early in the afternoon. I’d been out for a stroll. When I got to my
sister’s room, I heard squeaky voice going strong. The other man
was asking him where some place was hard by. Yes, sir, I recollect
exactly now how the thing came through. Squeaky voice said: ‘You
remember the villa next to Madam Ponsolle’s épicerie establishment.
There’s a flower-pot in the window about the size of a stone
ginger-beer bottle--well, it’s just opposite.’ This seemed to satisfy
the big man, except that he growled: ‘Oh, it’s there, is it?’
Then he added rather savagely: ‘I know the place you mean. I noticed
the flower-pot myself but it’s a good three times the size of a stone
ginger-beer bottle.’
“Then, believe me, the trouble began. It beats me why the argument
got them like that. Squeaky voice began to scream that he had taken
particular note of the flower-pot at the time, and he’d swear it
wasn’t an inch higher than an ordinary stone ginger-beer bottle.
And each time he said that the bear got angrier and growled: ‘It’s
three times the size.’ The argument raged for an hour. Squeaky voice
pointed out that the other was every kind of walleyed, bone-headed
thruster, and the bear rolled about the veranda shaking his fist and
using language that would have made a Milwaukee bartender hand in
his checks. The exhibition tired me and I went in.
“I think they slackened up, too, after a bit. Somewhere away in the
big rooms a meal was cooked. The night came on quick and the moon
broke through the clouds. After dinner I’m darned if I didn’t hear
them going it again hammer and tongs. ‘I’m a judge of size,’ Squeaky
was saying. ‘There isn’t an inch to it.’ ‘It’s damn nearly four times
the size,’ roared the other, who you see had raised his figures.
I was near to getting the hotel management on to quelling the
disturbance, but it slackened off. At least, I thought it had. About
ten o’clock I went to my room, which was right at the corner. I went
on to the balcony to take a last breather, and then I saw the whole
darn thing happen----”
“Have a little whisky, Mr. Scobie,” said Timothy.
“I will, sir, thank you. It seemed dead still. I thought they had
gone in. But suddenly I saw Wray--that’s the man’s name, sure,
Wray--he was crouching in the corner of the veranda just beneath me,
and he had a bottle in his hand. I thought at first it was a last
carouse, then by the light of the moon I noticed he was holding it by
the neck and the bottle was empty. His thin voice came up to me like
a husky wail: ‘Blast you, it is just the exact size.’ I could just
see the shadowy form of the other man lying back near the window at
the end. He was mumbling: ‘Five times as big!’
“Wray went toward him like a cat. I called out, and I think the
effect of my cry was to get the big man alert to trouble. He was on
his legs by the time Wray reached him. I saw the bottle swing in the
air. Then they came to grips. Gosh! I’ve seen men fight, but--tables
and chairs and glasses were scattered and broken. I heard the bottle
break, but one of them was still holding it by the neck. Up and down
the veranda they rolled and fought and bit. Just like madmen. Then
there was a scream. A man and a woman rushed out. I went below. The
big man Vallery was lying in a heap--dead--his throat cut from ear to
ear. Wray was writhing by his side. He died the next morning: he died
blaspheming. Like a gump I gave out that I’d seen the whole thing and
they nailed me for the inquest. Those French courts of justice--ugh!
I wanted to forget the whole blamed thing--wipe it out of my memory.
But there I was nailed, made to go over and over it again. I never
thought it possible to see such scarlet hate and passion--just savage
beasts they were--and all over the size of a flower-pot.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rallish, just a finger.”
The fire glowed in the warm security of the little room and snow was
drifting against the windows. In the drawing-room across the passage
Mrs. Timothy was running her hands over the keys of a piano. Timothy
smiled wistfully.
“Neither Wray nor Vallery ever liked me,” he remarked apparently
irrelevantly. Then by way of explanation: “I’m going to have my
revenge upon them. It isn’t often that a writer of fiction has things
like that left at his door----”
Mr. Scobie nodded, and shook his long first finger at him.
“I see your point, sir. Provided you leave me out, the goods are
yours. Here’s another small side issue might be useful to you. It
wasn’t a flower-pot at all. I verified the fact the next day. It was
a child’s red stockinette cap. Just think of it. They only had to
stroll ten minutes up the village street. They could have taken a
ruler, bet each other drinks, laughed the thing off. ’Stead of that
they thought it more amusing to fight with broken whisky bottles.
