The thing which drove me from my late purchase of Longfield Hall in
Cumberland--after nine months’ trial,--back to town, has been a dead
secret, until this present writing. My friends have found a mine of
reasons to explain the circumstance: either the county families refused
to visit us; or our income was not more than enough to maintain our
lodge-keeper; or my eldest daughter had made love to the surgeon’s
young man at Nettleton; or I could not get on without my billiards and
my five to two at whist; or I had been horse-whipped by Lord Wapshaw
for riding over his hounds. There was more behind the curtain than
people thought; and a thousand other good-natured explanations.
The actual facts are these: We arrived in Cumberland at the close
of last autumn, and were as happy for some months as the days were
long--and the days were very long indeed; everybody was kind and
hospitable to us, and, on our parts, my port became a proverb and my
daughters a toast. It was “Blathers, come and take pot-luck,” from
almost any neighbour I fell in with on my walks; or, “Mr. Blathers,
we see nothing of your good wife and family,” from the archdeacon’s
lady, though we had been dining at the Cloisters three times within
the fortnight; or “Lord and Lady Wapshaw have the----” but, no; the
forms of familiarity, through which the high nobility communicate with
their intimates, should not be lightly quoted. In a word, then, I was a
popular man and “an accession to the county.”
In the early spring time I began to feel the country gentleman’s first
grief; it came over with the swallows and, like them, never left
my roof. Two of my acquaintances--men I had never esteemed as evil
genii--rode over on an April day to Longfield; Sir Chuffin Stumps
and Biffin Biffin of the Oaks; they were unusually cordial--quite
empressés, my wife subsequently observed--to all of us, and after
luncheon they desired to have some conversation with me in my study;
that is the apartment wherein I keep my Landed Gentry, my stomach-pump
(a capital thing to have in a country-house), and my slippers, and
thither my two guests were ushered.
“It has always been the custom, my dear Blathers,” said the baronet,
“for the tenant of Longfield Hall to be the president of the Nettleton
Cricket-club; that we should offer, that he should accept that honor,
is due to his position in the county” (and indeed there was scarcely
a flat piece of ground big enough to play upon in all the district,
except in my paddock, I well know). “Lather, your predecessor, was
president; Singin was president before him; the Longfields of Longfield
were presidents time out of mind; and you--Blathers--you will be
president now?”
“Of course you will,” agreed Biffin.
“But, my dear sirs,” said I, “what shall I have to do?--what will be my
duties, my--”
“Do!--nothing at all,” interrupted Sir Chuffin Stumps, “positively
nothing; you have no duties, only privileges; let us have your ground
to play upon; dine with us on Wednesdays in the tent, and on the great
match-days; give a crust of bread and a shakedown to a swell from
any long distance, now and then; you sit at the head of the festive
board--your health is drunk continually--you are appealed to upon
all the nice points of the game, and your decision is final. It’s a
splendid post!”
“Splendid!” echoed Biffin.
“But I have not played at cricket for this thirty years,” I urged. “I
don’t know the rules. I couldn’t see the ball, if you were to give me
all creation. I’m as blind as a bat.”
“Ha, ha, very good,” laughed the baronet. “A bat--d’ye see, Biffin,--a
bat? Blathers will do, depend upon it; he’ll keep the table in a roar.
As for the game, Mr. President, it’s just what it used to be--round
instead of under, that’s all; and they cut a good deal oftener and stop
much less, perhaps, than they used to do.”
“Dear me,” said I, “then there’s not so many of them as there were, I
suppose?”
“And as for near-sight,” pursued Sir Chuffin, “play in spectacles.
Bumpshus, our great wicket-keeper, he plays in spectacles; Grogram,
your vice-president, he plays in spectacles; it’s considered rather an
advantage than otherwise to play in spectacles.”
“Certainly,” echoed Biffin, “it’s a great advantage.”
“So good-bye, Blathers,” said both gentlemen rising; “the first of May
is our meeting day, and the tent must be up and everything arranged,
of course, by that time; but Grogram will write and let you know every
particular.”
And that was how I was made P.N.C.C., almost without a struggle.
