‘Not it!’ was the hoarse reply. “Tis nobbut a cold I caught last spring, an’ never properly throwed off. It serves me right for giving up the game! I’d have sweaten it off in half-an-hour at the nets. But I mean to give this up, an’ get a school or a club to coach next season; then I’ll be myself again. That’s better, missus! Now we can see to shake hands.’
And he gave me the cunning member which had been a county’s strength; but the Dick Unthank of old days was dead to me before I felt its slack and humid clasp. The man on the fire-lit bed seemed half Dick’s size, the lusty arms were gone to skin and bone, the weatherbeaten face shone whiter than the unclean pillow which was its frame. The large nose was wasted and unduly prominent, and a red stubble covered the sunken cheeks and the chin. Only the moustache was ruddy and unchanged; and it glistened with a baleful dew.
I was utterly amazed and shocked. How I looked I do not know, but Mrs Unthank paused at the door before leaving us together.
‘Ay,’ said she, ‘I thought you’d see a difference! He talks about playing next season, but he’ll be lucky if he sees another. I doubt he isn’t that long for this world!’
It was my first experience of the class which tells the truth to its sick and dying, and my blood was boiling; but Unthank smiled grimly as the door closed.
‘Poor lass,’ said he, ‘it would be hard on her if there was owt in what she says! But trust a woman to see black, an’ trust old Dick to put on flesh and muscle once he gets back into flannels. I never should ha’ chucked it up; that’s where I made the mistake. But spilt milk’s spilt milk, and I’m right glad to see you, sir! So you’ve watched me bowl, have you? Not at my best, I’m afraid, sir, unless you ‘re older than what I take you for!’ And Dick looked sorry for himself for the first time.
‘On the contrary,’ said I, ‘you never did much better than the very first time I saw you play.
‘When was that, sir?’
‘Eighteen yearn ago last July.’
‘Eighteen year? Why, you must have been a little lad, sir?’
‘I was twelve: but I knew my Lillywhite off by heart, and all that season I cut the matches out of the newspapers and pasted them in a book. I have it still.’
‘Mebbe it wasn’t a first-class match you saw me come off in?’
‘It was against the Gentlemen at Lord’s.’
‘Eighteen — year — ago. Hold on, sir! Did I take some wickets in the second innings?’
‘Seven for forty-three.’
‘An’ make some runs an’ all?’
‘Thirty-two not-out It was the fastest thing I ever saw!’
Dick shook his head.
‘It wasn’t good cricket, sir,’ said he. ‘But then I niver was owt of a bat It was a bowler’s innings was that — a short life but a merry one; ’twas a bowler’s wicket an’ all, I mind, an’ I was in a hurry to make use of it. Ay, ay, I remember it now as if it was yesterday!’
‘So do I: it was my first sight of Lord’s.’
‘Did you see the ball that took W. G.?’
‘I did. It nearly made me cry! It was my first sight of W. G. also!’
‘She came back nine inches,’ said the old bowler in a solemn voice. ‘Mr Grace he said eighteen inches, and the Sportsman it said six; but it wasn’t less than nine, as sure as I lie here. Ay, t’ wicket might ha’ been made for me that day; there’s no ground to bowl on like Lord’s on the mend. I got Mr Lucas too — an’ there wasn’t a finer batsman living at the time — an’ Mr Webbe was caught off me at cover. Them were the days, an’ no mistake, an’ you day was one o’ my very best; it does me good to think about it. I may never play first-class cricket again, but mebbe I’ll coach them as will!’
The fire had died down again, the wintry glow was blotted out by early night, and once more the old professional’s face was invisible in the darkened room. I say ‘old’ because he had been very long before the public, but he was little worse than forty in mere years, and now in the dark it was difficult to believe that his cricket days were altogether over. His voice was fuller and heartier than when he greeted me, and if the belief that one will recover be half the battle against sickness, then Dick Unthank was already half-way to victory. But his gaunt face haunted me, and I was wondering whether such wasted limbs could ever fill out again, when there came a beating of hoofs like drumsticks on the frozen road, and wheels stopped beneath the window.
‘That’s the doctor,’ grumbled Dick. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what he wants to come every day for! Sit still, sir, sit still.’
