The Rupa Book of Heartwarming & The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories

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The Rupa Book of Heartwarming & The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories Page 7

by Ruskin Bond


  At the height of the monsoon, the banyan tree was like an orchestra with the musicians constantly tuning up. Birds, insects and squirrels welcomed the end of the hot weather and the cool quenching relief of the monsoon.

  A toy flute in my hands, I would try adding my shrill piping to theirs. But they must have thought poorly of my piping, for, whenever I played, the birds and the insects kept a pained and puzzled silence.

  I wonder if they missed me when I went away—for when the War came, followed by the Independence of India, I was sent to a boarding school in the hills. Grandfather's house was put up for sale. During the holidays I went to live with my parents in Delhi, and it was from them I learnt that my grandparents had gone to England.

  When I finished school, I too went to England with my parents, and was away from India for several years.

  But recently I was in Dehra again, and, after first visiting the old house—where I found that the banyan tree had grown over the wall and along part of the pavement, almost as though it had tried to follow Grandfather—I walked out of town towards the riverbed.

  It was February, and, as I looked across the dry water-course, my eye was caught by the spectacular red plumes of the coral blossom. In contrast with the dry riverbed, the island was a small green paradise. When I walked across to the trees, I noticed that a number of squirrels had come to live in them. And a koel (a sort of crow-pheasant) challenged me with a mellow 'who-are-you, who-are-you….'

  But the trees seemed to know me. They whispered among themselves and beckoned me nearer. And looking around, I noticed that other small trees and wild plants and grasses had sprung up under the protection of the trees we had placed there.

  The trees had multiplied! They were moving. In one small corner of the world, Grandfather's dream was coming true, and the trees were moving again.

  A CRICKET MATCH OF LONG AGO

  EDMUND BLUNDEN

  'Nicely.'

  'Nice shot, sir.'

  And again, a moment later:

  'Pretty stroke.'

  'Well hit.'

  'Run 'em out.'

  'See him open his shoulders to that one.'

  It was Saturday afternoon; the place, Harmans Cricket Ground; the occasion a, say rather the, match between Harmans Second Eleven and their inevitable rivals from the next parish, Longley Street. The veterans of the Harmans side, all but 'Tardy' Gibbens, who was as usual at the wicket to open the innings and wear out the enemy with his stolid mahogany-brown pads and bat, were sitting in the small pavilion, putting on their equipment, and talking with the condescending calm expected of veterans. Their comments, chiefly stirred by the batting skill of the young hero Tom Benyon, were registered after murmured repetitions by a number of little boys, who sat with their backs against the pavilion railing; and, while it did not, of course, signify anything to such seasoned spirits, yet the effect of these judicial remarks was to leave in youthful minds the notion, 'I should say old——had made some runs in his time,' and even though——never made any nowadays, his name still conveyed the sense of a most valuable cricketer, and old champion. A man who, himself about to enter the arena and face the music, could speak deliberately and coolly of the struggle before him, could forget the enormous responsibilities of the hour in approving or disapproving some technical detail! To John Bowers, seated a little way apart from the veterans—the vicar's gardener, the grocer, and general dealer above the bridge, and the '& Son' of the butcher below the bridge—the attitude was not without its quiet tinge of homour; for he knew that, after their probable failure this afternoon, the impassive minds would lapse into a vein of autumn melancholy. Then it would be:

  'Ah, Frank, every year after forty counts two.'

  But, for the general award, their intrepidity was beyond all question.

  The cricket ground was among a wide sweep of meadows, which fall easily towards the waters of the Chavender, and at one end of which you may see the church tower, with its 'candle-snuffer' atop of it, of Harmans; at the other, the modest tiled spire of Longley Street retiring among the rich greenery of midsummer. Not only was it as pleasantly situated in a girdle of tall trees, among which rose the red Jacobean chimneys of farmhouses, or the far-off hills, as cricket ground could be; nor was it only for the sake of seeing the white pageantry of the game pass to the cooing of doves in the deep blue shadows of the fir-spinneys near by, that Harmans and district frequented it. I have noticed that it was the Second Eleven which on this day took the field; and the attendance was, from the old, old, very old men who sat on the benches under the oak tree, to the pale mothers who had wheeled their perambulators along-side and rested their no less weary bones a little, in every respect the Second Eleven's attendance. There was, it will have been remarked, a Harmans First Eleven—a fact which explained the reverential care with which the pitch had been prepared, and the outfield grass not left in an intermediate stage between kempt and unkempt as on many a country ground, but mown and rolled with great nicety. The matches of the First Eleven resembled a kind of levees or garden parties, to which fair ladies came flocking, and cars swept in through the opened gates from the byroad to bring the guests, whether more remarkable for blazer, parasol, or the equally resplendent charm of great possessions. Lunch and tea, then, seemed to rob the cricket of its interest; and the cricket itself inclined to be 'to pattern,' sartorial and immaculate.

