A Prefect's Uncle
Page 7
[7]
THE BISHOP GOES FOR A RIDE
The M.C.C. match opened auspiciously. Norris, for the first time thatseason, won the toss. Tom Brown, we read, in a similar position, 'withthe usual liberality of young hands', put his opponents in first.Norris was not so liberal. He may have been young, but he was not soyoung as that. The sun was shining on as true a wicket as was everprepared when he cried 'Heads', and the coin, after rolling for sometime in diminishing circles, came to a standstill with the dragonundermost. And Norris returned to the Pavilion and informed hisgratified team that, all things considered, he rather thought that theywould bat, and he would be obliged if Baker would get on his pads andcome in first with him.
The M.C.C. men took the field--O. T. Blackwell, by the way, had shrunkinto a mere brother of the century-making A. T.--and the two SchoolHouse representatives followed them. An amateur of lengthy frame tookthe ball, a man of pace, to judge from the number of slips. Norrisasked for 'two leg'. An obliging umpire informed him that he had gottwo leg. The long bowler requested short slip to stand finer, swung hisarm as if to see that the machinery still worked, and dashed wildlytowards the crease. The match had begun.
There are few pleasanter or more thrilling moments in one's schoolcareer than the first over of a big match. Pleasant, that is to say, ifyou are actually looking on. To have to listen to a match being startedfrom the interior of a form-room is, of course, maddening. You hear thesound of bat meeting ball, followed by distant clapping. Somebody hasscored. But who and what? It may be a four, or it may be a mere single.More important still, it may be the other side batting after all. Somemiscreant has possibly lifted your best bowler into the road. Thesuspense is awful. It ought to be a School rule that the captain of theteam should send a message round the form-rooms stating briefly andlucidly the result of the toss. Then one would know where one was. Asit is, the entire form is dependent on the man sitting under thewindow. The form-master turns to write on the blackboard. The only hopeof the form shoots up like a rocket, gazes earnestly in the directionof the Pavilion, and falls back with a thud into his seat. 'Theyhaven't started yet,' he informs the rest in a stage whisper.'Si-_lence_,' says the form-master, and the whole business must begone through again, with the added disadvantage that the master now hashis eye fixed coldly on the individual nearest the window, your onlylink with the outer world.
Various masters have various methods under such circumstances. One morethan excellent man used to close his book and remark, 'I think we'llmake up a little party to watch this match.' And the form, gasping itsthanks, crowded to the windows. Another, the exact antithesis of thisgreat and good gentleman, on seeing a boy taking fitful glances throughthe window, would observe acidly, 'You are at perfect liberty, Jones,to watch the match if you care to, but if you do you will come in inthe afternoon and make up the time you waste.' And as all that could beseen from that particular window was one of the umpires and a couple offieldsmen, Jones would reluctantly elect to reserve himself, and forthe present to turn his attention to Euripides again.
If you are one of the team, and watch the match from the Pavilion, youescape these trials, but there are others. In the first few overs of aSchool match, every ball looks to the spectators like taking a wicket.The fiendish ingenuity of the slow bowler, and the lightning speed ofthe fast man at the other end, make one feel positively ill. When thefirst ten has gone up on the scoring-board matters begin to rightthemselves. Today ten went up quickly. The fast man's first ball wasoutside the off-stump and a half-volley, and Norris, whatever the stateof his nerves at the time, never forgot his forward drive. Before thebowler had recovered his balance the ball was half-way to the ropes.The umpire waved a large hand towards the Pavilion. The bowler lookedannoyed. And the School inside the form-rooms asked itself feverishlywhat had happened, and which side it was that was applauding.
Having bowled his first ball too far up, the M.C.C. man, on theprinciple of anything for a change, now put in a very short one.Norris, a new man after that drive, steered it through the slips, andagain the umpire waved his hand.
The rest of the over was more quiet. The last ball went for four byes,and then it was Baker's turn to face the slow man. Baker was a steady,plodding bat. He played five balls gently to mid-on, and glanced thesixth for a single to leg. With the fast bowler, who had not yet gothis length, he was more vigorous, and succeeded in cutting him twicefor two.
With thirty up for no wickets the School began to feel morecomfortable. But at forty-three Baker was shattered by the man of pace,and retired with twenty to his credit. Gethryn came in next, but it wasnot to be his day out with the bat.
The fast bowler, who was now bowling excellently, sent down one ratherwide of the off-stump. The Bishop made most of his runs from off balls,and he had a go at this one. It was rising when he hit it, and it wentoff his bat like a flash. In a School match it would have been aboundary. But today there was unusual talent in the slips. The man fromMiddlesex darted forward and sideways. He took the ball one-handed twoinches from the ground, and received the applause which followed theeffort with a rather bored look, as if he were saying, 'My good sirs,_why_ make a fuss over these trifles!' The Bishop walked slowlyback to the Pavilion, feeling that his luck was out, and Pringle camein.