‘No; I must go. But I shall want something to eat, and a bed for the night at least, and I shall come up later without fail.’
Already there were steps on the rickety stairs; and I made my escape as Mrs Unthank, with a streaming candle, ushered in a tall old gentleman in a greatcoat and creaking boots. I was detaching my impedimenta from the bicycle when the creaking boots came down again.
‘I should like one word with you, sir,’ said the doctor. ‘I gather that you are thinking of putting up here, and it will be a real charity if you do. You have done my patient more good in half-an-hour than I have in the last month!’
‘Oh, as to that,’ said I, ‘it is a treat to me to meet an old cricketer like Dick Unthank, but I hardly think I can stay beyond to-morrow. I want a quiet place to do some work in, but I must be reasonably comfortable too; and, to be frank, I doubt the comfort here.’
‘You may well!’ exclaimed the doctor, lowering his voice. ‘That woman is enough to scare anybody; yet for the money’s sake she would look after you in a way, and with it she might make her husband more comfortable than he is. I may frighten you away myself by saying so, but it would be an untold relief to me to feel that there was one responsible and humane person in the house!’
‘Is he then so very ill?’
‘So very ill? Have you seen him and can you ask? He is in a galloping consumption.’
‘But he is so full of hope; is there no hope for him?’
‘Not the shadow of a chance! They are always sanguine. That is part of the disease.’
‘And how long do you give him?’
The doctor shrugged.
‘It may be weeks, it may be days, it might be months,’ said he. ‘I can only say that in this weather and with such a nurse nothing would surprise me.’
‘That is enough for me,’ I replied. ‘I shall give the place a trial.’
And I did!....
Many nights I passed in a chamber as accessible to the four winds of heaven as to the companies of mice which broke each night’s sleep into so many naps. Many days I lived well enough on new-laid eggs and Yorkshire ham, and wrought at my book until for good or ill the stack of paper lay complete upon the table. And many a winter’s evening I spent at Dick’s bedside, chatting with him, listening to him, hearing a score of anecdotes to one that I can set down here, and admiring more and more the cheeriness and the charity of the dying man. In all our talks I cannot remember an unkind story or a word of spite, though Dick had contemporaries still in the County ranks, the thought of whom must have filled his soul with envy. Even his wife was all that was good in his eyes; in mine she was not actually bad, but merely useless, callous, and indifferent, from sheer want of intelligence and imagination.
In the early days I sent for my portmanteau and had my old cricket scrap-book put into it. Dick’s eyes glistened as he took up leaf after leaf. I had torn them out for his convenience, and for days they kept him amused while I was absent at my work. Towards the end I brought my work beside him, for he was weakening visibly though unconsciously, and it was a new interest to his simple mind.
‘I don’t know how you do it, sir,’ said he one afternoon as I gathered my papers together. ‘I’ve been watching you this half-hour, your pen’s hardly stopped — and it’s all out of your own head! It beats an’ bowls me, sir, does that. Dear knows how you do it!’
‘Well,’ I laughed, ‘and it’s a puzzle to me how you pitch a ball j
ust where you like and make it break either way at will. Dear knows how you do that!’
Dick shook his head.
‘Sometimes you can’t,’ said he reflectively; ‘sometimes you’re off the spot altogether. I’ve heard you say you can’t write some days; and some days a man can’t bowl. Ay, you could write, and I could bowl, but they’d smack me to t’ boundary over after over.’
‘And what I wrote I should tear up next morning.’
He lay looking at the window. It was soft weather now, and a watery sun shone weakly into the room, slanting almost to the bed, so that a bleached and bony hand hung glistening in the rays. I knew that it was itching to hold a ball again — that Dick’s spirit was in flannels — even before he continued:
‘Now to-day’s a day when you could bowl. I’m glad it isn’t t’ season: it’d be my day, would this, wi’ a wet wicket drying from t’top. By gum, but you can do summat wi’ a wicket like you! The ground fairly bites, an’ the ball’ll come in wi’ your arm, or break back or hang, just as it’s told; it’s the time a ball answers its helm, sir, is that! And it’s a rum thing, but it’ll drop where you ask it on a bowler’s wicket; but on a good ‘un it seems to know that they can make a half-volley of it ‘most wherever it drops, so it loses heart and pitches all over the shop. Ay, there’s a deal o’ human nature in a trebleseam, sir; it don’t like getting knocked about any more than we do.’
