My First County Match
MIDDLESEX won the toss, and elected to go in. Archie put on his pads
and went in first, on a distinctly creditable wicket. Grace captained
Gloucestershire, of course.
“As Roberts is suffering from a strain,” said she, “and Charlie
Townsend’s lost his length, and Jessop’s a bit on the short side at
present, I think I’d better try myself to start with. Besides, I can
get old Archie out.”
She began with very slow, high-tossed, half volleys. Considering that
Archie was one of the most powerful hitters in England, this proceeding
on the part of W. G. savoured of cool cheek.
“These are no use, you know,” said the batsman, driving one
terrifically hard along the ground for a big single.
“You hit ’em and see,” said the wily bowler. “If you do, Archie, sure
as a gun you’ll put ’em through the library windows.”
Grace had shown her hand with a vengeance. The library windows were
sufficiently far away to be likely to receive one of Archie’s best
hits. It was plain that this knowledge rendered the batsman very
uneasy. Invitingly simple balls, that he would have taken a mild
pleasure in lifting into the Lords’ pavilion, he felt bound to treat
with every respect, as a momentary indiscretion was likely to have
the direst consequences. But presently the flesh was no longer to be
denied. Having patiently withstood the insidious charms of six or
seven, his self-repression suddenly gave way, and, exactly as the
bowler anticipated, smash went the ball through the library windows. It
was vain that Elphinstone, celebrated out-field as he was, attempted
to get at it. A painfully significant crashing of glass testified to
the unfailing judgment of W. G. A moment later, to the consternation of
every witness of the incident, out came the reverend occupant of the
library, spectacted and bareheaded, _The Times_ newspaper fluttering in
his hand, and a great indignation hovering about him generally.
“I positively won’t have it!” he cried in his deepest tones. “It’s
shameful! Do you know what that window’s worth? And are you aware that
you’ve damaged the new _Encyclopædia Britannica_?”
“Well, father,” said W. G. penitently, “we are all of us ever so
dreadfully sorry,” and then made haste to append, “but you know you
bought the Cycling--what-do-you-call-it--quite against my advice,
didn’t you, father? Don’t believe in these great bargains. You men
don’t either, do you?”
“Oh no, we don’t,” chimed everybody, with wonderful conviction and
unanimity.
“I knew you didn’t,” said Grace, with great enthusiasm. “I was certain
that you didn’t.”
Our extreme distrust of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, considered as an
investment, grew quite noticeable.
Incredible as it may seem, however, Miss Grace’s parent did not allow
these earnestly-expressed opinions to bias his own in the matter of
window breaking. Indeed, they were as fervently uttered as ours, and,
if anything, more pointed. Nor did he abate in his behaviour, nor
did his _Times_ cease its fluttering till he suddenly observed the
situation of the wicket, and the mighty cricketer beside it. Thereupon
the change in his demeanour was as instant as it was welcome.
“What!” he cried, “was it hit from there? Extraordinary, most
extraordinary! Archie, let me feel that bat. And, Biffin, will you
please fetch the tape. This must be measured. Considerably more than a
hundred yards, I’ll wager.”
Next moment he was brandishing Archie’s bat, in a manner that plainly
said that this was not the first bat handle that had exercised his grip.
“A Warsop, is it?” said the veteran. “I remember ’em. Once remember
putting old Mat Kempson out of Prince’s with one of Ben’s. Old Matthew
_was_ annoyed. Beautifully balanced this is. Must be every ounce of
two-seven, yet it picks up like two-two.”
“It’s two-seven and a half, sir,” said Archie, with a particularly
pleased expression.
“It’s a pretty bit o’ wood,” said the old gentleman, with caresses in
his tone. “A pretty bit o’ wood. I think I’d like to try it. Laura,
just send me one along. Nice and slow, please; my eyesight’s not what
it used to be.”
