Willow the king

“POOR old Grace!” said the little parson. “Quite a martyr to public duty, isn’t she? I didn’t think she’d go.”

“And she wouldn’t, that’s a moral,” said her brother, “had it been anybody but the Guv. Her consideration for the Guv is something beautiful. ’Wish she’d extend it to some other members of her family.”

“There’s none of ’em can grumble,” said the little parson warmly. “She’s a mother to the lot. ’Gives you milk gruel when you’re sick. ’Won’t have you stay out late. ’Sends you in strict training before the Gentlemen and Players. ’Always up at Lords to give you the privilege of her advice. ’Coaches the lot of you like a pro. ’Dots your I’s and crosses your T’s for you, and puts your eyes and limbs together generally. Surely it isn’t reasonable to expect more from a sister; but some men want so thundering much. Tell you what, my boy, if there’d been no Grace to restrict your spiritual needs and minister to your temporal, Cambridge hadn’t cut up Oxford as they did, and Middlesex hadn’t been champion county. Grace is a trump!”

The little parson’s heat was such that he was compelled to wipe his forehead.

“Oh, I don’t deny that Grace has her points,” said that young person’s brother.

“And no end of a fine girl is Grace,” said the little parson, quite at the mercy of his theme. “Real A 1, and looks it. And there’s nobody to deny it either.”

“’Never could see it myself,” drawled Charlie, who in his fraternal capacity was of course at no pains to conceal his boredom. “’Can’t see where her looks come in at all.”

“If she were some other fellow’s sister, it’s likely that you might,” said I.

Perhaps it was that my tone conveyed more than I was aware of, for the great bowler looked at me with a shrewdly humorous countenance that rather reminded me of Robert Abel’s.

“Hullo, Toddles!” he observed. “What price that? ’Nother victim. I’m getting to recognise the symptoms straight away. But, Dimsdale, you be advised. The Rectory positively reeks of slaughtered innocence. Two refused last week. Now, don’t you come and play the goat.”

“Wonder who it will be in the end?” asked the poor dear Optimist to cover my retreat. But his own effort was a perfect masterpiece of self-repression.

“Perhaps the noble Earl,” said the little parson. “He’s been right over his ears this two years. Poor old Dick!”

“No blooming fear!” said Miss Grace’s brother, with a profound conviction that both delighted and depressed the poor old Optimist and the miserable me. “Dick’s a rank outsider. ’Hasn’t a thousand-to-one chance. Last time he tried it on he sank so low as to tell her what his income was. ‘Now, look here, Dick,’ said she, ‘I don’t care a straw about your income; what’s your batting average?’ Fact! Told it to the ’Varsity, and they put it in The Granta. And the joke is, that Dick is the most horrible muff you ever saw. ’Couldn’t get a run to save his life. Well, he sent for Attewell and Brockwell to coach him all the spring. But he’s not yet at the top of the first-class averages.”

“Well, who will it be?” I asked recklessly.

“Ask another,” said Charlie, “for I’m hanged if I know. Ranji in his best year might have had a look in, and I think she’d take the Old Man even now. Jacker, and Stoddy, and Archie McLaren, and that crush, all just miss it.”

“All just miss it?” I said weakly.

“All just miss it,” said Charlie magisterially. “If Sammy Woods’s heart had stood the strain, his bowling might have put him in the running, because she says that, whereas batsmen are a common growth, bowlers come from heaven.”

As the best bowler in England quoted this opinion, the twinkle in his eye was marvellous.

“But Jack Mason and Charlie Fry have been going pretty strong of late,” said the little parson.

“They’ll have to be regular Sandows before they’ll fill her eye,” said Grace’s brother, “she’s that mighty hypercritical. At least, that’s what a literary Johnny called her. He kept rolling Greek up to her, and comparing her to Nausicaa. She asked him whether Nausicaa was a batsman or a bowler, as she knew for a fact that his name was not in Wisden. But when the silly owl began to simplify himself, he wished he hadn’t spoke. She knocked three fours and two sixes off him—all in one over. By crum! didn’t she make hay! As for Jack Mason, he’s got a blind sort o’ shove behind point off a rising ball that she don’t approve of, whilst Charlie Fry’s bowling action is so darned ugly that I don’t much fancy him.”

“Second bell,” said the little parson. “We’d better cut.”

“Yes, curse it,” said the great bowler with a groan. “’Got to be rolling ’em up all the afternoon at ninety in the shade. Wicket concrete, and two men going as they please. Bowlers have to come from heaven, I say, or they’d simply kick. ’Wants a blooming archangel to be a bowler. Poor devils! What are the sins of their fathers that some men should be born bowlers?”

