11
THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
It is the curious instinct which prompts most people to rub a thing inthat makes the lot of the average convert an unhappy one. Only the veryself-controlled can refrain from improving the occasion and scoring offthe convert. Most leap at the opportunity.
It was so in Mike's case. Mike was not a genuine convert, but to Mr.Downing he had the outward aspect of one. When you have been impressingupon a noncricketing boy for nearly a month that (_a_) the school isabove all a keen school, (_b_) that all members of it should playcricket, and (_c_) that by not playing cricket he is ruining his chancesin this world and imperiling them in the next; and when, quiteunexpectedly, you come upon this boy dressed in cricket flannels,wearing cricket boots and carrying a cricket bag, it seems only naturalto assume that you have converted him, that the seeds of your eloquencehave fallen on fruitful soil and sprouted.
Mr. Downing assumed it.
He was walking to the field with Adair and another member of his teamwhen he came upon Mike.
"What!" he cried. "Our Jackson clad in suit of mail and armed for thefray!"
This was Mr. Downing's No. 2 manner--the playful.
"This is indeed Saul among the prophets. Why this sudden enthusiasm fora game which I understood that you despised? Are our opponentsso reduced?"
Psmith, who was with Mike, took charge of the affair with a languidgrace which had maddened hundreds in its time, and which never failed toruffle Mr. Downing.
"We are, above all, sir," he said, "a keen house. Drones are notwelcomed by us. We are essentially versatile. Jackson, the archaeologistof yesterday, becomes the cricketer of today. It is the right spirit,sir," said Psmith earnestly. "I like to see it."
"Indeed, Smith? You are not playing yourself, I notice. Your enthusiasmhas bounds."
"In our house, sir, competition is fierce, and the Selection Committeeunfortunately passed me over."
* * * * *
There were a number of pitches dotted about over the field, for therewas always a touch of the London Park about it on Mid-Term Service Day.Adair, as captain of cricket, had naturally selected the best for hisown match. It was a good wicket, Mike saw. As a matter of fact thewickets at Sedleigh were nearly always good. Adair had infected thegroundsman with some of his own keenness, with the result that thatonce-leisurely official now found himself sometimes, with a kind of mildsurprise, working really hard. At the beginning of the previous seasonSedleigh had played a scratch team from a neighboring town on a wicketwhich, except for the creases, was absolutely undistinguishable from thesurrounding turf, and behind the pavilion after the match Adair hadspoken certain home truths to the groundsman. The latter's reformationhad dated from that moment.
* * * * *
Barnes, timidly jubilant, came up to Mike with the news that he had wonthe toss, and the request that Mike would go in first with him.
In stories of the "Not Really a Duffer" type, where the nervous new boy,who has been found crying in the changing room over the photograph ofhis sister, contrives to get an innings in a game, nobody suspects thathe is really a prodigy till he hits the Bully's first ball out of theground for six.
With Mike it was different. There was no pitying smile on Adair's faceas he started his run preparatory to sending down the first ball. Mike,on the cricket field, could not have looked anything but a cricketer ifhe had turned out in a tweed suit and hobnail boots. Cricketer waswritten all over him--in his walk, in the way he took guard, in hisstand at the wicket. Adair started to bowl with the feeling that thiswas somebody who had more than a little knowledge of how to deal withgood bowling and punish bad.
Mike started cautiously. He was more than usually anxious to make runstoday, and he meant to take no risks till he could afford to do so. Hehad seen Adair bowl at the nets, and he knew that he was good.
The first over was a maiden, six dangerous balls beautifully played. Thefieldsmen changed over.
The general interest had now settled on the match between Outwood's andDowning's. The facts in Mike's case had gone around the field, and, asseveral of the other games had not yet begun, quite a large crowd hadcollected near the pavilion to watch. Mike's masterly treatment of theopening over had impressed the spectators, and there was a populardesire to see how he would deal with Mr. Downing's slows. It wasgenerally anticipated that he would do something special with them.
Off the first ball of the master's over a leg-bye was run.
Mike took guard.
Mr. Downing was a bowler with a style of his own. He took two shortsteps, two long steps, gave a jump, took three more short steps, andended with a combination of step and jump, during which the ball emergedfrom behind his back and started on its slow career to the wicket. Thewhole business had some of the dignity of the old-fashioned minuet,subtly blended with the careless vigor of a cakewalk. The ball, whendelivered, was billed to break from leg, but the program was subject toalterations.
If the spectators had expected Mike to begin any firework effects withthe first ball, they were disappointed. He played the over through witha grace worthy of his brother Joe. The last ball he turned to leg fora single.