A boy of Pringle's character is exactly the right person to go in in anemergency like the present one. Two wickets had fallen in two balls,and the fast bowler was swelling visibly with determination to do thehat-trick. But Pringle never went in oppressed by the fear of gettingout. He had a serene and boundless confidence in himself.
The fast man tried a yorker. Pringle came down hard on it, and forcedthe ball past the bowler for a single. Then he and Norris settled downto a lengthy stand.
'I do like seeing Pringle bat,' said Gosling. 'He always gives you theidea that he's doing you a personal favour by knocking your bowlingabout. Oh, well hit!'
Pringle had cut a full-pitch from the slow bowler to the ropes.Marriott, who had been silent and apparently in pain for some minutes,now gave out the following homemade effort:
A dashing young sportsman named Pringle, On breaking his duck (with a single), Observed with a smile, 'Just notice my style, How science with vigour I mingle.'
'Little thing of my own,' he added, quoting England's greatestlibrettist. 'I call it "Heart Foam". I shall not publish it. Oh, run itout!'
Both Pringle and Norris were evidently in form. Norris was now not farfrom his fifty, and Pringle looked as if he might make anything. Thecentury went up, and a run later Norris off-drove the slow bowler'ssuccessor for three, reaching his fifty by the stroke.
'Must be fairly warm work fielding today,' said Reece.
'By Jove!' said Gethryn, 'I forgot. I left my white hat in the House.Any of you chaps like to fetch it?'
There were no offers. Gethryn got up.
'Marriott, you slacker, come over to the House.'
'My good sir, I'm in next. Why don't you wait till the fellows come outof school and send a kid for it?'
'He probably wouldn't know where to find it. I don't know where it ismyself. No, I shall go, but there's no need to fag about it yet. Hullo!Norris is out.'
Norris had stopped a straight one with his leg. He had made fifty-onein his best manner, and the School, leaving the form-rooms at the exactmoment when the fatal ball was being bowled, were just in time toapplaud him and realize what they had missed.
Gethryn's desire for his hat was not so pressing as to make him deprivehimself of the pleasure of seeing Marriott at the wickets. Marriottought to do something special today. Unfortunately, after he had playedout one over and hit two fours off it, the luncheon interval began.
It was, therefore, not for half an hour that the Bishop went at last insearch of the missing headgear. As luck would have it, the hat was onthe table, so that whatever chance he might have had of overlooking thenote which his uncle had left for him on the empty cash-boxdisappeared. The two things caught his eye s
imultaneously. He openedthe note and read it. It is not necessary to transcribe the note indetail. It was no masterpiece of literary skill. But it had this merit,that it was not vague. Reading it, one grasped its meaningimmediately.
The Bishop's first feeling was that the bottom had dropped out ofeverything suddenly. Surprise was not the word. It was the arrival ofthe absolutely unexpected.
Then he began to consider the position.
Farnie must be brought back. That was plain. And he must be broughtback at once, before anyone could get to hear of what had happened.Gethryn had the very strongest objections to his uncle, consideredpurely as a human being; but the fact remained that he was his uncle,and the Bishop had equally strong objections to any member of hisfamily being mixed up in a business of this description.
Having settled that point, he went on to the next. How was he to bebrought back? He could not have gone far, for he could not have beengone much more than half an hour. Again, from his knowledge of hisuncle's character, he deduced that he had in all probability not goneto the nearest station, Horton. At Horton one had to wait hours at atime for a train. Farnie must have made his way--on hisbicycle--straight for the junction, Anfield, fifteen miles off by agood road. A train left Anfield for London at three-thirty. It was nowa little past two. On a bicycle he could do it easily, and get backwith his prize by about five, if he rode hard. In that case all wouldbe well. Only three of the School wickets had fallen, and the pitch wasplaying as true as concrete. Besides, there was Pringle still in at oneend, well set, and surely Marriott and Jennings and the rest of themwould manage to stay in till five. They couldn't help it. All they hadto do was to play forward to everything, and they must stop in. Hehimself had got out, it was true, but that was simply a regrettableaccident. Not one man in a hundred would have caught that catch. No,with luck he ought easily to be able to do the distance and get back intime to go out with the rest of the team to field.
He ran downstairs and out of the House. On his way to the bicycle-shedhe stopped, and looked towards the field, part of which could be seenfrom where he stood. The match had begun again. The fast bowler wasjust commencing his run. He saw him tear up to the crease and deliverthe ball. What happened then he could not see, owing to the trees whichstood between him and the School grounds. But he heard the crack ofball meeting bat, and a great howl of applause went up from theinvisible audience. A boundary, apparently. Yes, there was the umpiresignalling it. Evidently a long stand was going to be made. He wouldhave oceans of time for his ride. Norris wouldn't dream of declaringthe innings closed before five o'clock at the earliest, and no bowlercould take seven wickets in the time on such a pitch. He hauled hisbicycle from the shed, and rode off at racing speed in the direction ofAnfield.