The End of the Day
CHARLIE’S second ball was one of his best breakbacks. The Captain in
his carelessness played a bit outside it. Back went his off stick.
At last the great partnership was dissolved. 312 for two, last man,
204. 301 had been added for the wicket, which beat by 37 the record
partnership of Barclay and Perkins in 1882. Barclay’s 178 made on that
occasion, the previous individual best, was also superseded. As the
hero ran into the pavilion, the crowd simply rose at him.
The Pessimist succeeded. He was very correct, watchful, and
resourceful. Charlie smashed a yorker at him to begin with, but the
Pessimist had heard of such things before. It takes more than a common
yorker to discompose a county man. Presently the Ancient so far forgot
himself as to indulge in a drive for four.
“Has he got his fifty yet?” I asked.
“He’s made 98, the little horror!” said Grace indignantly. “I wonder if
he ever will get out.”
“_He’s_ all right,” said I. “He’s quite enjoying it.”
A spell of very quiet play followed. Charlie’s wicket provoked him to
bowl five maidens in succession to the Pessimist. But his sister was so
keen a critic that this proceeding mightily displeased her.
“Fast bowlers,” said she, “are all big hearts and brute force--no
intellect at all you know. They’ve got about as many brains as a giddy
old crocodile. What’s Charlie bowling like that for? Can’t he see that
he’s just helping that man to play himself in? Why don’t he chuck him a
‘tice’ or a full toss, or something that’s downright bad--anything to
make him have a go before he gets his eye in.”
Ere long a thunderclap informed Hickory that yet another century had
been scored against them that humiliating afternoon. The Ancient in
defiance of all criticism had had the audacity to complete his hundred;
and I for one believe most firmly that Hickory never would have got him
out had not the Fates interfered on their behalf. For as he attempted
one of his favourite short ones directly afterwards, A. H., fielding
deep mid-off, dashed in like a deer, gathered the ball, and hurled
down the Ancient’s wicket with the energy of despair, whilst that
unfortunate was still cavorting a yard outside the crease. Oldknow had
played a great innings, but----no, the Ancient is too sound a bat and
far too good a fellow for a Little Clumpton man to say rude things
about his play. Miss Grace, a thorough-going Hickoryite, had no such
scruples.
“Wasn’t that a bit of lovely fielding,” said she, drawing a deep
breath. “I do like to see ’em field like that; and it’s Oldknow, is it?
Helped himself to a hundred and one. I call that cheek. If he could
only bat I shouldn’t care.”
“Genius covers a multitude of sins,” said I.
“It’s got to, if he’s a genius,” said Miss Grace; “but if that’s
genius, give me something common. Bad taste and all that, I know; but
that chap worries me. Besides, if he’s a genius, why don’t he wear long
hair and look intense, like Paderewski. That might carry things off a
bit, and keep people from looking at his batting, don’t you think?”
“By Jove,” said I, “very good idea. I’ll suggest it to him.”
The Humourist, known as Merryweather in private life, came out to the
Pessimist. Cheers greeted his appearance. The crowd knew him of old. He
was the most uncertain bat that ever put on pads. Oh, but if he only
stayed! One Gilbert Jessop had to take second place if Merryweather
only stayed. True, he only did stay about five times a season, but as
no one knew the occasion he was likely to honour with his presence for
any lengthened period, the apparition of his six feet three of smiling
insolence always sent a thrill through the assembly.
“Bloomin’ ’ard and bloomin’ ’igh and bloomin’ often,” was his game.
He was a man who carried few theological ideas, but it was understood
that his conception of Paradise was a place of short boundaries
and unlimited lob-bowling. He had a partiality for the Park, as it
fulfilled the first of these conditions.
“Isn’t this your Slogger?” asked Miss Grace.
“Now that slogging’s at a premium,” said I, “we’d call him a fine,
free, forcing batsman.”
“I wish these boundaries weren’t so jolly small,” said Miss Grace with
an apprehensive eye. “I don’t like to see a man his inches come in
smiling.”
The first ball the Humourist received he sent humming over our coach
into a cornfield at the back. During the interval in which Hickory
endeavoured to recover it, the remarkable silence of the Optimist
attracted my attention. It was so foreign to his usual habit of kind
discursiveness that I felt there must be some grave reason for it. He
had not uttered a word for forty minutes.
“Brightside, when do you go in?” said I.
“Next but one,” he sighed.