  Some signs of caste might be detected in the Second Eleven's organisation. The grocer and general dealer, a man of five-and-thirty, pale, brilliantined and mincing, would intimate in his manner to the village schoolmaster, that 'clay from clay differs in dignity.' An occasional Malapropism is not much ground lost when he who can present a bill of £20 to him who trembles lest he receive it, is conversing in all Christian charity with that wretch. But these were cloudlets, and no more. Taken at all times and in all its ways, the Harmans Second Eleven was a happy republic, and one that had the chief intention of playing cricket. The game was not to be half-played. It became a battle—indeed, so serious that for some of its members later battles gave less cause for personal anxiety.

  And so, here were 'Tardy' and 'Tom,' treating the furious fast bowler at the benches' end and the ancient twisting-handed trundler at the river end with every promise of a noble event. The Longley Street scorer, next to Bowers, was beginning to fret; the Harmans scorer, a youth who frequently set out to keep the book and ended by playing instead of absentees, made no effort to conceal his satisfaction as he croaked, 'Thirty up'. 'Thirty up' was the chorus below the rails, as the nearest youngsters scrambled up to the scoreboard and put up the scratched numeral-plates. 'Benyon seventeen, Gibbens one,' went on the uncertain bass, 'an' twelve extras.' The Longley Street scorer sniffed.

  'Ah!' 'O Lord!'

  'Tom's out.'

  'He shouldn't have nibbled at that.'

  'I thought Smith would get him with his off theory,' smirked the Longley Street scorer, and his opposite number looked down his nose.

  The gifted and popular Tom Benyon was ruefully walking back into the pavilion. The circle of veterans broke up, as the butcher, thrusting his round felt hat sternly over his eyebrows, took up his bat and, with strides like a parody of the goose-step, clumped forth to the wicket. Bowers, having still leisure enough unless things collapsed, strolled round the boundary with the schoolmaster, Scroggins, a mild man with a family. Scroggins asked, 'Is your father coming to take a look at the game?' Bowers was expecting him there at any minute. 'Some of us hoped,' continued Scroggins, 'that he might have turned out this season. We, I needn't say every one amongst us, would welcome such a return.' 'He says he's finished, except as a spectator and a Wisdenite,' answered Bowers. 'He's fifty this winter, and old for his age, he says, too.' 'O no,' said the elementary schoolmaster, vainly trying to find the right quotation. 'When he said after his game last year that he'd made positively his last appearance, we reminded him of the last appearances of the music-hall favourites. They appear as regularly after those farewells as th
ey did before!' A misfortune had occurred at the wickets. The butcher had called the rightly named 'Tardy' for a run, and had himself done all the running. 'Tardy' maintained his ground: 'Goo back,' he said, with marble serenity, 'goo back.' It was his error, but he valued the butcher's wicket without sentiment and his own with plenty. The butcher was out, and put out too. 'All right that is, all right, ain't it? Tcha.' He stumped, yet more Prussianly, into the pavilion, asking rhetorically, 'All right, eh? St. Tut-tut-tut.'

  Misfortune followed misfortune. The railway clerk, usually reliable for a hard hit or two, and the vicar's gardener had no luck whatever; Scroggins, bland and cautious, turned back to the pavilion as the bailiff from Little Green lashed the ball into the hands of a stout fieldsman at square-leg, and was succeeded by the grocer and general dealer. This gentleman had acquired something of the First Eleven's characteristic style, and urbanely placing his bat well forward, saw to his evident surprise the ball glide away behind the wicket. Two runs!' 'E plays for style, does Mr Kidd,' said a youth in his working clothes, less jacket, who stood ready to follow Scroggins in this career. Again, the ball departed at an angle from the bat of the stylist, and one run ensued. Kidd, thus brought face to face with the old fellow bowling twisters, smoothed his too smooth hair, and, to the disappointment of the expectant boys, omitted to notice the fieldsman moving up behind him, into whose hands he beautifully tipped the ball. 'Bad luck, sir,' everyone ventured—and indeed, he returned answer to himself—as he sat down to remove his pads.