“Evolution teaches us,” said the little parson with resonant solemnity, “that when a man’s forbears have been for generations in the habit of fielding really bad, dropping catches, slow pick-up, stopping ’em with their boot, wild returns, fumbling, failing to back up, real downright infernal blood-coloured idleness, and so forth—that poor bloke is likely to be born a bowler. Nature will avenge itself, you know.”

“’Must have been several Keys and Martin Hawkes in our family, then, at one time or another,” said Charlie. Here however a ray of hope came to him. “Of course,” said he, “your men’ll declare when they get about three hundred.”

“Well, what would you do,” said I, “if you’d not got a ha’porth o’ bowling, against a batting side like Hickory’s?”

“Cert’nly declare,” said the bowler with wonderful conviction. “Great folly if you don’t. Always the unexpected that happens at cricket, don’t you know. ’Might absolutely scuttle us as our men’ll be tired as the Ten blooming Tribes, and pretty well as sick.”

“Well,” said I, “I daresay we shall declare—at half-past six.”

As the umpires were already out, there was no time left in which the case might be considered in all its aspects. It was a memorable sight when Hickory took the field two minutes later. The assembly was still greater than before. Little Clumpton, always warm favourites, since they relied on purely local men, had had the might of their achievement noised abroad. 165 for one wicket against Hickory’s formidable side was a morning’s work that had sent the majority of those present into the seventh heaven of enthusiasm.

Would Halliday get his hundred? Would Oldknow get his fifty? The cheers that greeted these heroes when they came out of the pavilion was something to cherish in the memory. They marched to the crease with stately unconcern. Their apparent unconsciousness of the clamour they had excited bordered on the sublime.

They began with extreme caution. The first few overs were a repetition of their morning’s methods. There was no hurry for runs. The Ancient cocked one under his leg for two, and the Captain stole a single. This was the sum total of their scoring during the first ten minutes. Was Halliday never going to get his hundred? He still required one. The fielding was so keen and the bowling so straight that there still seemed an element of uncertainty about it. This assumed a palpable shape a moment later, when every man in the slips, point, the bowler, the wicket-keeper, and heaven knows who besides, yelled at the pitch of their lungs.

“How’s that?”

One could almost hear the great heart of the crowd beating through the terribly portentous silence, that so respectfully awaited the umpire’s verdict. The Optimist and I bent forward in our eagerness. Could it be that Halliday was to have the cup dashed from his lips in this manner? We despondently remembered that it was nine years since a man had scored a century for Little Clumpton v. Hickory. Suddenly the wicket-keeper threw down the ball with an impatient gesture. The crisis was passed. Halliday was given in. He cut Charlie’s next ball like a knife to the boundary. The scene that ensued is not to be described. Veterans cheered; strong men adjourned for beer. The best bowler in England to be collared to this tune! Little Clumpton 192 for 1. Halliday, not out, 103. And that this moment might be furnished with every joy on which the great British Public dotes, a small boy in the exuberance of the hour, thought well to fall from a tall tree wherein he was perched, and delighted the populace by showing it how easily he could break his collar-bone.

By cocking T. S. M. under his leg for another two, the Ancient completed his fifty in the following over. Runs were beginning to come as they pleased. Each batsman had satisfied his dreams. He could now afford to take liberties and play to the crowd a bit. The Captain did; the Ancient didn’t. It sums up the essential difference between the two. The Captain began to talk to T. S. M. He leapt out and hit him out of the ground for six. T. S. M. immediately went off, obedient, doubtless, to a peremptory command that appeared to proceed from the recesses of the ladies’ tent.

H. C., the lion-hearted, still continued to hurl them down at his best pace. But it was manifestly not his day. The Captain, with his score at 112, was palpably missed at the wicket. Charlie also beat the Ancient twice with successive balls, and occasionally knocked at that little batsman’s ribs, no doubt to remind him that he was becoming a nuisance. The Ancient, however, merely drew a long breath to assure himself that it was not a compound fracture, blinked reflectively, took a new guard, and continued as before. Two hundred went up, and still no separation. Matters were growing ominous. Men were heard to inquire what was the record score in Little Clumpton v. Hickory, by whom was it made, and when? It appeared that Hickory’s 503 for nine, in the pre-declaration days of 1887, held it. Would it be eclipsed? Runs still came at their own sweet will. With his score at 133, Halliday was missed off Charlie for the second time by the unhappy wicket-keeper. The crowd grew vigorous in its observations, and began to applaud the poor beggar every time he handled the ball. Whenever the British Public swarm, they invariably bring their manners with them.

The appearance of the “telegraph” was fast becoming a thing of beauty. Ten followed ten without the slightest hesitation. The bowling began to exhibit signs of getting used up. Charlie, still wicketless, had gone off, whilst that crowning glory of a good side, its fielding, was not taking itself quite so seriously as it did earlier in the day. But neither the Optimist nor I were, perhaps, as whole-hearted as we might have been in our enthusiasm. Our thoughts would keep straying to Miss Grace. Why had we not been born county cricketers? It was bitterness for me to reflect that I was already out for seven, and that my own impetuosity had caused me to forfeit a chance for which so many sighed in vain. As for the Optimist, he was conscious of certain rather pronounced weaknesses in his style, which he was too old now to correct.