What do you think of it?”
We sat there staring at the fire. Timothy was sucking at an empty
pipe.
“I can see the explanation,” he said at last.
“I should be entertained to hear it, sir.”
“You see,” said Timothy slowly, “the angel of accomplishment had
deserted them.”
THE MATCH
It is all so incredibly long ago that you must not ask me to remember
the scores. In fact, even of the result I am a little dubious. I
only know that it was just on such a day as this that we were all
mooning round Bunty Cartwright’s garden after breakfast, smoking,
and watching the great bumblebees hanging heavily on the flowers.
Along the flagged pathway to the house were standard rose-trees, the
blossoms and perfume of which excited one pleasantly. It was jolly
to be in flannels and to feel the sun on one’s skin, for the day
promised to be hot.
For years it had been a tradition for dear old Bunty to ask us all
down for the week. There were usually eight or nine of us, and we
made up our team with the doctor and his son and one or two other
odds and ends of chaps in the neighbourhood. I know that on this day
he had secured the services of Dawkin, a very fast bowler from a town
near by, for Celminster, the team we were to play, were reputed to be
a very hot lot.
As we stood there laughing and talking, Bunty and Tony Peebles were
sitting within the stone porch, I remember, trying to finish a game
of chess started the previous evening; there was the crunch of wheels
on the road, and the brake arrived, accompanied by the doctor’s son,
a thin slip of a boy on a bicycle.
Then there was the usual bustle of putting up cricket-bags and going
back for things one had forgotten, and the inevitable “chipping” of
“Togs,” a boy whose real name I have forgotten, but who was always
last in everything, even in the order of going in. It must have been
fully half an hour before we made a start, and then the doctor hadn’t
arrived. However, he came up at the last minute, his jolly red face
beaming and perspiring. Some of the chaps cycled, and soon left us
behind, but I think we were seven on the brake. It was good to be
high up and to feel the wind blowing gently on our faces from the
sea. We passed villages of amazing beauty nestling in the hollows
of the downs, and rumbled on our way to the accompaniment of lowing
sheep and the doctor’s rich, burring voice talking of cricket, and
the song of the lark overhead that sang in praise of this day of
festival.
It was good to laugh and talk and watch the white road stretching far
ahead, then dipping behind a stretch of woodland. It was good to feel
the thrill of excited anticipation as we approached the outskirts of
Celminster. What sort of ground would it be? What were their bowlers
like? Who would come off for us?
It was good to see the grinning, friendly faces of the villagers
and then to descend from the brake, to nod to our opponents in that
curiously self-conscious way we have as a race, and then eagerly
to survey the field. And is there in the whole of England a more
beautiful place than the Celminster cricket ground?
On one side is a clump of buildings dominated by the straggling
yards and outhouses belonging to the “Bull” inn. On the farther side
is a fence, and just beyond a stream bordered by young willows. At
right angles to the inn is a thick cluster of elms--a small wood,
in fact--while on the fourth side a low, gray stone wall separates
the field from the road. Across the road may be seen the spire of
a church, the fabric hidden by the trees, and away beyond sweeping
contours of the downs.
In the corner of the field is a rough pavilion faced with
half-timber, and a white flagstaff with the colours of the Celminster
Cricket Club fluttering at its summit.
Members of the Celminster Club were practising in little knots about
the field, and a crowd of small boys were sitting on a long wooden
bench, shouting indescribably, and some were playing mock games with
sticks and rubber balls. A few aged inhabitants looked at us with
lazy interest and touched their hats.
A little man with a square chin and an auburn moustache came out and
grinned at us and asked for Mr. Cartwright. We discovered that he
was the local wheelwright and the Celminster captain. He showed us
our room in the pavilion and called Bunty “sir.” Of course, Bunty
lost the toss. He always did during that week, and this led to
considerably more “chipping,” and we turned out to field.
No one who has never experienced it can ever appreciate the tense
joy of a cricketer when he comes out to begin a match. The gaiety of
the morning, when the light is at its best and all one’s senses are
alert; the sense of being among splendid deeds that are yet unborn;
and then the jolly red ball! How we love to clutch it with a sort
of romantic exultation and toss it to one another! For it is upon
_it_ that the story of the day will turn. It is the scarlet symbol
of our well-ordered adventure, as yet untouched and virginal, and
yet strangely pregnant of unaccomplished actions. What story will it
have to tell when the day is done? Who will drop catches with it? Who
destroy its virgin loveliness with a fearful drive against the stone
wall?