  John Bowers, senr., came through the clap-gate, frowned at the scoreboard, and made for the pavilion. His old friend, William Dales, captain (the same who kept the 'Swan') was pacing up and down outside, bat in hand. 'Why aren't you playing, John?

  'Well, for that matter, Bill, there's one John Bowers playing.'

  'There ought to be two.'

  'Doing none too well, I see.'

  'O, Bill Dales to come in yet, y'know. Bill's to come in yet.'

  'And John Bowers.'

  'If John Bowers don't bowl the wickets down to-day, John, I—well, I shan't be there at church to-morrow morning.'

  The score reached forty before Scroggins departed, and of these forty the indomitable 'Tardy' had made the not remarkable number, two. The stable lad with the broad mustard-coloured belt buffeted the bright air, and Bill Dales reigned in his stead. Jumping—he was a large and red-complexioned man—jumping in at the ball, he was fortunate enough to hit it, and the old men on the benches blinked as something banged against the oak bole just behind them, and leaping back on the greensward took shape and colour as the cricket ball. The fast bowler, unaccustomed to that sort of indignity, decided on a ball whose speed should surpass that of Jove's thunderbolt. There was a roar from the pavilion as this machination resulted in another mighty blow. The mothers, removing their perambulators from the oak-tree's vicinity, began to hurry. But Bill's life was short, for the next ball happened to be the fatal one, and he came away smiling. 'Some runs, boy, for the love of God,' he said, as John Bowers, junr., passed him. It was the last wicket.

  Even cricket could torment John Bowers, junr. He was born with the zest of the game in him; but it implied publicities, and now, walking to the wickets, he felt his usual uncertainties of appearance. He would have liked to simulate calmness, but fearing to do that and give a false impression of hauteur he hurried nervously along and allowed those watching to see his true state of mind. The small boys at the pavilion rails detected the nervousness and grinned knowingly as the new batsman left a wide ball alone. That was not the way for the tail end of Harmans Second. He was too timid a batsman, altogether. The ironclad defences of 'Tardy' held out, and Bowers was again the object of criticising tongues. Why, he had made a hit—there was the ball, racing away! The boys, half-convinced, began to murmur, the veterans, re-assembled, clapped with discrimination.

  'Playing 'em with confidence!'

  'He's no bat. I never reckoned much of him as a bat.'

  Neither did John think much of himself. But that day he felt able to eye the ball steadily and to look round him with purpose. Most days were different touching these points. He made other hits, and the fast bowler, in the last stages of diabolical genius, winked ferociously at the nearest fieldsman, and became a sort of human windmill, twirling his arm as he ran. The ball flew wildly and wide, and the bowler was motioned by his captain into temporary retirement.

  By this time, several additions could be seen round the ground. Bowers observed his father and Dales taking out chairs under the shadow of the pavilion shrubbery for the curate and his wife. The curate was evidently preaching—about cricket; for the faces of Bowers senr. and Dales became bright with smiles as they looked out at the new bowler measuring his run. Then there were Mrs Scroggins, in a bulging costume known even to Bowers to be characteristic of earlier periods; and with her, forget-me-not-eyed Miss Wray. Scroggins, in his easiest manner, was explaining the state of the game.

  Sixty for nine. Sixty in that stratum of cricket was a fair score, but Longley Green had the three brothers Double, whom alone sixty might not unreasonably be expected. Then, too, there was a one-armed player, who had so mastered his disability as to be a batsman of great local esteem. The oldest and wisest bowlers were apt to be uncertain what spell to put upon him.