This request made his daughter a very proud and happy person. Having
instructed Toddles, in imperious language, to recover the ball _at
once_ from the library _débris_, and he having instantly obeyed, she
said:
“All right, father; here you are. Mind the ‘work.’ There’s an awful
lot o’ stuff on,” and bowled him one of her very best. This the old
gentleman kept out of his wicket stiffly but skilfully.
“It strikes me that father can give us all a point or two yet,” said
Miss Grace, evidently charmed with the way in which he had defended his
wicket.
“He’d still be playing for Middlesex if it were not for his eyesight,”
said the best bowler in England.
“It’s my sciatica, Charlie; it’s my sciatica!” sighed the old
gentleman. “When I was your age, my boy, it was different.”
The return of Biffin with the tape measure prolonged this interruption
to the game. For it was not until old Mr. Trentham had arrived by
mensuration at the exact distance of Archie’s drive, that he retired in
high good humour to his shattered library. Even then before the game
could be resumed there was a legal argument involved. Gloucestershire
argued under “Rectory rules” that, in the event of any batsman breaking
a window, or hitting a ball over the hedge, or sending it on to the
garden twice in one innings, the said batsman should be out. They
acted on the expert advice of W. G., who, as the irreverent Toddles
said, knew every move on the board, and one or two that were under it.
Middlesex disclaimed all knowledge of the clause in question, and T.
S. M. even had the audacity to suggest that it was an invention of W.
G.’s to suit the present occasion. W. G., of course, very indignantly
denied this, and, fortunately for her side, was able by a simple
expedient to prove beyond controversy that the attitude of Middlesex
was quite inadmissible, and entirely opposed to the best interests of
the game. For, running into the house, she triumphantly returned with a
dog’s-eared and time-stained exercise book, wherein, under rule seven,
duly set forth in a large, round, juvenile hand, it was found that
Archie was most certainly out.
“Won’t it look a bit queer, though?” said T. S. M. “A. H. Trentham,
broke window, bowled W. G. Grace, three?”
“He shouldn’t be so reckless,” said W. G. severely. “Besides, it won’t
look queerer than A. H. Trentham sent the ball on the garden twice. The
idea of Rectory rules is to sit on brute force a bit you know, and to
prop--to propa--just wait while I look in the book. Yes, here it is,
‘and to encourage the propagation and cultivation of pure science.’”
“Which rendered into modern English means,” said Carteret, who, in his
spare time, was a barrister, “that the aim of the Rectory rules is
to get the other side out as soon as ever you can, and then keep in
yourself until you’ve had enough. That’s about it, Grace, isn’t it?”
“No, James,” said that authority; “it’s just where you’re wrong.
’Cause some people never have had enough. I’ve not for one.”
“She’s as bad as Ranjy for battin’,” said the Harrow captain. “Set’s
shillin’s on her sticks, and tempts Biffin to sweat away at ’em
till he’s set up heart disease. Dirt mean, I call it. Ought to be
half-crowns for a man his years.”
“You’re not likely to give anything heart disease in knocking tips off
your sticks, are you, Tommy?” said his sister persuasively.
Harrow liked not this at all. Therefore, when a serious flaw in
Gloucestershire’s line of argument occurred to T. S. M., his face lit
up with a sudden satisfaction.
“Perhaps Doctor William Gilbert Grace’ll tell us,” said he, dwelling
lovingly on every word, “If accordin’ to the blitherin’ rules a
fellow’s out every time he breaks a window, why she don’t go out
herself every time she breaks the cucumber frame.”
The Harrow captain ended amidst the approving shouts of Middlesex.
“That’s amongst your timber, Willy,” said the Rev. Mr. Elphinstone,
executing a _pas seul_ in the middle of the pitch.
“Oh, is it?” said the dauntless W. G. “You just hold on a bit. A window
is a window, and a cucumber frame’s a cucumber frame.”
“A Daniel come to judgment,” said Archie, otherwise A. E. Stoddart.
“Are there no windows in a cucumber frame then?”
“Why o’ course there’s not, Archie--I mean, Stoddy,” said W. G., in a
tone that might have been mistaken for intimidation.