So we would chat by the hour together, and the present was our favourite tense, as though his cricket days were not nearly over. Nor did I see any sense or kindness in convincing him that they were, and a little persuasion brought Mrs Unthank to my way of thinking and acting in the matter. Clergymen, however, are bound by other considerations, and though Unthank was by no means an irreligious man, but had an open ear and mind for the manly young curate who came to see him from time to time, he did bitterly complain to me one evening when the curate was gone.
‘No game’s lost till it’s won, sir, and t’parson has no right to shake his head till the Umpire gives me out. I don’t say I’m in for a long score, bowlers very seldom are, but I isn’t going out just yet a bit I’ll get better set by-and-by, and you’ll see me trouble the scorers yet!’
It was easy to tell that Dick was proud of his metaphor, and it recurred continually in his talk. His disease was the bowler, and each fit of coughing ‘a nasty one,’ but if only he could keep up his wicket till summer-time he felt confident of adding some years to his score. This confidence clung to him almost to the last. He would give up the inn and get back to Brammall Lane, and umpire for ‘t’owd team’ as long as he had a leg to stand on.
I remember when he realised the truth.
In a corner of the best parlour, beneath an accumulation of old newspapers and the ruins of a glass shade, I found one day, when I had finished but was still polishing my book, a warworn cricket-ball with a tarnished silver plate let into the bruised leather. The inscription on the plate announced that this was the actual ball with which Richard Unthank had taken nine Nottingham wickets (the tenth being run out) for a matter of fifty runs, at Brammall Lane, in his palmy days. That was twenty years ago, but I knew from Dick that it remained the achievement of which he was proudest, and I took the ball up-stairs to him after cleaning the silver plate as well as I could with soap and water.
His hot eyes glistened.
‘Why, wherever did you find this, sir?’ he cried, with the joy of a child in his shallow voice.
‘I’d forgot I had it. How canny it feels! Ay, ay, you was the happiest day in all my life!’
And rapidly and excitedly he gave me full particulars, explaining how and why the wicket had suited him to a nicety, and how he had known before he had finished an over that it was his day of days. Then he went through the Notts eleven, and told me with what ball and by what wile he had captured this wicket after that. Only one of the nine had fallen more by luck than good bowling; that was when Dick atoned for a half-volley by holding a terrific return, and so won the match for Yorkshire by the narrow margin of three runs.
‘It was my slow ball, and a bit too slow, I doubt, an’ he runs out of his ground an’ lets drive. There was almighty crack, and next thing I hears is a rush of air low down to the on; I goes for it wi ‘out seeing a thing, feels a smack on my hand, an’ there’s the beautiful ball stuck in it that tight that nobbut gunpowder could ha’ shifted her! She looked that sweet and peaceful sticking in my hand that what do you think I did? Took an’ kissed her instead o’ chuckin’ her up! You see, sir, I’d forgot that if I’d lost her we should ha’ lost t’ match instead o’ winning, for she was a dead-sure boundary; when owd Tom tell’d me it made me feel that bad, I’d got to have a big drink or faint; an’ I feel bad when I think of it yet.’
In his excitement he had raised himself on his left elbow; the effort had relaxed his muscles, and the historic ball had slipped from his fingers and was rolling across the floor. I picked it up, and was about to return it to him, but Dick Un thank waved me back.
‘Nay, nay I’ said he. ‘Give us a catch!’
So I tossed it gently into his outstretched hand, but the weak fingers closed too soon, and once more the ball rolled on the floor. Dick looked at me comically, yet with a spot of colour on either cheek-bone, as he shook his head.
‘I doubt I’m out o’ practice,’ he said. ‘Come, let’s try again.’
‘I wouldn’t, Dick.’
‘You wouldn’t? What do you mean? Do you think I’m that bad I can’t catch a cricket-ball, me that’s played for All England in my day? Chuck her in again and I’ll snow you! Get to the other side o’ the room!’