In the course of a week I received a letter from Grogram, saying that
there would be no difficulty whatever about anything; he would settle
about the dining-tent, and the dressing-tent, and the cooking-tent,
and I should only have the contracts for food and the wine-tasting
to manage; the hiring of a bowler, the cutting and rolling of the
grass. The coming matches for the year--I should, of course, arrange
about myself; and I must be sure, he wrote, to let all the members
of the club know of the day of meeting, and all the playing members
of every match-day, and to dun Lord Wapshaw for his two years’-due
subscriptions, as the treasurer didn’t like to--with some other little
matters; and, by the bye, did I happen to have my cricket toggery
complete yet? as, if not, he (Grogram) could let me have a registered
belt almost for nothing, because he had grown out of it, he was sorry
to say, himself; also some improved galvanised india-rubber leg-guards,
and some tubular batting-gloves, and a catapult--remarkably cheap.
The postscript said, “of course you will come out in flannels and
spike-soles.”
I really thought when I first read this letter that I should have
died with anxiety. I showed it to Mrs. Blathers, and she fairly burst
into tears, and it was hours before we could either of us look our
difficulties calmly in the face. Flannels! I had at that moment upon
my person the only description of flannel garment which I possessed--a
jerkin coming down no distance at all, and not to be dreamt of as a
reception-dress to the club and half the county upon the first of
May; spike-soles I did happen to have, being a skater, and set them
out accordingly; but what possible use a pair of skates could be for
cricket I could not imagine. The rest of the things I sent to Grogram
for, who accommodated me with them very good-naturedly for fifteen
pounds fifteen shillings. I put them all on--one way and another--but
could make no use of the catapult, except to sit in it, and my youngest
child had convulsions, because, she sobbed, Pa looked so like that
dreadful diver who lived in the pond at the Polytechnic.
I issued all the circulars, and signed myself the obedient servant of
two hundred and forty-six strange gentlemen. I set my gardener and my
coachman to roll out the cricket-ground. I tasted the bad sherry of
the three Nettleton wine-merchants, and made two of them my enemies
for life. My advertisements for a bowler were answered by a host of
youths, with immense professions and very limited employment; some were
from Lord’s, some from the Oval, “the Maribun know’d him well enough,”
averred one young gentleman; another--with a great hollow in his hand
from constant practice--affirmed, that “if I wanted hart, there I had
it, and no mistake;” by which he meant that Art was enshrined in his
proper person--and him I chose.
The first of May was as the poets love to paint it: the white tents
glittered in sunshine, and the flags fluttered from their tops to a
gentle breeze; the wickets were pitched upon the velvet sward, a fiddle
and cornopean, concealed in the shrubbery, welcomed every arrival with
See the Conquering Hero Comes; and the president’s heart beat high
with the sense of his position. I was attired in my full diving-dress,
over the Nettleton uniform, and I held a bat in my right hand. The
sides were chosen, and the game began; the carriages of the nobility
and gentry formed a brilliant circle round the ground; a flying ball,
struck by a hand more skilful than common, gave their situation the
least touch of peril to enhance it. I myself was placed at one of the
wickets, and my new bowler was placed opposite to me; he and I had
practised together for a day or two, and he knew the balls I liked. I
sent the sixth out to the left with a great bang, to the admiration
of all but Grogram--who is a person of saturnine disposition--and got
three runs; alas! the unprofessional Wilkins--the swiftest round-hand
in the club--then inherited the mission of my destruction by bowling
to me; the whizz of his balls absolutely took away my breath, and, if
they had struck me, would doubtless have taken away my legs. But I
placed the bat resolutely in the earth, and cowered behind it as well
as I could manage. At last, after a warning cry of Play!--about as
inappropriate a name as he could have called it--a tornado seemed to
sweep past me, followed by a smack as of the resistance of flesh, and
the wicket-keeper ejaculated “Out!” to my infinite joy.
Then came the happy time of cricket. The danger of the thing being
over for that whole innings, you have nothing to do but to lie on the
ground with a cigar, and explain how you had intended to have caught
that ball, and hit it between long field off and cover point; when
you holloa out, “Butter-fingers!” and “Wide!” and “Run it out!” My
happiness, however, was but of short duration; the new bowler delivered
his deadly weapon against the rest in a manner he had known better
than to practise upon me. Wilkins, too, seemed to derive new strength
from every bail he struck towards the sky, and reaped the air with
that tremendous arm of his more terribly than ever. In an hour and
twenty minutes, we were fagging out on our side. The president had his
choice of places; and, having observed that the wicket-keepers had
either stopped the balls, or much diminished their velocity before they
arrived at long-stop, I declared for that happy post. Alas! this was
the case no longer. Swift as thought, and infinitely more substantial,
the balls rushed with unabated fury beside me; hardly, by leaping into
the air, and stretching my legs very wide apart, could I escape the
fearful concussion. “Stop ’em! Stop ’em!” screamed the fielders. “Why
the deuce don’t he stop ’em?” bawled old Grogram, indignantly. So I
waited my opportunity, watching, hat in hand, till one came slower
than usual; and then I pounced upon him from behind, as a boy does on
a butterfly. The crown of my hat was carried away, indeed, but the
missile could not force its way through my person, and I threw it up
to the man that hallo’d for it most in triumph; but my reputation as a
cricketer was gone for ever.