This was a sufficient explanation. The man was suffering. He was
determined to be cheerful, but could not disguise the pallor underneath
his tan. He drummed his fingers nervously on his knees; a restlessness
had taken him; there was a wild look in his eye. Seizing a moment when
Miss Grace was occupied in evolving from the analysis the number of
runs Charlie had paid for his solitary wicket the Optimist whispered,--
“Shouldn’t care a bit, you know, if she wasn’t here. I was never
properly coached at school, you know. I will draw away from leg balls,
you know. If Charlie bowls any, you know, sure as death, I shall retire
towards the umpire. Do you think she’ll be able to tell that from here?”
“They say Abel does the same,” said I evasively.
“And I’ve got no wrist, you know. Can’t cut a bit, you know. Have to
sort o’ shove ’em, you know, with my arms and shoulders.”
“Quite a coincidence,” said I, “for they always say that the Old Man
does all his cutting with his arms and shoulders.”
“And I’m always scraping forward and feeling for ’em. Get so beastly
flurried if I wait, that I’m certain to be bowled.”
“Well,” said I, “it’s the sort of wicket on which you can play forward
to anything. Hard as concrete.”
“But she’s fair death on style,” said the poor old Optimist. “She’s got
such a terrible high standard, don’t you know? Asked her this morning
what she thought of A. H.’s batting. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘Archie’s a
pretty fair _rustic_ bat.’”
“She may take a much higher view of yours,” said I. “Women are that
funny, you don’t know when you’ve got ’em. Shouldn’t be a bit surprised
if she don’t fall in with your style on the spot, for really I’ve seen
worse.”
“Not much,” groaned the poor old Optimist.
Here the voice of this unflinching critic, who really had been born
half a century too late, such an ornament she would have been to
_Blackwood_ and the _Quarterly_ in their palmy days, put an end to our
painful conversation. As the field were returning with the ball, she
bent over the wheels to tell her brother Charlie, in a not inaudible
undertone:
“Forty-three overs, twelve maidens, eighty-nine runs, one wicket.
Sounds good don’t it. ’Nother wicket’d be a rather nice idea.
Trying bowling left hand Charlie,--couldn’t be worse than Tommy’s
plough-and-harrow-agricultural-produce anyhow.”
The Harrow captain hearing this was observed to display some colour,
and march hastily out of earshot. But a worse fate awaited him on his
arrival at the crease.
The Humourist, having hit his first ball for six in his playful way,
proceeded to treat his second with a similar levity by lifting that
over the pavilion. This, however, did not appeal in the least to
Harrow’s sense of humour. Therefore, when its captain pitched his third
ball ridiculously short, the gentle Humourist had time to wait and
sweep it round to the square-leg boundary. But it was not here that the
youthful Tom’s humiliation ended. The Humourist walked sedately down
the wicket to the bowler’s end, and proceeded to pat down the turf near
the bowler’s foot.
“’Serves him jolly well right,” said Miss Grace hotly, “it’ll teach
these public school cubs not to be so jolly cheeky.”
But here the spirit of compassion suddenly appeared in the victim’s
sister. Her eyes showed that she also resented the liberties thus taken
with a member of her family. “I tell you what though,” she added as
an afterthought; “it strikes me that that Merryweather of yours is a
pretty big piece of a brute. Poor old Tommy! I wish he’d bowl him.”
For some little time, however, the Humourist went on his way rejoicing.
He swiped two of Charlie’s best, high over the head of cover-point, in
the most amazing manner, and it was only when in the exuberance of his
heart that he tried to serve a yorker in a similar fashion, that the
honour of the Trenthams was avenged. The playful Humourist had included
two sixes and three fours in his twenty-eight.
“Why don’t Halliday declare,” said the poor Optimist, overborne with
the knowledge that he must go forthwith and put his pads on.
“Yes, why don’t he?” said Miss Grace.
“We’ve not got a bit of bowling,” said I.
“But our batting’s not very clever, you know,” said Miss Grace
enticingly.
“Really,” said I. “But then some of us looked in this morning’s
_Sportsman_, and from our point of view it didn’t read pretty.”
“But what price the bowling?” said Miss Grace more coaxingly than ever.
“Notts is almost _too_ awful, an’ Yorkshire’s a bit fluffy on a plumb
pitch. As for Household Brigade and Gentlemen o’ Cheshire, I wouldn’t
mind an hour or two myself of their sort--just about my weight. _Do_
hope Halliday’ll declare. Great error if he don’t. Our men are so
tired, too; you might scuttle us like fun.”
“Or we mightn’t,” said I callously. “And I can’t help thinking that
we mightn’t. Halliday will be well advised to go for the record. Of
course, if we’d got some bowling, we’d be at you like a shot.”
The Captain was plainly of my mind, for he gave no sign, and the
unhappy Optimist, much against his inclination, climbed down from the
box, and wended his way to the pavilion.
“Why did Jack put me in so early?” his agonised expression said. “He
knows I always like to go in tenth.”