He was sitting bolt upright now, with both hands ready, and in his altered tone there was such umbrage that I could not cross him. So again I threw; but two such hands were no better than one; the ball fell through them into the bed; and Dick Unthank sat looking at me with death dawning in his eyes.
‘It’s the light,’ I said gruffly, for it was the finest day of the New Year, and even now the sun was glinting on the silver-mounted ball.
‘Who could make catches in a light like this?’
‘No, sir,’ whispered Dick, ‘it’s not the light I see what it is. It’s — it’s what they call the beginning o’ the end!’
And he burst into tears. Yet was he sanguine even then, for the end was very near. It came that night.
The Short Stories
Mossgiel, New South Wales, c.1890 — Hornung suffered a permanent state of generally poor health in his youth. When Hornung was 17 his health worsened and he travelled to Australia, where it was hoped by his family that the climate would be beneficial. On his arrival he was employed as a tutor to the Parsons family in Mossgiel in the Riverina, south-western New South Wales. As well as teaching, he spent time working in remote sheep stations in the outback and contributing material to the weekly magazine ‘The Bulletin’.
LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
JIM-OF-THE-WHIM.
NETTLESHIP’S SCORE.
THE LUCKIEST MAN IN THE COLONY.
THE NOTORIOUS MISS ANSTRUTHER.
STRONG-MINDED MISS METHUEN.
AN IDLE SINGER.
SERGEANT SETH.
KENYON’S INNINGS
A LITERARY COINCIDENCE
AUTHOR! AUTHOR!
THE WIDOW OF PIPER’S POINT
AFTER THE FACT
THE VOICE OF GUNBAR
THE MAGIC CIGAR
THE GOVERNESS AT GREENBUSH
A FAREWELL PERFORMANCE
A SPIN OF THE COIN
THE STAR OF THE GRASMERE
THE IDES OF MARCH
A COSTUME PIECE
GENTLEMEN AND PLAYERS
LE PREMIER PAS
WILFUL MURDER
NINE POINTS OF THE LAW
THE RETURN MATCH
THE GIFT OF THE EMPEROR
NO SINECURE
A JUBILEE PRESENT
THE FATE OF FAUSTINA
THE LAST LAUGH
TO CATCH A THIEF
AN OLD FLAME
THE WRONG HOUSE
THE KNEES OF THE GODS
A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
THE BLACK HOLE OF GLENRANALD
TO THE VILE DUST
A BUSHRANGER AT BAY
THE TAKING OF STINGAREE
THE HONOR OF THE ROAD
THE PURIFICATION OF MULFERA
A DUEL IN THE DESERT
THE VILLAIN-WORSHIPPER
THE MOTH AND THE STAR
OUT OF PARADISE
THE CHEST OF SILVER
THE REST CURE
THE CRIMINOLOGISTS’ CLUB
THE FIELD OF PHILIPPI
A BAD NIGHT
A TRAP TO CATCH A CRACKSMAN
THE SPOILS OF SACRILEGE
THE RAFFLES RELICS
THE LAST WORD
THE PHYSICIAN WHO HEALED HIMSELF
THE LIFE-PRESERVER
A HOPELESS CASE
THE GOLDEN KEY
A SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD
ONE POSSESSED
THE DOCTOR’S ASSISTANT
THE SECOND MURDERER
THE SALOON PASSENGER
THE LADY OF THE LIFT
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL
MY DOUBLE
THE JACKEROO ON G-BLOCK
THE LARRIKIN OF DIAMOND CREEK
THE POET OF JUMPING SANDHILLS
CHRYSTAL’S CENTURY
A BOWLER’S INNINGS
LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
A BAD NIGHT
A BOWLER’S INNINGS
A BUSHRANGER AT BAY
A COSTUME PIECE
A DUEL IN THE DESERT
A FAREWELL PERFORMANCE
A HOPELESS CASE
A JUBILEE PRESENT
A LITERARY COINCIDENCE
A SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD
A SPIN OF THE COIN
A TRAP TO CATCH A CRACKSMAN
A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
AFTER THE FACT
AN IDLE SINGER.
AN OLD FLAME
AUTHOR! AUTHOR!
CHRYSTAL’S CENTURY
GENTLEMEN AND PLAYERS
JIM-OF-THE-WHIM.
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 532