As I have stated, it happened all so long ago that I cannot clearly
remember many of the details of that match, but curiously enough I
remember the first over that Dawkin sent down very vividly.
A very tall man came in to bat. The first ball he played straight
back to the bowler; the second was a “yorker” and just missed his
wicket; the third he drove hard to mid-off and Bunty stopped it; the
fourth he stopped with his pads; the fifth he played back to the
bowler again; and the sixth knocked his leg clean out of the ground.
One wicket for no runs! We flung the scarlet symbol backward and
forward in a great state of excitement, with visions of a freak
match, the whole side of our opponents being out for ten runs, and so
on. I remember the glum face of their umpire, a genial corn merchant,
dressed in a white coat and a bowler hat, with a bewildering number
of sweaters tied round his neck, glancing apprehensively at the
pavilion. I remember that the next man in was the little wheelwright,
and he looked very solemn and tense. The first three balls missed
his wicket by inches, then he stopped them. My recollection of the
rest of that morning was a vision of the little wheelwright, with his
chin thrust forward, frowning at the bowlers. He had a peculiarly
uncomfortable stance at the wicket, but he played very straight. He
kept Dawkin out for about five overs, then he started pulling him
round to leg. The wicket was rather fiery, and Dawkin was very fast.
The wheelwright was hit three times on the thigh, twice on the chest,
and numberless times on the arms, and one ball got up and glanced off
his scalp, but he did not waver. He plodded on, lying in wait for the
short ball to hook to leg. I do not remember how many he made, but it
was a great innings. He took the heart out of Dawkin and encouraged
one or two of the others to hit with courage. He was caught at last
by a brilliant catch by Arthur Booth running in from long leg.
One advantage of a village team like Celminster is that they have
no “tail,” or, rather, that you never know what the tail will do.
You know by the costume that they have a tail, for the first four
or five batsmen appear in complete outfits of white flannels and
sweaters, and then the costumes start varying in a wonderful degree.
Number six appears in a black waistcoat with white flannel trousers,
number seven with brown pads and black boots, number eight with a
blue shirt and brown trousers, and so on to the last man, who is
dressed uncommonly like a verger. But this rallentando of sartorial
equipment does not in any way represent the run-getting ability of
the team, for suddenly some gentleman inappropriately garbed, who
gives the impression of never having had a bat in his hand before,
will lash out and score twenty-five runs off one over.
On this particular occasion I remember one man who came in about
ninth, and who wore one brown pad and sand-shoes, and had on a blue
shirt with a dicky and a collar, but no tie, and who stood right in
front of his wicket, looked grimly at Dawkin, and then hit him for
two sixes, a four, and a five, to the roaring accompaniment of “Good
old Jar-r-ge!” from a row of small boys near the pavilion. The fifth
ball hit his pad and he was given out l.b.w. He gave no expression of
surprise, disappointment or disgust, but just walked grimly back to
the pavilion. Celminster were all out before lunch, but I cannot let
the last man--the verger--retire (he was bowled first ball off his
foot) before speaking of our wicket-keeper, Jimmy Guilsworth.
Jimmy Guilsworth was, in my opinion, an ideal wicket-keeper. He
was a little chap and wore glasses, but his figure was solid and
homely. He was by profession something of a poet, and wrote lyrics
in the celtic-twilight manner. He played cricket rarely, but when he
did, he was instinctively made wicket-keeper. He had that curious,
sympathetic mothering quality which every good wicket-keeper
should have. The first business of a wicket-keeper is to make the
opposing batsmen feel at home. When the man comes in trembling and
nervous, the wicket-keeper should make some reassuring remark,
something that at once establishes a bond of understanding between
honourable opponents. When the batsman is struck on the elbow it
is the wicket-keeper who should rush up and administer first-aid
or spiritual comfort. And when the batsman is bowled or caught, he
should say: “Hard luck, sir!”