His treatment of Adair's next over was freer. He had got a sight of theball now. Halfway through the over a beautiful square cut forced apassage through the crowd by the pavilion, and dashed up against therails. He drove the sixth ball past cover for three.
The crowd was now reluctantly dispersing to its own games, but itstopped as Mr. Downing started his minuet-cakewalk, in the hope that itmight see something more sensational.
This time the hope was fulfilled.
The ball was well up, slow, and off the wicket on the on-side. Perhapsif it had been allowed to pitch, it might have broken in and becomequite dangerous. Mike went out at it, and hit it a couple of feet fromthe ground. The ball dropped with a thud and a spurting of dust in theroad that ran along one side of the cricket field.
It was returned on the installment system by helpers from other games,and the bowler began his maneuvers again. A half volley this time. Mikeslammed it back, and mid on, whose heart was obviously not in the thing,failed to stop it.
"Get to them, Jenkins," said Mr. Downing irritably, as the ball cameback from the boundary. "Get to them."
"Sir, please, sir--"
"Don't talk in the field, Jenkins."
Having had a full pitch hit for six and a half volley for four, therewas a strong probability that Mr. Downing would pitch his nextball short.
The expected happened. The third ball was a slow long hop, and hit theroad at about the same spot where the first had landed. A howl ofuntuneful applause rose from the watchers in the pavilion, and Mike,with the feeling that this sort of bowling was too good to be true,waited in position for number four.
There are moments when a sort of panic seizes a bowler. This happenednow with Mr. Downing. He suddenly abandoned science and ran amok. Hisrun lost its stateliness and increased its vigor. He charged up to thewicket as a wounded buffalo sometimes charges a gun. His whole idea nowwas to bowl fast.
When a slow bowler starts to bowl fast, it is usually as well to bebatting, if you can manage it.
By the time the over was finished, Mike's score had been increased bysixteen, and the total of his side, in addition, by three wides.
And a shrill small voice, from the neighborhood of the pavilion, utteredwith painful distinctness the words, "Take him off!"
That was how the most sensational day's cricket began that Sedleigh hadknown.
A description of the details of the morning's play would be monotonous.It is enough to say that they ran on much the same lines as the thirdand fourth overs of the match. Mr. Downing bowled one more over, offwhich Mike helped himself to sixteen runs, and then retired moodily tocover point, where, in Adair's fifth over, he missed Barnes--the firstoccasion since the game began on which that mild batsman had attemptedto score more than a single. Scar
ed by this escape, Outwood's captainshrank back into his shell, sat on the splice like a limpet, and,offering no more chances, was not out at lunchtime with a score ofeleven. Mike had then made a hundred and three.
* * * * *
As Mike was taking off his pads in the pavilion, Adair came up.
"Why did you say you didn't play cricket?" he asked abruptly.
When one has been bowling the whole morning, and bowling well, withoutthe slightest success, one is inclined to be abrupt.
Mike finished unfastening an obstinate strap. Then he looked up.
"I didn't say anything of the kind. I said I wasn't going to play here.There's a difference. As a matter of fact, I was in the Wrykyn teambefore I came here. Three years."
Adair was silent for a moment.
"Will you play for us against the Old Sedleighans tomorrow?" he said atlength.
Mike tossed his pads into his bag and got up.
"No, thanks."
There was a silence.
"Above it, I suppose?"
"Not a bit. Not up to it. I shall want a lot of coaching at that end netof yours before I'm fit to play for Sedleigh."
There was another pause.
"Then you won't play?" asked Adair.
"I'm not keeping you, am I?" said Mike, politely.
It was remarkable what a number of members of Outwood's house appearedto cherish a personal grudge against Mr. Downing. It had been thatmaster's somewhat injudicious practice for many years to treat his ownhouse as a sort of Chosen People. Of all masters, the most unpopular ishe who by the silent tribunal of a school is convicted of favoritism.And the dislike deepens if it is a house which he favors and not merelyindividuals. On occasions when boys in his own house and boys from otherhouses were accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, Mr. Downingdistributed his thunderbolts unequally, and the school noticed it. Theresult was that not only he himself, but also--which was ratherunfair--his house, too, had acquired a good deal of unpopularity.
The general consensus of opinion in Outwood's during the luncheoninterval was that having got Downing's up a tree, they would be foolsnot to make the most of the situation.
Barnes's remark that he supposed, unless anything happened and wicketsbegan to fall a bit faster, they had better think of declaring somewhereabout half past three or four, was met with a storm of opposition.
"Declare!" said Robinson. "Great Scot, what on earth are you talkingabout?"
"Declare!" Stone's voice was almost a wail of indignation. "I never sawsuch a chump."
"They'll be rather sick if we don't, won't they?" suggested Barnes.