“’May be wrong, you know,” said Archie; “but in my opinion panes of
glass constitute windows, if they’re fixed in a cucumber frame, just as
much as though they were in a church.”
“Stoddy, _you’re_ talking through your hat,” said W. G. “A window’s a
thing to see out of, isn’t it?”
“S’pose it is,” said the Middlesex captain.
“Well, Stoddy,” said the triumphant W. G., “just you tell us how
cucumber frames _can_ have windows _if cucumbers can’t see_.”
Great uproar from Gloucester, during which the Rev. Mr. Elphinstone was
seen to throw himself full length on the lawn, and roll about in sheer
_gaieté de cœur_. Even the dignified features of the Middlesex captain
were disturbed by a broad smile.
“Doctor,” he said, “they’ll have to make you a baronet yet. Oh, you
amusing person!”
“She may be a kind of conscientious objector, don’t you know?” cried
Carteret, the legal luminary, aiming ineffectual kicks at the rolling
curate. “Rather think you’d better give the doctor a certificate
of exemption, Stoddy, if Grace’ll swear solemnly on oath that she
conscientiously believes that cucumbers really cannot see by any chance
or possibility.”
The display of feeling that greeted this solution of the problem was
remarkable. The fat barrister was hailed as a legal genius.
“Well,” said Archie, screwing his features into a defiant solemnity,
“if the Old Man’ll swear by her beard that she conscientiously believes
that cucumbers really _can’t_ see, we’ll insert a special clause into
the rules to provide for the cucumber frame.”
“But I can’t, you know, Archie,” said Miss Grace, “’cause I’ve got no
beard. But I do believe that cucumbers can’t see all the same though.”
“This is serious,” said the unrelenting Archie. “The Old Man without
his beard is worse than Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.”
“You’ll have to swear on something, Willy, that’s a cert.,” said
Charlie, “else we shan’t believe you.”
“Somebody fetch a Bible,” said Carteret. “Now then, Toddles, you idle
little beast, why don’t you go and fetch one of your collection.”
“Let her kiss my hat,” said the little curate, suddenly sitting
upright on the grass, with a look of utter holiness that would have
made his vicar glad. “As I’m a parson, it’ll be quite the truest
administration of an oath that’s possible. Every parson carries the
whole contents of the Scriptures in the lining, all hallowed by his
intellect as well. You know it, brethren, don’t you? Besides, it’ll
save me the fag of going to the house. Yes, by all means, let her kiss
my hat.”
At this suggestion, the solemnity that seized us all was really
marvellous. We had gravity enough to equip a class for confirmation.
“Jimmy, here’s my hat!” said Toddles. “Isn’t it a blessing that
you’re a commissioner for oaths--horrid awful ones they are, you fat
blasphemer!”--this in an eloquent aside.
“Here, Grace, is his hat,” said Carteret.
Miss Grace took the Rev. Mr. Elphinstone’s not very particularly
ecclesiastical Harlequin cricket cap, and looked at it with some
dubiety.
“But this is not his hat, James,” said she. “This is his Harlequin.”
“All the same,” said Carteret judicially. “Embodies much of his best
thought. Look sharp and swear, Grace! It’s a great strain on us all,
I can assure you, Doctor, even though you mightn’t think it. These
moments of high emotion always are.”
Nobody laughed I am prepared to affirm. But before Miss Grace had the
oath administered to her, she looked at the witnesses with a keenness
that inconvenienced several of them rather considerably. She then
proceeded to thoughtfully scratch her chin.
“James,” said she, in a perplexed tone, “don’t quite know, you know;
not quite sure, you know, but--but I think you’re _having_ me.”
“Rather think you’re having us,” said Archie. “Do be quick, Grace! As
James says, you don’t know how difficult it is for us. Look at poor
Toddles worrying the grass.”
“What an emotional little man it is!” said Captain George with
rare sympathy. “And what a ghastly thing it must be to have such a
high-strung nature.”
