CHAPTER XXVII
THE RIPTON MATCH
Mike got an answer from his father on the morning of the Ripton match.A letter from Wyatt also lay on his plate when he came down tobreakfast.
Mr. Jackson's letter was short, but to the point. He said he would goand see Wyatt early in the next week. He added that being expelledfrom a public school was not the only qualification for success as asheep-farmer, but that, if Mike's friend added to this a generalintelligence and amiability, and a skill for picking off cats with anair-pistol and bull's-eyes with a Lee-Enfield, there was no reason whysomething should not be done for him. In any case he would buy him alunch, so that Wyatt would extract at least some profit from hisvisit. He said that he hoped something could be managed. It was a pitythat a boy accustomed to shoot cats should be condemned for the restof his life to shoot nothing more exciting than his cuffs.
Wyatt's letter was longer. It might have been published under thetitle "My First Day in a Bank, by a Beginner." His advent hadapparently caused little sensation. He had first had a briefconversation with the manager, which had run as follows:
"Mr. Wyatt?"
"Yes, sir."
"H'm ... Sportsman?"
"Yes, sir."
"Cricketer?"
"Yes, sir."
"Play football?"
"Yes, sir."
"H'm ... Racquets?"
"Yes, sir."
"Everything?"
"Yes, sir."
"H'm ... Well, you won't get any more of it now."
After which a Mr. Blenkinsop had led him up to a vast ledger, in whichhe was to inscribe the addresses of all out-going letters. Theseletters he would then stamp, and subsequently take in bundles to thepost office. Once a week he would be required to buy stamps. "If Iwere one of those Napoleons of Finance," wrote Wyatt, "I should cookthe accounts, I suppose, and embezzle stamps to an incredible amount.But it doesn't seem in my line. I'm afraid I wasn't cut out for abusiness career. Still, I have stamped this letter at the expenseof the office, and entered it up under the heading 'Sundries,' whichis a sort of start. Look out for an article in the _Wrykynian_,'Hints for Young Criminals, by J. Wyatt, champion catch-as-catch-canstamp-stealer of the British Isles.' So long. I suppose you areplaying against Ripton, now that the world of commerce has found thatit can't get on without me. Mind you make a century, and then perhapsBurgess'll give you your first after all. There were twelve coloursgiven three years ago, because one chap left at half-term and the manwho played instead of him came off against Ripton."
* * * * *
This had occurred to Mike independently. The Ripton match was aspecial event, and the man who performed any outstanding feat againstthat school was treated as a sort of Horatius. Honours were heapedupon him. If he could only make a century! or even fifty. Even twenty,if it got the school out of a tight place. He was as nervous on theSaturday morning as he had been on the morning of the M.C.C. match. Itwas Victory or Westminster Abbey now. To do only averagely well, to beamong the ruck, would be as useless as not playing at all, as far ashis chance of his first was concerned.
It was evident to those who woke early on the Saturday morning thatthis Ripton match was not likely to end in a draw. During the Fridayrain had fallen almost incessantly in a steady drizzle. It had stoppedlate at night; and at six in the morning there was every prospect ofanother hot day. There was that feeling in the air which shows thatthe sun is trying to get through the clouds. The sky was a dull greyat breakfast time, except where a flush of deeper colour gave a hintof the sun. It was a day on which to win the toss, and go in first. Ateleven-thirty, when the match was timed to begin, the wicket would betoo wet to be difficult. Runs would come easily till the sun came outand began to dry the ground. When that happened there would be troublefor the side that was batting.
Burgess, inspecting the wicket with Mr. Spence during the quarter toeleven interval, was not slow to recognise this fact.
"I should win the toss to-day, if I were you, Burgess," said Mr.Spence.
"Just what I was thinking, sir."
"That wicket's going to get nasty after lunch, if the sun comes out. Aregular Rhodes wicket it's going to be."
"I wish we _had_ Rhodes," said Burgess. "Or even Wyatt. It wouldjust suit him, this."
Mr. Spence, as a member of the staff, was not going to be drawn intodiscussing Wyatt and his premature departure, so he diverted theconversation on to the subject of the general aspect of the school'sattack.
"Who will go on first with you, Burgess?"
"Who do you think, sir? Ellerby? It might be his wicket."
Ellerby bowled medium inclining to slow. On a pitch that suited him hewas apt to turn from leg and get people out caught at the wicket orshort slip.
"Certainly, Ellerby. This end, I think. The other's yours, though I'mafraid you'll have a poor time bowling fast to-day. Even with plentyof sawdust I doubt if it will be possible to get a decent footholdtill after lunch."
