"Pip" Part 10

"Sweltering hot, I expect."

There was an awkward pause. Then Pip said--

"I'm--I'm awfully sorry, sir."

Hanbury understood, and he glowed inwardly to think that the first feeling of this small boy, whose very soul was wrung by the knowledge that he had received his first chance in life and thrown it away, should be one of regret for having disappointed his teacher rather than one of commiseration for himself. Mr. Hanbury was still young and very human, and he felt glad that he had read Pip aright, and not pinned his faith to the wrong sort of boy.

"My dear man," he said, "you did exactly what I expected you to do--no more and no less. You bowled erratically and fielded splendidly." (The idea that he had fielded well had never occurred to Pip.) "I was sorry about the bowling, but I knew you must go through the experience. The best bowler in the world never remembered to bowl with his head his first match. He just did what you did--shut his eyes and plugged them in as hard as he could."

Pip nodded. That was exactly what he had done.

"That's what I meant when I told you the other day that your education was not half completed. I meant that you might be able to knock over a stump at a net all day and yet not be able to keep your head before a crowd. You will do well now you have found your feet. You fielded like a man yesterday, and you'll bowl like a demon to-morrow. I expect great things of you, so keep your tail up, young man, and--By Jove, I promised to see Mr. Mortimer before nine! Excuse me a moment."

Ham bolted from the room.

For Pip, the imperturbable, the impenetrable, was--_horresco referens_--in tears! After all, he was barely fifteen, and he had endured a good deal already--the quiet disappointment of Marsh, the thinly veiled scorn of the deposed Elliott, and the half-amused contempt of the rest of the house. He had taken them all in his usual impa.s.sive way, and the critics who gathered in knots after the game and condemned Marsh for putting "an absolute kid" into the House Eleven, never suspected that the "kid" in question was struggling, beneath an indifferent exterior, between an intense desire for sympathy and a stubborn determination not to show it. And so these words from his beloved Ham, from whom he had expected at the best disappointed silence, brought to his overwrought soul that relief which he so badly needed; and a large tear, trickling down his nose, warned Mr. Hanbury to remember a pressing engagement elsewhere.

Pip soon recovered.

"Lucky Ham had to go out then," he soliloquised, "or he'd have seen me blub."

Ham returned after a discreet interval, and after a few words of wisdom and encouragement dismissed Pip to bed in a greatly improved frame of mind.

The Hivites began their second innings thirty-seven runs to the bad.

This fact had impressed itself upon the mind of Marsh, the captain, and he decided, in his vigorous way, that if anything was to be done he must do it himself. He accordingly went in first, accompanied by a confirmed "stone-waller," and proceeded to break the hearts of the Hitt.i.te bowlers. Nothing could shake the steadiness of the two players. The most beautiful b.a.l.l.s were sent down to them--b.a.l.l.s which pitched halfway and wavered alluringly, waiting to be despatched to square-leg, half-volleys, full-pitches, wides; but nothing would tempt them to take liberties. Marsh played sound cricket, and made runs; but his companion played a purely defensive game, his performance being accentuated by a series of sharp knocks, or dull thuds, according as he played the ball with his bat or his body. The arrears had been exactly wiped off when this hero, in endeavouring to interpose as much of his adamantine person as possible between his wicket and a leg-break, lurched heavily backwards and mowed down all three stumps. He retired amid applause.

But the Hivites were not out of the wood. The next two batsmen succ.u.mbed rather unluckily, the one leg-before, the other caught at the wicket,--the two ways in which no batsman is ever really out,--and a rot set in. Marsh, it was true, was playing the innings of his life. All bowling seemed to come alike to him, and he usually contrived to score a single at the end of the over and so prolonged the lives of his various fluttered partners. But he could not do everything, and when Pip came in last, the score was only a hundred and five, of which Marsh had made seventy.

Pip's previous performance had not been such as to justify any unbounded confidence in his supporters; but he certainly shaped better this time.

He had a good eye, and by resolutely placing his bat in the path of the approaching ball he achieved the twofold result of keeping up his wicket and goading the bowlers to impotent frenzy. Once he survived a whole maiden over, though he was bombarded with long hops, tempted with slows, and intimidated with full-pitches directed at his head. He stood perfectly still; the ball rebounded from his tough young person again and again; and now and then, when the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection were very obtuse indeed, he and Marsh ran a leg-bye. The score crept up, Marsh began to get near his century, and the Hivites again plucked up heart.

After batting for nearly a quarter of an hour, Pip, much to his own surprise, scored a run--four, to be precise--due to an entirely inadvertent snick to the off boundary. This brought the score up to a hundred and thirty. Directly afterwards Marsh completed his hundred, with a mighty drive over the ropes, and "e'en the ranks of Tuscany," as Uncle Bill observed, "could scarce forbear to cheer."

After that Marsh, feeling uncertain as to how long his companion intended to stay, determined to make hay while the sun shone.

Accordingly he began to hit. Four fours in one over brought on a slow bowler, who had to be taken off again as soon as possible; for even Pip despised him, and pulled one of his off-b.a.l.l.s to square-leg for three.