“I think you men are laughing at me,” said Miss Grace sternly.
“She cannot understand us,” said George. “How sad it is to be
misunderstood!”
The poor soldier ended by diving suddenly and ignominiously for his
handkerchief.
“You don’t take me in,” said Grace.
“She won’t kiss Toddles’ cap,” said T. S. M., with the brutality of his
time of life, “because she thinks if she holds out long enough she’ll
be able to kiss Toddles himself.”
“Tommy!” said his sister, “if you were not so young, I should think you
were rude.”
A second later she added most uncompromisingly, “And it’s all right.
I’m not going to be had. I’m not going to kiss Toddles’s cap, if it is
a Harlequin, and if he did make a hundred against Cambridge in it. And
I’m not going to take the oath, and I’m not going to play the giddy ox
at all. Archie, you’re out, under rule seven, and out you’ve got to go.
What’s your opinion, Biffin? Is Mr. Archie out, or is he not?”
“Hout, miss,” said Biffin. “Hout, most certingly.”
“There you are!” said the Gloucestershire captain. “Next man get his
pads on. And if he’s not in in two minutes, his wicket’ll be claimed,
under rule forty-five.”
“Well, as the umpire is against me,” said Archie, “I suppose I shall
have to go. All the same, I think the M.C.C. ought to know about it.
These rules seem a bit unusual.”
“It’s ’cause you’re like the cucumbers, you know, Archie,” said W. G.
“It’s ’cause you can’t see.”
It is scarcely necessary to give a detailed narration of my
first county match. In a little over an hour the four Middlesex
representatives were disposed of for thirty-three. This was considered
a small score for the ground; but as both sides fielded, and very
admirably too, and hitting carried penalties with it, the Middlesex
total calls for no comment. Besides, the Gloucestershire captain was
a remarkably alert tactician, who knew the game of cricket perfectly
well, and the Rectory rules even better. Her placing of the field
betrayed an intimate acquaintance with the characteristics of each
batsman; and her slow bowling was perfect in length, and as full of
deception as it possibly could be. It might be true that Miss Grace
had no beard; but it did not prevent her representing W. G. in most
essentials. Indeed so much so, that when the youthful Harrow captain
came in second wicket, she was heard to remark, “Oh, he’s a young
’un, is he! I think I can do for him.” And in addition to her other
gifts, she possessed that rare but invaluable quality in a captain, of
practically dictating the decisions of the umpire. There is no doubt
that the Gloucestershire captain was invariably conscientious in her
appeals, and the umpire equally so in his decisions. But their common
faith in one another was beautiful. If Miss Grace did make an appeal,
the excellent Biffin felt bound to endorse it. In his eyes Miss Grace’s
judgment had an absolute and sovereign rectitude. Old pro. and county
man as he was, Biffin had never an opinion of his own on any point on
which Miss Grace happened to already entertain one. And this phenomenon
in itself, I think, supplies a sufficient reason why the fair sex has
yet to be seen in serious cricket. It simply would not do.
The fielding was excellent. Miss Grace’s eye was on it, and all of
us, whether we felt inclined that way or not, performed prodigies
of valour. And if the handsomest girl in the county brings off a
bewilderingly brilliant “caught and bowled” before one’s eyes, stops
the hottest cracks one hand, and fields and returns smashing hits all
in one action, any man, with the least pretensions to be a player, is
certain to be a bit above himself. Therefore do not be surprised that
my fielding in all positions was very good indeed, and won encomiums
from men who were accustomed to the best.
“Dimsdale,” said the little curate in a low but excruciatingly friendly
tone, “you stick to that pick-up and return, and you’ve got the least
little bit of a hundredth part of a look in. Keep as clean and keen
as that, and it’s just on the cards that you may be adopted as a
candidate.”
“Candidate?” said I.
“There was a man named Comfort came over here to lunch,” said the
little curate.
This sinister reference afflicted me with an overpowering
disinclination to pursue the subject farther.
