“well cut, saurin, well cut! run it out! four!” the ball was delivered again to the bowler, who meditated a shooter, but being a little tired, failed in his amiable intention, and gave the chance of a half-volley, which the batsman timed accurately, and caught on the right inch of the bat, with the whole swing of his arms and body thrown into the drive, so that the ball went clean into the scorer’s tent, as if desirous of marking the runs for itself.
“well hit indeed! well hit!”
the westonians roared with delight, and their voices were fresh, for they had had little opportunity of exercising them hitherto. crawley, the captain of their eleven, the hero in whom they delighted, had been declared out, leg before wicket, when he had only contributed five to the score. only two of the westonians believed that the decision was just, crawley himself, and the youth who had taken his place, and was now so triumphant. but he hated crawley, and rejoiced in his discomfiture, even though it told against his own side, so his opinion went for nothing.
well, no more did anybody’s else except the umpire’s, who after all is the only person capable of judging.
“saurin has got his eye in; we may put together a respectable score yet.”
“he is the best player we have got, when he only takes the trouble; don’t you think so?” said edwards, who believed in saurin with a faith which would have been quite touching if it had not been so irritating.
“he thinks so himself at any rate,” replied the boy addressed, “and we are a shocking bad lot if he is right. anyhow he seems to be in form to-day, and i only hope that it will last.”
the batsman under discussion hoped so too. if he could only make an unprecedented score, restore the fortunes of the day, and show the world what a mistake it was to think crawley his superior in anything whatever, it would be a glorious triumph. he was not of a patriotic disposition, and did not care for the success of his school except as it might minister to his own personal vanity and gain, for he had a bet of half-a-crown on his own side. but his egotism was quite strong enough to rival the public spirit of the others, and raise his interest to the general pitch.
the match between weston and hillsborough was an annual affair, and excited great emulation, being for each school the principal event of the cricketing season. one year it was played at weston and the next at hillsborough, and it was the westonians’ turn to play on their own ground on this occasion.
hillsborough went in first and put together 94 runs. then weston went to the wickets and could make nothing of it. there was a certain left-handed hillsburian bowler who proved very fatal to them; it was one of his twists which found crawley’s leg where his bat should have been. result, eight wickets down for twenty, and then saurin went in and made the 9 we have witnessed.
between ourselves the cut was a fluke, but the half-volley was a genuine well-played hit, which deserved the applause it got. the next ball came straight for the middle stump, but was blocked back half-way between the creases, and another run was stolen.
“over!”
the new bowler went in for slows. the first, a very tempting ball, saurin played forward at, and hit it straight and hard into the hands of long field on, who fumbled and dropped it, amidst groans and derisive cheers.
warned by this narrow shave he played back next time, and seemed to himself to have missed a really good chance. this feeling induced hesitation when the next ball was delivered, and the result of hesitation was that the insidious missile curled in somehow over his bat and toppled his bails off. saurin was so much mortified as he walked back to the tent that he could not even pretend to assume a jaunty careless air, but scowled and carried his bat as if he would like to hit someone over the head with it. which, indeed, he would.
there was one consolation for him, he had made ten, and that proved to be the top score.
for the first time within living memory weston had to follow its innings!
now when you consider that the presidents of oxford and cambridge clubs kept an eye on this match with a view to promising colts, you may imagine the elation of the hillsburians and the dejection of the westonians when crawley and robarts walked once more to the wickets. their schoolmates clapped their hands vigorously indeed, and some of them talked about the uncertainty of cricket, but the amount of hope they had would not have taken the room of a pair of socks in pandora’s box.
but crawley was a bowler as well as a batsman, and robarts was the westonian wicket-keeper, so that both were somewhat fagged when they first went in, whereas they were now quite fresh. again, the hillsburian bowling champion found his dangerous left arm a little stiff, and his eyesight not so keen as it had been an hour before. one is bound to find a cause for everything, so these may be the reasons why the pair, after defending their wickets cautiously for an over or two, began to knock the bowling about in great style.
“what a jealous brute that crawley is!” said saurin, sitting down by edwards.
“awful!” replied edwards, not at all knowing why, but following saurin blindfold, as he always did.
“i was the only one who made any stand in the first innings, and yet he does not send me in early. he will keep me to the last, i daresay.”
the wonderful stand spoken of had not lasted two overs, but edwards only observed:
“it’s mean.”
“not that i care,” said saurin.
“of course not.”
“only i do hate spite and jealousy.”
“he ought not to be captain.”
“bah! the soft-spoken humbug; it’s a wonder to me that fellows don’t see through him.”
“it is strange,” echoed the complacent edwards.
the number 30 went up amidst a storm of clapping, and saurin relapsed into prudent silence, but he thought “hapes,” like the irishman’s dumb parrot. the dinner-bell rang, the pair were not separated, and the score stood at 50.