The General Nuisance reigned in the stead of the Humourist now.
Though the General Nuisance might be mistaken for an utter fiend in
private life, his batting on hard grounds was angelic. People who
had not to support the personal acquaintance of the Honourable John
Blenkinsop-Comfort were often heard to inquire why he had never got his
“blue,” and why his exquisite batting was not more generally recognised
by the authorities. It is no desire of mine to betray anybody’s
confidences, but I feel sure the authorities _must_ have had very
excellent reasons. No doubt, as in the melancholy case of Miss Grace
and Harrow School, they felt that somewhere they were bound to draw the
line.
“390 up, boy!” called Miss Grace. The next over she broke into mirth of
a most undisguised character. “Toddles is going on,” she said. “I’ll
put that in my diary.”
Forthwith producing a small book from her pocket, she inquired for the
date, and placed this pleasant fact in the annals of the world.
“Well, there’s one thing to be said for Toddles’ bowling,” said its
historian. “It can’t be called derogatory to his cloth. It’s just the
stuff a parson should roll up.”
“Why?” I asked in my innocence.
“There’s no devil in it,” said Miss Grace.
“Oh!” I said. I subsided.
The Reverend Mr. Elphinstone’s deliveries were slow, simple-minded
toss-ups of the most innocuous kind. The Pessimist and the General
Nuisance having helped themselves to twenty-seven in two overs,
the patentee and sole manufacturer of this sort of bowling was
incontinently shunted for Captain George, who gallantly went on with
lobs. The happiness of that intrepid officer’s sister was good to
observe.
“Dear simple soul,” she said. “That’s just old George. _So_ ingenuous
you know. Look at him, rolling up his sleeves and setting out the
field. If this ground’s big enough to hold old George, he’s altered
lately. Now watch, he’s beginning his run. Oh, hang it, I’ve left my
kodak on the billiard table. What lovely sights you _do_ see when you
haven’t got your kodak! Old George really ought to keep his bowling in
a show, you know. It’s so _sudden_, so _unexpected_! It reminds me of
those ‘Odes in Contribution to the Jolly Song, of the Jolly Something,’
that the Guv’nor’s got. I say, do look at him. There he goes--the dear
old boy!--a hop, a stride, another hop, another stride, a double jump,
and then he chucks up the innocentest cuckoo that you ever saw.”
His first ball came into collision with a tankard of beer in the
refreshment booth; but it would be kinder to draw the veil of reticence
around the gallant Captain’s trundling.
It was now something after five, the Little Clumpton score was 440 for
four wickets, and the bowling of proud Hickory was dead, and longing
for a quiet funeral. To see this haughty eleven, footsore, weary, limp,
and very cross, not troubling to save the boundary, failing to back
up, keeping the bowler waiting while they crossed over, was a sermon
in itself on the instability of human triumphs and the cussedness of
cricket. Five members of their side had totalled 727 between them the
previous day, but now those five in common with their less gifted
colleagues, were compelled to expiate their severities in as vigorous
a leather-hunting as ever a team submitted to. And, to aggravate
their pains, they knew quite well that on this occasion, Little
Clumpton’s so-called bowling was an object of derision. The sight of
these world-famed batsmen limping round the boundary, and repeatedly
extracting the ball from a sharp-tongued and not too sympathetic
multitude, was perilously like one of the ironies of life strained to
the point of pathos. But as I have no desire to wallow in the pathetic,
leaving that to my intellectual betters, let me touch as lightly as I
can on the tragedy of Hickory. Let it suffice that the Pessimist and
the General Nuisance remained at the wickets cutting, driving, leg
hitting, and showing off their wrist work till stumps and the match
were drawn. As a new record had been set up in Little Clumpton _v._
Hickory, I think it justifiable to reproduce the full score as it
appeared in the _Sportsman_ the following morning. The bowling analysis
is withheld, however, out of compassion for Miss Grace, who took the
matter so very much to heart, that a young person less sound in her
constitution, and less right thinking in her mental habitudes, might
perhaps have kept her bed in consequence for several days. As I have
carefully copied this score out of my commonplace book, its correctness
is guaranteed.
LITTLE CLUMPTON _v._ HICKORY.
_1st Inns. of Little Clumpton._
H. J. Halliday, b. H. C. Trentham 204
R. C. Dimsdale, l.b.w. b. T. S. M. Trentham 7
J. F. S. Oldknow, run out 101
W. Grimston, not out 86
J. G. Merryweather, b. H. C. Trentham 28
Hon. J. Blenkinsop-Comfort, not out 59
Extras 33
----
Total for four wickets 518
_Hickory did not bat._