"Sick! I should think they would," said Stone. "That's just the gayidea. Can't you see that by a miracle we've got a chance of getting ajolly good bit of our own back against those Downing's ticks? What we'vegot to do is to jolly well keep them in the field all day if we can, andbe jolly glad it's so beastly hot. If they lose about a dozen poundseach through sweating about in the sun after Jackson's drives, perhapsthey'll stick on less side about things in general in future. Besides, Iwant an innings against that bilge of old Downing's, if I can get it."
"So do I," said Robinson.
"If you declare, I swear I won't field. Nor will Robinson."
"Rather not."
"Well, I won't then," said Barnes unhappily. "Only you know they'rerather sick already."
"Don't you worry about that," said Stone with a wide grin. "They'll be alot sicker before we've finished."
And so it came about that that particular Mid-Term Service-Day matchmade history. Big scores had often been put up on Mid-Term Service Day.Games had frequently been one-sided. But it had never happened before inthe annals of the school that one side, going in first early in themorning, had neither completed its innings nor declared it closed whenstumps were drawn at 6.30. In no previous Sedleigh match, after a fullday's play, had the pathetic words "Did not bat" been written againstthe whole of one of the contending teams.
These are the things which mark epochs.
Play was resumed at 2.15. For a quarter of an hour Mike wascomparatively quiet. Adair, fortified by food and rest, was bowlingreally well, and his first half dozen overs had to be watched carefully.But the wicket was too good to give him a chance, and Mike, playinghimself in again, proceeded to get to business once more. Bowlers cameand went. Adair pounded away at one end with brief intervals between theattacks. Mr. Downing took a couple more overs, in one of which a horse,passing in the road, nearly had its useful life cut suddenly short.Change bowlers of various actions and paces, each weirder and morefutile than the last, tried their luck. But still the first-wicket standcontinued.
The bowling of a house team is all head and no body. The first pairprobably have some idea of length and break. The first-change pair arepoor. And the rest, the small change, are simply the sort of things onesees in dreams after a heavy supper, or when one is out withoutone's gun.
Time, mercifully, generally breaks up a big stand at cricket before thefield has suffered too much, and that is what happened now. At fouro'clock, when the score stood at two hundred and twenty for no wicket,Barnes, greatly daring, smote lustily at a rather wide half volley andwas caught at short slip for thirty-three. He retired blushfully to thepavilion, amidst applause, and Stone came out.
As Mike had then made a hundred and eighty-seven, it was assumed by thefield, that directly he had topped his second century, the closure wouldbe applied and their ordeal finished. There was almost a sigh of reliefwhen frantic cheering from the crowd told that the feat had beenaccomplished. The fieldsmen clapped in quite an indulgent sort of way,as who should say, "Capital, capital. And now let's start _our_innings." Some even began to edge toward the pavilion.
But the next ball was bowled, and the next over, and the next afterthat, and still Barnes made no sign. (The conscience stricken captain ofOutwood's was, as a matter of fact, being practically held down byRobinson and other ruffians by force.)
A gray dismay settled on the field.
The bowling had now become almost unbelievably bad. Lobs were beingtried, and Stone, nearly weeping with pure joy, was playing an inningsof the "How-to-brighten-cricket" type. He had an unorthodox style, butan excellent eye, and the road at this period of the game becameabsolutely unsafe for pedestrians and traffic.
Mike's pace had become slower, as was only natural, but his score, too,was mounting steadily.
"This is foolery," snapped Mr. Downing, as the three hundred and fiftywent up on the board. "Barnes!" he called.
There was no reply. A committee of three was at that moment engaged insitting on Barnes's head in the first eleven changing room, in order tocorrect a more than usually feverish attack of conscience.
"Barnes!"
"Please, sir," said Stone, some species of telepathy telling him whatwas detaining his captain. "I think Barnes must have left the field. Hehas probably gone over to the house to fetch something."
"This is absurd. You must declare your innings closed. The game hasbecome a farce."
"Declare! Sir, we can't unless Barnes does. He might be awfully annoyedif we did anything like that without consulting him."
"Absurd."
"He's very touchy, sir."
"It is perfect foolery."
"I think Jenkins is just going to bowl, sir."
Mr. Downing walked moodily to his place.
In a neat wooden frame in the senior day room at Outwood's, just abovethe mantlepiece, there was on view, a week later, a slip of paper.
The writing on it was as follows:
OUTWOOD'S _v_. DOWNING'S
_Outwood's. First innings_.
J.P. Barnes, _c_. Hammond, _b_. Hassall 33 M. Jackson, not out 277 W.J. Stone, not out 124 Extras 37 Total (for one wicket) 471
Downing's did not bat.
Mike and Psmith Page 11