“it will be a match yet,” was the general opinion on the weston side, and their opponents also thought that the affair did not look quite such a certainty, and agreed that they must not throw a chance away, though they hoped much from dinner, which sometimes puts a batsman off his play, the process of digestion inducing, especially in hot weather, a certain heaviness which impairs that clearness of brain necessary for timing a ball accurately. at the same time the bowlers would get a good rest, and the left-handed artist, who had been acting as long-stop, might reasonably be expected to regain his cunning. true that the midday meal tells most upon the field, which very generally grows sluggish after eating: but the hillsborough boys fancied that would not matter so much, if they could only separate those two.
but “those two” had a due sense of their responsibilities, and ate a very moderate meal, which they washed down with nothing stronger than water. they also played very careful cricket on first going in again, and risked nothing until they had got their hands in. item, crawley had mastered the left-handed bowler’s favourite ball, and by playing very forward hit it away before it took the dangerous twist. it looked very risky, and the hillsborough wicket-keeper was in constant hope of stumping him, but he never missed, and scored off every ball of that sort which came to him. when the same twisters came to robarts he played back, contenting himself with simply guarding his wickets with an upright bat.
altogether the two put 85 together before robarts was caught at point.
as they were going in to dinner crawley had said to saurin:
“you go in the first wicket down. you showed good form in the first innings, and it was a very unlucky ball that settled you so soon. but you will have a good chance again presently.” which speech had the unintended effect of making saurin more exasperated than ever. “confound his patronising!” he said to himself; but he could not find any excuse for any audible utterance except the conventional “all right,” and he now drew on his gloves, took up his bat, and issued from the tent.
“play careful cricket, saurin,” said robarts as he passed him; “the great thing is to keep crawley at the wicket as long as we can.”
“a likely story!” he thought to himself as he strode across the turf, “to make myself a mere foil and stop-gap for that conceited brute! not i.” far from practising the abstinence of the other two, he had eaten as much as he could stuff and drunk all the beer he could get, and this, combined with resentment at robarts’ words, caused him to go in for slogging just to show that he was not to be dictated to.
the first ball he got he hit as hard as he could, and well on to the ground, but it was cleverly stopped before a run could be made. the second he sent into the hands of the fielder standing at mid-wicket, who stuck to it, fast as it came, and threw it up amidst the cheers of his friends. saurin stalked away with his duck’s egg.
four more wickets fell before crawley was run out, by which time he had scored 90 off his own bat, the total standing at 150. thirty more was added before the westonians were all out, and the score stood—first innings, 40; second, 180; total, 220, against 94. so that hillsborough now had to make 126 to tie, and 127 to win.
it was a good match; anybody’s game. during the remainder of the afternoon saurin behaved disgracefully. his temper had completely mastered him, and he was sulky and careless to an extent which made even edwards ashamed for him. he let balls pass with hardly an attempt to stop them, picked them up and threw them in in a leisurely manner, which gave more than one run to the other side, and showed such indifference that he was hissed.
for every run was of importance. the fact was that weston that year was decidedly weak in the bowling, crawley being the only one to be depended upon, and he could not be kept at it for ever; and, though the fielding generally was good, the hillsburians scored fast. at seven o’clock they were 100 for seven wickets, and the excitement was very great when crawley, who had had an hour’s interval, went on once more to bowl.
his first ball was cut for five. his second took the middle stump clean. his third came back into his hands. his fourth, the nastiest of shooters, glided under the bat into the wicket. three wickets in three consecutive balls—something like a sensational over!
the match was over, and weston had won by 21 runs.
there could be no doubt to whom the victory was due, and crawley was pounced upon, hoisted, and carried home in triumph amidst the most enthusiastic cheering.
“all right!” he said, colouring and laughing as they put him down; “i am glad we won, but that last ball was the most awful fluke i ever made in my life. i lost my balance as i delivered it, and nearly came down. to tell the truth, i feared it would be wide, and could hardly believe my eyes when i saw the bails off.”
one would have imagined that saurin’s evil genius was taking part in the events of the day, and piling success upon the rival he hated in order to exasperate him to madness. his state of mind, indeed, was little short of that as he went sullenly to his tutor’s house, with the sight of crawley, raised on his comrades’ shoulders, in his eyes, their cheers ringing in his ears, and the thoughts of cain in his heart.
“i shall give up cricket,” he said to edwards next day; “it’s a beastly game.”
“i don’t care for it myself,” replied his friend; “only, what is one to do?”
“lots of things; you don’t know slam’s. i tell you what—i’ll take you there.”
“thank you; that will be very jolly; only don’t you think if one were caught, you know—eh?”
“we should get into a jolly row, no doubt; but there is no fear of being caught. and, as you say, if one does not play cricket, what is one to do?”
one thing which induced saurin to relinquish the game which he had at one time practised with some hope of success, was that he shrewdly suspected that, after what occurred, he would no longer be retained in the eleven. and he was right, for at the very next meeting of the committee it was unanimously agreed that a fellow who failed so utterly to keep his temper was of no use at all, even if he were a much better player than saurin; and this opinion was intimated to him without any squeamishness in the choice of terms. had weston lost the match his conduct on the occasion might have resulted in his being sent to coventry; but success is the parent of magnanimity, and, since his lack of public spirit had not proved fatal, it was condoned. but it certainly did not increase his popularity. the whole affair was most unfortunate. saurin was a disappointing sort of fellow. he was rather good-looking, and on ordinary occasions his manners were those of a gentleman. his abilities were certainly above the average, and his eye and hand worked together in a manner which was calculated to ensure success in all games, especially as he was fleet of foot and muscular. thus he was always giving promise of distinguishing himself, and dying away to nothing. the explanation is that he was very vain and very indolent, and his vanity induced him to engage in different pursuits which would excite admiration, while his indolence prevented him from persevering long enough for success. directly anything bored him he dropped it. self-indulgence seemed to him the only true wisdom. he never resisted the whim of the moment except through fear of the consequences, and unfortunately many of his propensities were vicious.
he had taken up cricket rather warmly, and seemed less inclined to get tired of it than of most healthy and innocent diversions, and cricket kept him out of mischief; so it was very unlucky both for himself and for those over whom he had influence that his jealousy of crawley had led him to make such an idiot of himself.