Before Gloucestershire began their innings there was an interval for
tea. There is no doubt that this question of afternoon tea has become
quite a vexed one with the counties, and as Elphinstone--or was it
Carteret?--observed, there are counties in existence who resolutely
refuse to countenance the innovation. But Gloucestershire was never
one of these. Indeed, I’ve heard it said that when Gloucestershire are
fielding, though the reason is inexplicable of course, there is more
time consumed over the cup that cheers than on any other occasion.
Therefore in this instance it was quite an expected thing that there
should be a pretty considerable interval for tea, and that Gloucester’s
captain should lead the way to a fair white table, seductively spread
in the shade of the beeches and the chestnuts in the coolest corner
of the garden. The Rectory grounds were of no remarkable extent, but
harboured a charming wilderness with two lawns therein beautifully
turfed and mown and rolled for cricket only, to break the monotony of
shrubs, trees, and flowers, growing at their own sweet will. If this
was the favoured spot in which this famous family had been reared, and
this the air they breathed, small wonder that they played cricket as
naturally as Keats wrote poetry. They couldn’t help it. My enthusiasm
demanded an outlet, and I told Miss Grace that hers was the most
delightful place I’d ever seen.
“Yes, isn’t it just stunning!” she cried, while her glowing look
announced that her chiefest pleasure was to sing its praises. “Every
morning when I look out of my window and hear the birds kicking up a
jolly noise in the ivy, and see the dew scooting off the wicket, it
seems to come to me all at once, as if I’d never thought of it before,
that I live at just the primest place that ever was.”
“Isn’t it pretty old?” I said.
“Oh, yes,” said she. “Been in our family----”
“Since Noah,” T. S. M. rudely interposed.
“Now then,” said Toddles, “don’t Harrow your sister’s feelings.”
“Been in our family,” Miss Grace continued, ignoring these cursory
remarks with fine dignity, “since--since--oh well a long time before
cricket was invented. Been some awful swells here, too, at one time and
another. Old William Lillywhite once came here to tea. Then one or two
other awful pots have lived here--Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney,
Joseph Addison, oh! and the girl who invented round arm bowling.”
“And the girl who invented round arm bowlin’!” said the Harrow captain.
“Now tell us somethin’ else. The girl who invented round arm bowlin’!
Grace, when you get your jaw unshipped it’s a pleasure to sit and
listen.”
“Yes it was a girl,” said Miss Grace determinedly. “The Guv’nor’s got a
picture of her in his portfolio. Her name was Willes. What a good sort
she must have been! I just love that girl. I wish she was living now,
’cause then I could jolly well go and hug her for inventing it.”
“Miss Willes knew a thing or two, however,” said the Harrow captain,
“and took care to die in time.”
This was thought to be so undeserved, that the youthful Tom was
instantly collared low by the little curate, with all the science,
natural and applied, of a three-quarter who had been capped for England
twice, and flung into a prickly bush of gooseberries.
“In my opinion,” the little parson hastened to remark, in an attempt to
divert the public mind from this painful incident, “your place has only
one fault, Grace. It’s just a bit too small.”
“Oh, no,” said Grace; “I wouldn’t have it different for worlds. I
wouldn’t even have a fly knocked off it. What there is is perfect.
Always reminds me of you, you know, Toddles--it’s little and good.”
“My dear Grace,” said the little curate, bowing over his cap; “my dear
Grace, even I, the meanest of your servants! But if you believe that
your harrowing youngest brother would benefit in manners by a heavy
fall upon his head, pray let me hear you say so.”
It was in this amiably Christian spirit that the representatives of
Gloucestershire and Middlesex came to the tea-table. W. G., of course,
presided and dispensed the tea to the manner born; and the supplies of
strawberries and cream were so prodigious, indeed almost inexhaustible,
that we were allowed to help ourselves. It may not be generally known
that strawberries and cream are as essential to the cricket epicure as
a hard wicket and a cloudless heaven. There is something in their mere
flavour that smacks of glorious summer!