  The new bowlers, for both changes were made, were unable to tempt 'Tardy'. Grinning with horrible determination, he met each ball with a barn-door bat, and once or twice the rebound was sufficiently slow and exactly placed to enable him to call Bowers for a run. Bowers, slightly disturbed by the sight of Miss Wray, and the fact that (he thought) she had been looking at him, was becoming reckless, and his narrow escapes caused 'Tardy' to shake his head and demonstrate his own barn-door safety stroke, as though the lesson had not lasted long enough. It was evident by this time to Bowers that luck was with him, and he resolved to settle down to a batsman's innings. The score reached ninety, and the boys round the telegraph had the magic figures for the century ready to hoist, when that innings was ended by a failure in resolve, Bowers attempting to emulate the vigorous Dales, and falling short. The players left the field. 'Tardy's' grin was a little serious at first; he was mildly rebuking Bowers for his foolhardiness; and then, approaching the pavilion, he became overwhelmed with simple joy at his feat of endurance, and grinned with head erect to the chorus of 'What, my old Tardy,' and 'Well played, the old stonewaller.' No words escaped him. He had his glory; the Longley Green team had been unable to move him; and he grinned and grinned like the master of a secret, which in truth had appeared to be little else than the holding of his bat stiff, upright, and not to be moved save an inch or two fore and aft. Bowers, whose score had reached thirty-eight, while Tardy's was five, and would no doubt in eternity become infinity, felt most uncomfortable; he was glad that Tardy was interpreting the position as glowing solely with his own effulgence, but to the choice approbations of the grocer he was somehow inadequate. The grocer honestly meant to praise, but his intention was lost in a self-revealing monologue.

  'You made some dazzling strokes, Mr Bowers. Quite classical. We never imagined—er, we had had but small conception. Do you know, I myself felt to-day as if I were to assist the fortunes of the side with a long innings? I was never more confident of the forward stroke…' He continued to a Bowers hearing an unconnected murmur, which ended, ' 'Ardly the thing of young Sprigg to borrow Mr Tomkins' pads without permission, I think. Noo, 'ardly the thing.'

  At the moment when Dales led his Harmanians into the field, it was excitement and tension all round. The result of this ancient annual encounter would crop up in sundry places (especially the 'Grid-iron,' the public-house on the edge of Longley Street, and often claimed for Harmans by those who defied the map) throughout the next twelvemonth. For the moment, it occupied the whole stage of those engaged in it, and in many who watched it. The fates, juggling with the good luck, bad luck, indifferent luck, of this small assembly, were not desired to show their working in affairs of
life and death and Death-in-Life; but what event they had in readiness for the obscure contest of an idle afternoon, was a question which loomed in the shadow of the mossy oak, in the sunny mid-circle, in every part of the field. The decline of imagination can scarcely be upheld, in face of these absorbing rivalries, for what meed?—a transient artificial glory; a stake so far beyond most of our aims, so innocent and honourable, that its pursuance is almost a religion.

  Now, out came the pride of Longley Street, the two brothers Double (and the third to follow them duly). They were no novices. Their presence was immediately felt, and the score mounted. The ball seemed, no matter how sent down, to lose its speed on the way to them, or to fall short of its intended pitch. Tom Benyon was without his customary force. Dales, with his special variety of bowling that stops short, or hovers in the air, as it had appeared to do to many a victim, was no more respected by the clean-striking batsmen. Bowers, ordered to take up the story, left it as he found it. The yet grinning Tardy, whose arms seemed to be moved by mental levers, abruptly but without variation of extent or time, was able to keep the scoring without bounds, but had no other effect on the stalwart pair. Fifty was due to be signalled in a moment or two when the eldest Double made his first mistake, and the shout of the butcher, who was at present wicket-keeper, was answered by the uplifted finger of the umpire. There was yet a chance.

  The excitement, considerable at the opening of this innings, became inhuman as it continued. The match was a match. With 'Soon be back, Alf,' and 'Keep y'r wicket up,' smiling nobly but not too well, the less expert men of Longley Green followed the expert to the wickets (and from the wickets with 'He bowls too straight') until there was one to go in, and still the score was a dozen short of the ninety-six runs notched by Harmans. John Bowers, fielding in the 'gully,' could not make the philosophy of 'It'll all be the same in a hundred years' time' cover the possible circumstance of his missing a catch now. Scroggins beside him felt the same, but hid the feeling under a meekly conscious, professional attitude of attention. A ball suddenly sliding between them both, it appeared that Scroggins had stiffened slightly in his alert attitude, for his hand was yards late, and Bowers had contrived to save the runs.

 

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