“Perhaps she hasn’t seen you bat, though?” said I consolingly.

“She ain’t, that’s certain,” said he wearily; “and if I’m lucky, she never will!”

Miss Grace was now returning. We saw the assured figure of that young person, the perfection of finely curved and elegant strength, emerge from the interior of the ladies’ tent. Two very young men stepped out after her. Miss Grace turned round quickly, and although what she said was brief, it was apparently to the point, as the pair of them went back again without any delay whatever.

As Miss Grace came along the confines of the boundary to rejoin us, swinging her gloves as she walked, an act of self-denial denoted that here was no ordinary girl. The bowler was in the act of delivering, and she was compelled to cross the screen at his end. The ordinary girl would have been quite unable to resist the fascination of passing behind the bowler’s arm, and thereby delaying the game until she had gone on her way rejoicing in her crime. Miss Grace, however impossible it may actually seem, waited while the bowler delivered the ball, and afterwards ran across the screen as hard as she could in order to be well clear of his arm by the time he was ready to send down the next. The Optimist saw this also, and is prepared, I understand, to affirm it on oath in the presence of witnesses. And the pair of us will no doubt one day persuade the authorities at Newnham to recognise the pious character of her act by erecting a stained glass window to her honourable memory, even at the risk of causing that home of the higher learning to build a chapel in which to put it.

She was soon up beside us again, a pretty healthy-looking anger seeming to emphasise her charms.

“267 for one, Grace,” said the scorer; “Halliday not out, 169. Oldknow, not out, 72. Oh, and another four; that makes Halliday 173. 270 up, boy.”

“Awfully obliged to you, old chap,” said Miss Grace politely, as she took the score-book from the Optimist. Her self-control really was remarkable, but then women do claim to have more of it than men.

“What sort of a time did they give you in there?” asked the Optimist. He always had a considerable temerity of his own. A thorough-going optimist needs it, of course.

“Pretty bad,” said Miss Grace, with a distinctly blasé air. “One girl said that Charlie must have an awful lot of enthusiasm, ’cause he kept running about as hard as he could just for fun, while everybody else was looking at him. Oh, some of ’em have a very pretty wit, I can tell you. But if Hickory’s idea of humour is 271 for one, I wish they’d try to be a bit serious sometimes, ’cause in my idea that sort o’ fun’s not funny at all.”

“’Tis for us, I think,” said I.

“Very low form of amusement,” said Grace judicially.

Here the game afforded us a new diversion. The dauntless Halliday, whom good fortune had now rendered absolutely reckless, lashed out for all he was worth at a ball much too short to drive. It went spinning up a dizzy height midway between mid-off and cover-point, in which positions the youthful T. S. M. and Carteret were fielding respectively.

“At last!” sighed poor Miss Grace.

She was just a little bit premature, however. Being between them, both men immediately started for the catch; then each observing the other coming, both stopped together and stood stock still, each politely saying “Your ball!” at the same moment, whilst the ball in question dropped harmlessly to earth. The great British Public rivalled Swift for pungency that minute. Poor Miss Grace, however, grew positively white.

“I shall give ’em up,” she said.

There was soon a new matter to absorb the attention of the speculative. Would Halliday make 200? It was a feat that had still to be accomplished in Little Clumpton v. Hickory. But as this is an age of record-breaking, it was quite expected of our captain that he should do something to maintain the traditions of his generation. He rose to the occasion. Hitting out, without favour and without fear, he soon set all doubts at rest. A strong off-drive gave him his second century.

“Have a cigarette, Miss Trentham,” said I, passing her the case. She was not a young person who gave one the impression of being greatly troubled with “nerves”; but it was plain that 309 for one wicket had thrown the few she had into a state of open mutiny.

“Don’t smoke,” Miss Grace said.

“Should rather have thought you would,” said I mischievously.

“No,” said she with great sobriety; “it’s a bad thing for condition. Besides, I’ve four brothers to consider. And when they do get stale, I don’t like ’em to say it’s my fault. I always try to do the straight thing by ’em, and set ’em a good example.”

“They invariably follow it, of course?”

“Well, no,” said Miss Grace reluctantly, “not always. But you know,” she added quickly, “they’re really pretty decent sorts when you get to know their little ways. If you feed ’em well and fetch their slippers for ’em, and you let ’em have breakfast when they like, and you don’t lecture ’em too much, you can get ’em to do almost anything. And if Archie and Charlie have got anything big on, they’re just as good as gold. Hullo, Charlie’s going on again. Why don’t he go on permanently?”