We had just begun our depredations, when the Rector appeared, in a
battered wideawake, with a long hoe in one hand, a cricket ball in the
other, and a particularly stern countenance behind his perspiration.
“Why, that’s the ball we lost last week!” cried Miss Grace. “Oh, thank
you, father; it is very good of you to bring it to us. Quite new too.
Only been played with twice.”
“I am very gratified to find that you do recognise it, Laura,” said
the Rector. “When I do happen to find them amongst the ruins, they are
mostly made out to come there in the ordinary course of nature, like
the frost and rain; as no one has the least idea, as a rule, how they
could possibly have arrived by any other agency. Do you know that you
have smashed my best auratum lily in the most wanton and outrageous
manner?”
“Indeed I don’t, father,” said Miss Grace, with a look of trouble. “You
don’t think it could have been the hedgehog, do you, father?”
“No, I don’t think it could have been the hedgehog, nor the peacock.”
“It might have been the mongoose, don’t you think?” Miss Grace said;
“they’re such awfully queer and ugly things.”
“No, I don’t think it was the mongoose,” said her parent, “queer and
ugly as they are. I think it was the cricket, and I propose to stop the
cricket’s little game. It’s shameful!”
“What, stop the cricket, sir!” His daughter’s tone was tragical.
“Yes, stop the cricket. I’ll have no more of it. It’s simply massacred
my tobacco plants. Rows upon rows I’ve tried to count and can’t, that
have got their tops off and are pounded into snuff.”
“I’m jolly sorry, father,” said Miss Grace. “But s’pose you have a cup
of tea. You look so hot and fagged. A cup of tea, with lots of cream
in, and a few of the best strawberries that you ever grew. Do you see
that we’re enjoying ’em a fortnight later than anybody else?”
“I also see,” said the Rector--not to be diverted by the tactful
feminine--“that my tigridias are broken into little pieces. The more I
think of what you’ve done, the more annoyed I feel!”
“I am afraid that it’s my hard hitting that’s done the mischief, sir,”
said the great batsman, who was going out with Stoddart, humbly.
“Oh, no, Archie,” said his sister, “nothing of the sort. Now I come to
think of it, I remember doing it myself. Look here, father, s’pose you
stop my ‘tin’ till the damage has been paid for.”
“That is a punishment that defeats itself,” the Rector said. “Last time
I took that course, these big brothers of yours, who are old enough to
know better, aided and abetted you to the extent of subscribing twice
the amount of pocket-money that you were losing. Why, you were able to
buy a new bat out of the profits of your crimes.”
“Oh, no,” said Miss Grace quickly, “it was good old George who gave me
that. I can’t help old George being such a good sort, can I?”
“For valour, sir,” said the soldier, “always admire mettle, even in
criminals of the deepest dye.”
“You are all as bad as one another,” said the old gentleman, sitting
down to tea.
“Father,” said the hostess, “you are sitting next to Mr. Dimsdale,
who’ll soon be playing for his county. He’s got the loveliest crack to
cover that you ever saw.”
“Very glad to see you, sir,” said the old gentleman, “and I hope
you’ll excuse my display of heat. It takes a gardener to appreciate my
feelings. One cricket ball in one minute will find more repairs for
Nature than she can get through in a year.”
“I was thinking to myself, father, when you interrupted me,” said Miss
Grace, “that cricket nowadays is not what it was in your time. Where
are the great men of your day? There’s no Haywards and Carpenters now;
and there’s no Tarrants and Willshers. Where is the man that can bowl
like old John Jackson, where is the chap that can hit to leg like old
George Parr?”
It is a very painful thing for a determined admirer of Miss Grace’s sex
to set down in black and white, but I’m sure that, with one exception,
every man around that festive tea-table instinctively distrusted Miss
Grace’s extremely solemn countenance. The one exception, incredible as
it may seem, was Miss Grace’s honourable and reverend papa.
“By Jove!” cried the best bowler in England, playing his sister’s
wicked, unscrupulous game, “Grace is right. There’s no stars like
there used to be in the Guv’nor’s time.”