"I must win the toss," said Burgess. "It's a nuisance too, about ourbatting. Marsh will probably be dead out of form after being in theInfirmary so long. If he'd had a chance of getting a bit of practiceyesterday, it might have been all right."
"That rain will have a lot to answer for if we lose. On a dry, hardwicket I'm certain we should beat them four times out of six. I wastalking to a man who played against them for the Nomads. He said thaton a true wicket there was not a great deal of sting in their bowling,but that they've got a slow leg-break man who might be dangerous on aday like this. A boy called de Freece. I don't know of him. He wasn'tin the team last year."
"I know the chap. He played wing three for them at footer against usthis year on their ground. He was crocked when they came here. He's apretty useful chap all round, I believe. Plays racquets for them too."
"Well, my friend said he had one very dangerous ball, of the Bosanquettype. Looks as if it were going away, and comes in instead."
"I don't think a lot of that," said Burgess ruefully. "One consolationis, though, that that sort of ball is easier to watch on a slowwicket. I must tell the fellows to look out for it."
"I should. And, above all, win the toss."
* * * * *
Burgess and Maclaine, the Ripton captain, were old acquaintances. Theyhad been at the same private school, and they had played against oneanother at football and cricket for two years now.
"We'll go in first, Mac," said Burgess, as they met on the pavilionsteps after they had changed.
"It's awfully good of you to suggest it," said Maclaine. "but I thinkwe'll toss. It's a hobby of mine. You call."
"Heads."
"Tails it is. I ought to have warned you that you hadn't a chance.I've lost the toss five times running, so I was bound to win to-day."
"You'll put us in, I suppose?"
"Yes--after us."
"Oh, well, we sha'n't have long to wait for our knock, that's acomfort. Buck up and send some one in, and let's get at you."
And Burgess went off to tell the ground-man to have plenty of sawdustready, as he would want the field paved with it.
* * * * *
The policy of the Ripton team was obvious from the first over. Theymeant to force the game. Already the sun was beginning to peep throughthe haze. For about an hour run-getting ought to be a tolerably simpleprocess; but after that hour singles would be as valuable as threesand boundaries an almost unheard-of luxury.
So Ripton went in to hit.
The policy proved successful for a time, as it generally does.Burgess, who relied on a run that was a series of tiger-like leapsculminating in a spring that suggested that he meant to lower the longjump record, found himself badly handicapped by the state of theground. In spite of frequent libations of sawdust, he was compelled totread cautiously, and this robbed his bowling of much of its pace. Thescore mounted rapidly. Twenty came in ten minutes. At thirty-five thefirst wicket fell, run ou
t.
At sixty Ellerby, who had found the pitch too soft for him and hadbeen expensive, gave place to Grant. Grant bowled what were supposedto be slow leg-breaks, but which did not always break. The changeworked.
Maclaine, after hitting the first two balls to the boundary, skied thethird to Bob Jackson in the deep, and Bob, for whom constant practicehad robbed this sort of catch of its terrors, held it.
A yorker from Burgess disposed of the next man before he could settledown; but the score, seventy-four for three wickets, was large enoughin view of the fact that the pitch was already becoming moredifficult, and was certain to get worse, to make Ripton feel that theadvantage was with them. Another hour of play remained before lunch.The deterioration of the wicket would be slow during that period. Thesun, which was now shining brightly, would put in its deadliest workfrom two o'clock onwards. Maclaine's instructions to his men were togo on hitting.
A too liberal interpretation of the meaning of the verb "to hit" ledto the departure of two more Riptonians in the course of the next twoovers. There is a certain type of school batsman who considers that toforce the game means to swipe blindly at every ball on the chance oftaking it half-volley. This policy sometimes leads to a boundary ortwo, as it did on this occasion, but it means that wickets will fall,as also happened now. Seventy-four for three became eighty-six forfive. Burgess began to look happier.
His contentment increased when he got the next man leg-before-wicketwith the total unaltered. At this rate Ripton would be out beforelunch for under a hundred.
But the rot stopped with the fall of that wicket. Dashing tactics werelaid aside. The pitch had begun to play tricks, and the pair now insettled down to watch the ball. They plodded on, scoring slowly andjerkily till the hands of the clock stood at half-past one. ThenEllerby, who had gone on again instead of Grant, beat the less steadyof the pair with a ball that pitched on the middle stump and shot intothe base of the off. A hundred and twenty had gone up on the board atthe beginning of the over.
That period which is always so dangerous, when the wicket is bad, theten minutes before lunch, proved fatal to two more of the enemy. Thelast man had just gone to the wickets, with the score at a hundred andthirty-one, when a quarter to two arrived, and with it the luncheoninterval.
So far it was anybody's game.
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