At the same time it his business to mother the bowlers on his own
side. He must be continually encouraging them and sympathizing
with them, but in a subdued voice, so that the batsman does not
hear. And, moreover, he must be prepared to act as chief of staff
to the captain. He must advise him on the change of bowlers and
on the disposition of the field. All of this requires great tact,
understanding and perspicacity.
All these qualities Jimmy Guilsworth had in a marked degree. If he
sometimes dropped catches and never stood near enough to stump any
one, what was that to the sympathetic way he said “Oh, hard luck,
sir!” to an opposing batsman when he was bowled by a long hop, or the
convincing way he would call out, “Oh, well hit, sir!” when another
opponent pulled a half-volley for four. What could have been more
encouraging than the way he would rest his hand on young Booth’s
shoulder after he had bowled a disappointing over, and say: “I say,
old chap, you’re in great form. Could you pitch ’em up just a wee
bit?” When things were going badly for the side, Jimmy would grin and
whisper into Cartwright’s ear. Then there would be a consultation and
a change of bowlers, or some one would come closer up to third-man,
and, lo! in no time something would happen.
But it is lunch-time. In the pavilion a long table is set, with a
clean cloth and napkins and with gay bowls of salad. On a side-table
is a wonderful array of cold joints, hams, cold lamb, and pies. We
sit down, talking of the game. Curiously enough, we do not mix with
our opponents. We sit at one end, and they occupy the other, but we
grin at one another, and the men sitting at the point of contact of
the two parties occasionally proffer a remark.
Girls wait on us, and a fat man in shirt-sleeves, who produces ale
and ginger-beer from some mysterious corner. And what a lunch it is!
Does ever veal-and-ham pie taste so good as it does in the pavilion
after the morning chasing a ball? And then tarts and fruit and
custard and a large yellow cheese, how splendid it all seems, with
the buzz of conversation and the bright sun through the open door!
Does anything lend a fuller flavour to the inevitable pipe than such
a lunch, mellowed by the rough flavour of a pint of shandy-gaff?
We stroll out again into the sun and puff tranquilly, and some of us
gather round old Bob Parsons, the corn merchant, and listen to his
panegyric of cricket as played “in the old days.” He’s seen a lot of
cricket in his time, old Bob. His bony, weather-beaten face wrinkles,
and his clear, ingenuous eyes blink at the heavens as he recalls
famous men: “Johnny Strutt, he was a good ’un. Aye, and ye should ha’
seen old Tom Kennett bowl in his time. Nine wicket’ he took against
Kailhurst, hittin’ the wood every toime. Fast he were, faster’n they
bowl now. Fower bahls he bahl fast, then put up a slow.”
He shakes his head meditatively, as though the contemplation of the
diabolical cunning of bowling a slow ball after four fast ones was
almost too much to believe, as though it was a demonstration of
intellectual calisthenics that this generation could not appreciate.
It is now the turn of the opponents to take the field, while we
eagerly scan the score-sheet to see the order of going in, and
restlessly move about the pavilion, trying on pads, and making
efforts not to appear nervous.
And with what a tense emotion we watch our first two men open the
innings! It is with a gasp of relief we see Jimmy Guilsworth cut
a fast ball for two, and know, at any rate, we have made a more
fortunate start than our opponents did.
I do not remember how many runs we made that afternoon, though as
we were out about tea time, I believe we just passed the Celminster
total, but I remember that to our joy Bunty Cartwright came off. He
had been unlucky all the week, but this was his joy-day. He seemed
cheerful and confident when he went in, and he was let off on the
boundary off the first ball! After that he did not make a mistake.
It was a joy to watch Bunty bat. He was tall and graceful, and he
sprang to meet the ball like a wave scudding against a rock. He
seemed to epitomize the dancing sunlight, a thing of joy expressing
the fullness of the crowded hour. His hair blew over his face, and
one could catch the gleam of satisfaction that radiated from him as
he panted on his bat after running out a five.
He was not a great cricketer, none of us were, but he had a good eye,
the heart of a lion, and he loved the game.
I believe I made eight or nine. I know I made a cut for four. The
recollection of it is very keen to this day, and the satisfying
joy of seeing the ball scudding along the ground a yard out of the
reach of point. It made me very happy. And then one of those balls
came along that one knows nothing about. How remarkable it is that
a bowler who appears so harmless from the pavilion seems terrifying
and demoniacal when he comes tearing down the crease toward you!