“Yes, Charlie,” said Miss Grace, “I’m very sorry to say it, but
cricket’s going down. Tom Richardson, Johnny Briggs, Arthur Mold,
and Charlie Trentham are not fit to tie the boots of George Freeman,
Jimmy Shaw, David Buchanan, and ‘The Reverent.’ And the batting too.
The Old Man was in his prime in the seventies, Shrewsbury’s getting
on, and where are you to find a man with the style of Dicky Daft? and
even Toddles can’t cut like old Eph. Lockwood, and Archie can’t lift
’em like Charlie Thornton. Cricket was cricket then. It wasn’t so much
like billiards. Batsmen had to face their luck on all sorts o’ pitches,
whilst now they get their wickets laid and prepared just like a jolly
old foundation stone.”
It may be that the end justified the means. For certain it is that Miss
Grace’s parent forgot all about his mutilated garden. The old gentleman
sat and beamed. He began to sip his tea and talk of other times.
“Ha!” he sighed, “I envy you young dogs. I _should_ like to have a try
at those Australians!”
“Father’s used to curl in the air, you know,” said his daughter to me
proudly. “They’re very scarce. There’s no man now that can make ’em do
it quite like the Guv’nor--curl one way and break another. ’Fairly gave
the batsman fits. If Charlie could only make ’em do it, he’d be the
biggest terror that ever was. Don’t you think so, Father?”
“I wouldn’t like to say that,” said the modest old gentleman.
Nevertheless there was a tender approval in the eye with which
he regarded the very fine fast bowler, who was so busy with his
strawberries and cream.
“That’s right, sir,” said that young man quite anxiously; “for you
really must not encourage Grace in this curl in the air sort o’ rot,
you know. Whenever she gets me to herself, she whips a ball out of her
pocket and says, ‘Now then, Charlie, let’s have you at it,’ measures
twenty-two yards, and keeps me trying to find out those patent swerves
of yours for about two hours at a stretch.”
“Better be doing that than smoking horrible tobacco, or practising the
push stroke, or reading for the law in a pink paper that’s got the
starting prices in it,” said his sister sternly.
“But I say that the Guv’nor’s leg curl can’t be learnt,” said Charlie.
“I say it has to come by nature.”
“Well,” said his sister, “I don’t care, Charlie, how you have it
come, whether by nature, Pickford’s, or the Parcel Post. But you’ve
got to get it, Charlie. Just think of the value of it to England and
Middlesex. Why, they’d be playing you to leg and have their middles
telescoped like fun wouldn’t they, Father?”
“I think that’s how I used to effect ’em occasionally,” said the old
gentleman, with a twinkle. “It used to be said that the All England
Eleven once called a meeting to discuss how these curly twisters should
be played. Some of ’em would lie awake at nights trying to find out
the scientific way. But I don’t think they ever did. Once I remember
bowling Tom Hayward second ball both innings in one match, and it made
poor Tom so sick that they had to put leeches on his head.”
“Oh, Mr. Dimsdale,” sighed Miss Grace, “I should like you to have seen
old father in his day. That’s why he’s a D.D., you know. Cambridge gave
it him for his bowling.”
“Really!” I said. “Is that a fact?”
“Well,” said the Rector, and I never saw a man look more mischievous,
“I don’t _quite_ think it was for my learning.”
“Toddles,” said Archie, “Oxford’ll elect you to a fellowship if you did
get a Fourth in Mods.”
“Laura,” said the Rector, “let me assure you again that I don’t think
this curl in the air can be acquired. Therefore, I should recommend you
to spend your spare time in more profitable employments. For instance,
playing with a perfectly straight bat, or weeding the garden, or
trying to read Horace without a crib.”
This was Charlie’s opportunity. For a moment that boisterous person
seemed mightily inconvenienced by the Homeric laughter that shook his
being.
“What price Grace,” he cried, “spending her spare time in reading
Horace? Why, she only knows of one chap called Horace in the reading
line, which his other name is Hutchinson.”
