hit for one? It may not have been, and yet there was a grin

all over the boy's dark face as he saw Grey trot up to his end. That

run cost Loamshire two batsmen in four balls--one bowled leg before

wicket, and the other clean-bowled with an ordinary good-length ball

rather faster than its fellows.

Those old fields rang with Hales's name that afternoon, and at 6.30,

thanks chiefly to his superb bowling, the county had still two to

score to win, and two wickets to fall. One of the men still in was

Grey. At the end of the over the stumps would be drawn, and the game

drawn against the school, even if (as he might do) Snap should bowl a

maiden. That, however, could hardly be; even Grey would hit out at

such a crisis. At the very first ball the whole school trembled with

excitement. The Loamshire man played well back and stopped a very

ugly one, fast and well pitched, but it would not be altogether

denied, and curled in until it lay quiet and inoffensive, absolutely

touching the stumps.

Ah, gentlemen of Loamshire! if you want to win this match why can't

you keep quiet? Don't you think the sight of that fatal little ball,

nestling close up to his wicket, is enough to disconcert any batsman

in the last over of a good match? And yet you cry, 'Steady,

Thompson, steady!' Poor chap, you can see that he is all abroad, and

the boy's eyes at the other end are glittering with repressed

excitement. He is fighting his first great battle in public, and

knows it is a winning one. There is a sting and 'devil' in the

fourth ball which would have made even Grace pull himself together.

It sent Thompson's bails over the long-stop's head, and mowed down

his wicket like ripe corn before a thunder-shower.

And now the chivalry of good cricket was apparent; Loamshire had no

desire to 'play out the time.' Even as Thompson was bowled, another

Loamshire man left the pavilion, ready for the fray. If it had been

'cricket,' Hawker, the Loamshire captain, would have gladly played

out the match. As it was, his man was ready to finish the over. As

the two men passed each other the new-comer gave his defeated friend

a playful dig in the ribs, and remarked, 'Here goes for the score of

the match, Edward Anson, duck, not out!'

As there was only one more ball to be bowled, and only two runs to be

made to secure a win for Loamshire, I'm afraid Anson hardly meant

what he said. Unless it shot underground or was absolutely out of

reach, that young giant, who 'could hit like anything, though not

much of a bat,' meant at any rate to hit that one ball for four. By

George, how he opened his shoulders! how splendidly he lunged out!

you could see the great muscles swell as he made the bat sing through

the air, you could almost see the ball going seaward; and yet--and

yet----

The school had risen like one man; they had heard that rattle among

the timber; they knew that Snap's last 'yorker' had done the trick;

cool head and quick hand had pulled the match out of the fire, and

even his rival Poynter was one of the crowd who caught young Hales,

tossed him on to their shoulders, and bore him in triumph to the

pavilion, whilst the chapel clock struck the half-hour.