At dinner I was comparatively successful. Lord Wapshaw was on my right;
Sir Chuffin Stumps on my left; two long lines of gentlemen in flannels
were terminated, perspectively, by Grogram, opposite; the archdeacon
said grace; my new bowler assisted in waiting at table; and everything
was upon the most gorgeous scale. Presently, however, the rain came
down in torrents, and, in spite of the patent imperviousness of the
tent, as vouched for by the vice-president, some umbrellas had to be
borrowed from the hall (which were never returned). After dinner, there
was a friend of his lordship to be ballotted for, and I distributed
the little balls, as directed, and sent round the box. The rule of
exclusion was one black ball in ten. There were four black balls to
thirty white balls, and I had to publish the fact to all present.
“My friend black-balled, sir?” said the irascible peer. “Impossible!
Did you do it?--did you?--did you?” he asked of everybody successively,
amidst roars of laughter at his utter want of appreciation of the
fundamental end and aim of the institution of vote by ballot. “There
must be some mistake, sir,” said he, when they had each and all
declined to satisfy such an extraordinary enquiry. “Mr. Blathers, try
them again.”
This time there were four white balls to thirty black ones, a
melancholy result which I had also to announce. His lordship left the
tent--the marquee, somebody observed--like a maniac; and, though I
swear I did not blackball his man, he never asked me to Hiltham Castle
again from that day to this.
Now the season had begun, I became inundated with letters from the
presidents of other cricket-clubs, requesting the N.C.C. to play them
on some particular day; which, if it suited Wilkins, was invariably
inconvenient to Grogram, and if it pleased Grogram, was sure to be the
worst in the year for all the rest. So we were requested to name our
own day, in a flippant, skittle-playing, come-on-when-you-like sort of
manner, throwing upon me still greater responsibilities. The end of it
was that the Levant club came to Nettleton, eat our dinner, drank our
wine, and beat us; but refused to play a return match, or to give us
any dinner whatever. Swiftly Downham, Esq., the man who has a European
reputation as mid-wicket-on, honoured us by his company at Longfield
“for a couple of nights,” as he bargained, and stayed a fortnight,
smoking regularly in the best bedroom. Swiper, the professional
batsman, also favoured us, and left me a cotton pocket-handkerchief
with a full-length portrait of himself, in exchange, I hope--or else
it was robbery--for a plain white silk one of my own. A whole school
came over from Chumleyborough to play us, and nine of them took up
their quarters at the hall. Fresh from toffey and gingerbeer as they
were, I was fool enough to give them a champagne supper, of which
the consequences were positively tremendous. They were all of them
abominably ill, and the biggest boy kissed my daughter Florence,
mistaking her, as he afterwards stated in apology, for one of the maids.
Wednesday, on which the club met, became my dark day of the week, and
cast its shadow before and behind it; it was then that I made feud with
Wilkins, by deciding that his balls were wide, and exasperated Grogram
by declaring his legs were before wicket. I should not have known how
these things were, even could I have seen so far; but I gave judgment
alternately, now for the ins and now for the outs, with the utmost
impartiality. One fine afternoon my own and favourite bowler absconded
with about a dozen of the best bats, quite a forest of stumps, and a
few watches belonging to the members of the N.C.C.; this was the drop
too much that made my cup of patience overflow. I determined to resign,
and I did resign.
Staying at Longfield Hall any longer, having ceased to be the
president, I felt was not to be thought of, so I disposed of it. I
wrote a cheque for a lot of things, embraced Grogram (whom I dearly
love), and left the club my catapult. My last act of office was to
appoint another bowler--a black man. He does capitally, Wilkins
writes; only--from his having been selected by me from a band of
tumblers, I suppose--he will always bowl from under his left leg.