“Oh, don’t I though?” said Grace. “I know the Horace father means. A
fat old bounder who was always thirsty; awful fond of wine, he was,
awful fond. Don’t think _he_ was ever in condition. As for his jaw,
it was something frightful. Why, I’ve got a very cultivated literary
taste, haven’t I, Father?”
“Very,” said her parent gently.
“Oh, yes, I can quite believe that the Guv’nor strokes your fur a bit,”
said Archie, whose insight into the human heart was pitiless, “when he
has you in on Saturday evenings and wants to persuade you to fish him
a few quotations out of Bohn. We know where all the embroidery comes
from, don’t we, Toddles?”
“It’s not Bohn, anyhow,” said Miss Grace, “’cause the binding’s better.
Hullo, what’s up with Toddles! Why, he’s choking!”
It required the undivided energies of two strong men to beat the
little curate on the back ere he was restored to a sense of his
responsibilities.
“I think,” said the old gentleman, with sly enjoyment, “that these
revelations are hardly suited to the young miss. Feminine ideals, you
know.”
At this Miss Grace looked keenly about her on every side. “It’s all
serene, Father,” said she. “There’s none o’ the maids about. Don’t
think they can _possibly_ hear us.”
“Laura,” said the old gentleman, hiding the most significant part of
his face in a tea-cup, “I want you to confine yourself in your spare
time to learning to play with a perfectly straight bat. The way in
which you pull everything blindly to leg is a reproach, a disgrace
to the family. You boys ought to be really ashamed of it, and it
grieves me to think that Laura’s self-respect allows her to do it. I’m
wondering if we had Arthur Shrewsbury down for a bit whether he’d be
able to do anything for her.”
“It’s her sex asserting itself,” said Archie. (It should be said at
once that Archie has such an amount of psychology and kindred things
in his mind that he has written a novel for the Keynotes Series.)
“The eternal feminine is not to be repressed. There’s two things
about Grace’s cricket that betrays the woman. One, as the Guv’nor
has remarked, is her deplorable habit of playing everything with
a cross bat; the other is a well-defined tendency to dispute the
umpire’s decisions. Woman-like, she declines to recognise a mere man’s
authority. If it were not for the fear that she’d have been defying Bob
Thoms or some other potentate, and refusing to go out when he gave her
‘petticoat before,’ we might have played her for Middlesex, for her
bowling and fielding all through the season.”
“It’s all jolly fine you men ragging me about my cross bat,” said poor
Miss Grace, whose face had the tawny red of a tea-rose. “But if I was
Ranjy, or Clem Hill, or Archie Trentham, or one of those big pots,
people ’ud say it was a marvellous hook stroke, and the fruit of my
wonderful original method.”
“Yes,” said her enemy of Harrow, “if you were Ranjy, or Clem Hill, or
Archie Trentham, or one of those big pots, your picture’d be in the
Jubilee Cricket Book, with you in the act of droppin’ ’em into the
cucumber frame. But as you don’t happen to be Ranjy, or Clem Hill,
or Archie Trentham, or one of those big pots, but Miss Laura Mary,
the cheekiest girl that ever put her hair in pins, your cross bat is
beastly disgusting, and cruel rough on your people. And if your father
don’t send for Shrewsbury to lick you into shape, we will, because
you’ve got to be broke in, that’s certin. Whenever I think about your
battin’, Laura,--it’s an insult to the Old Man to call you Grace,--it
makes me downright sick.”
“Gentlemen,” said the little parson, rising at this point in the
peroration and speaking in his most clergymanly intonation, “must we
not do our painful duty?”
Whereon five men stood up as one, suddenly took young Tom from
behind, and despite his struggles, bore him bodily to the biggest and
prickliest gooseberry bush in the vicinity. They deposited him on
the top of it, with what appeared unnecessary violence, and when he
wriggled himself off, he brought away a rather uncomfortable quantity
of needles in his epidermis.