Yes, I’m sure we passed the Celminster total now, for I remember at
tea time discussing the possibilities of winning by a single innings
if we got Celminster out for forty.
After tea, for some reason or other, one smokes cigarettes. We
strolled into a yard at the back of the “Bull” inn, and there was a
wicket gate leading to a lawn where some wonderful old men, whose
language was almost incomprehensible, were drinking ale and playing
bowls. At the side were some tall sunflowers growing amid piles of
manure.
Some one in the pavilion rang a bell, and we languidly returned to
take the field once more.
I remember that it was late in the afternoon that a strange thing
happened to me. I was fielding out in the long field not thirty yards
from the stream. Tony Peebles was bowling from the end where I was
fielding. I noted his ambling run up to the wicket and the graceful
action of his arm as he swung the ball across. A little incident
happened, a thing trivial at the time, but which one afterward
remembers. The batsman hit a ball rather low on the off side, which
the doctor’s son caught or stopped on the ground. There was an appeal
for a catch, given in the batsman’s favour, but for some reason or
other he thought the umpire had said “out,” and he started walking
to the pavilion. He was at least two yards out of his crease when
the doctor’s son threw the ball to Jimmy Guilsworth at the wicket.
Jimmy had the wicket at his mercy, but instead of putting it down
he threw it back to the bowler. It was perhaps a trivial thing, but
it epitomized the game we played. One does not take advantage of a
mistake. It isn’t done.
The sun was already beginning to flood the valley with the excess of
amber light which usually betokens his parting embrace. The stretch
of level grass became alive and vibrant, tremblingly golden against
the long, crisp shadows cast from the elms. The elms themselves
nodded contentedly, and down by the stream flickered little white
patches of children’s frocks. Everything suddenly seemed to become
more vivid and transcendent. As if aware of the splendour of that
moment, all the little things struggled to express themselves more
actively. The birds and little insects in solemn unison praised God,
or, rather, to my mind, at that moment they praised England, the land
that gave them such a glorious setting. The white-clad figures on the
sunlit field, the smoke from the old buildings by the inn trailing
lazily skyward, the comfortable buzz of the voices of some villagers
lying on their stomachs on the grass. Ah! My dear land!
I don’t know how it was, but at that moment I felt a curious
contraction of the heart, like one who looks into the face of a lover
who is going on a journey. Perhaps a townsman gets a little tired at
the end of a day in the field, or the feeling may have been due to
the Cassandra-like dirge of a flock of rooks that swung across the
sky and settled in the elms.
The bat, cut from a willow down by the stream, the stumps, the
leather ball, the symbol of the wicket, the level lawn, cut and
rolled and true--all these things were redolent of the land we
moved on. They spoke of the love of trees and wind and sun and the
equipoise of man in Nature’s setting. They symbolized our race,
slow-moving and serene, with a certain sensuous joy in movement, a
love of straightness, and an indestructible faith in custom. Ah, that
the beauty of that hour should fade, that the splendour and serenity
of it all should pass away! Strange waves of misgiving flooded me.
If it should be all _too_ slow-moving, _too_ serene! If at that
moment the wheels of the Juggernaut of evolution were already on
their way to crush the splendour of it beneath their weight!
Ah! my dear land, if you should be in danger! If one day another
match should come in which you would measure yourself against--some
unknown terrors! I was aware at that moment of a poignant sense of
prayer that when your trial should come it would find you worthy of
the clean sanity of that sunlit field; and if in the end you should
go down, as everything in nature _does_ go down before the scythe of
Time, the rooks up there in the elm should cry aloud your epitaph.
They are very old and wise, these rooks: they watched the last of the
Ptolemys pass from Egypt, they moaned above Carthage and Troy, and
warned the Roman prætors of the coming of Attila. And the epitaph
they shall make for you--for _they_ saw the little incident of Jimmy
Guilsworth and the doctor’s son--shall be: “Whatever you may say of
these people, they played the game.”
I think those small boys down by the pavilion made too much fuss
about the catch I muffed. Of course, I did get both hands to it,
and as a matter of fact the sun was _not_ in my eyes; but I think I
started a bit late, and it seemed to be screwing horribly. Ironical
jeers are not comforting. Bunty, like the dear good sportsman he is,
merely called out:
“Dreaming there?”