But this state of affairs was too good to last. Marsh, who had been smiting all and sundry since completing his hundred, ran out to a slow ball from the Hitt.i.te captain and missed it. The wicket-keeper whipped off the bails in a flash, and the innings was over. The full score was a hundred and fifty-seven, of which Marsh had made a hundred and seventeen. Pip scored seven, not out.

Verily, this was a match. The Hitt.i.tes only wanted a hundred and twenty to win; but a hundred and twenty is a big figure to compile out of the fourth innings of a house-match, when nerves are snapping like fiddle-strings. However, it was generally considered that the Hitt.i.tes would win by about five wickets, and Master Simpson, by wagering an ingenious musical instrument, composed mainly of half a walnut-sh.e.l.l and a wooden match (invaluable for irritating nervous masters), against two fives-b.a.l.l.s and a moribund white mouse belonging to Mumford, in support of his own house, had just brought himself within the sphere of operations of the Anti-Gambling League, when the Hivites went out to the field for the last time.

Marsh had found an opportunity for a hurried consultation with Mr.

Hanbury.

"It's no use your going on to bowl at present," said his adviser. "You can't knock up a hundred and expect to take wickets directly afterwards."

"Whom shall I begin with, sir? I thought of Martin and Watkins."

"Watkins is a broken reed, but he'll last for three overs. Take him off soon, and if you are not ready yourself, give our young friend Pip another trial."

Marsh c.o.c.ked a respectful but surprised eye at his master.

Hanbury saw the look. "You'll find him a very different performer now,"

he said. "That little bit of batting will have steadied him nicely. But don't keep him on too long, even though he takes wickets. Give him a rest after five overs, and put him on again later. Make him place his own field: the experience will be useful to him."

Things turned out pretty well as Mr. Hanbury had prophesied. Martin, a steady performer, kept the runs down at his end; and Watkins, the broken reed, bowled exactly three good overs, in the second of which he removed the Hitt.i.te captain's leg-bail with a ball which, as Uncle Bill observed, "would have beaten the Old Man himself." After that he fell away, and having been hit three times for four in his fourth over, was taken off.

Marsh was still feeling the effects of his innings, and decided to take another ten minutes' rest. He accordingly electrified players and spectators alike by tossing the ball to Pip.

"We shall win by nine wickets now," said Master Simpson with decision--"not five."

"My dear a.s.s," replied Mumford, "he's only put Pip on for an over to let Martin change ends."

"Well, if he bowls as he did last innings Martin won't get the chance, 'cause Pip will give us all the runs we want in one over. Let's see: six sixes are thirty-six, say ten wides, and--all right, lousy swine!"

This last remark was delivered from a nettle-bed behind the railings, and its warmth was due to the fact that the speaker had been neatly tilted backwards by a well-directed jog from the incensed Mr. Mumford's elbow.

But Pip had no intention of giving away runs this time. He was proud of the confidence in him that had been shown; he was burning to retrieve the disgrace of his last performance; and, best of all, his glorious spell of batting had soothed his nerves and accustomed him to public appearances. He arranged his field quietly, sent a couple of b.a.l.l.s down to the wicket-keeper, and even remembered to hand his cap to the umpire.

There was a hush all around the ground as he ran up to the wicket to deliver his first ball.

Things were certainly in a critical state. Of the hundred and twenty runs required to win, the Hitt.i.tes had obtained forty-five for the loss of one wicket. If the present pair could add another thirty before being separated the match was practically safe. It was felt that Marsh was playing a desperate game in risking everything on the efforts of such a tyro as Pip; and when the Scrabbler took his stand and prepared to punish his presumptuous folly, the Hitt.i.tes made ready to shout, and the Hivites to decamp to their house.

Pip's head was quite clear this time. His first two b.a.l.l.s were to be as straight as possible and a good length; the third, if possible, was to be a fast yorker; the fourth, a good length ball; the fifth, slow and curly; and the last, Ham had told him, could be anything he pleased.

He delivered his first ball as per programme. The Scrabbler stepped well out to it, calculating, with his long reach, to be able to smother it comfortably. Much to his surprise his bat met with no resistance, for he had planted it quite two inches outside. The ball pa.s.sed between his bat and his legs, whizzed past the leg stump, and was in the wicket-keeper's hands in a moment. The bails were whipped off, and the Scrabbler, who had dragged his foot right over the crease in his tremendous lunge forward, was out, stumped as neatly as possible.

A mighty shout went up as the Scrabbler retired. Two for forty-five.

Another batsman took his place. Pip delivered a ball almost identical with the first. This time the batsman, a stumpy person, not possessed of the Scrabbler's reach, played back, and succeeded in returning the ball to the bowler. Pleased with this success, and desiring to repeat it, he made the fatal mistake of deciding on his next stroke before the ball was bowled. Consequently he played back to a fast yorker, which, you will remember, came third on Pip's schedule. When he turned round his middle stump was lying on the ground, and the wicket-keeper was groping ecstatically for the bails.

Three for forty-five.

The next man was the heavy hitter of the eleven. It was his custom to smite every ball sent down, including the first, with uncompromising severity. On this occasion, however, he was sufficiently impressed with the solemnity of the occasion to endeavour to block the first ball, which was Pip's fourth,--a straight, good-length, orthodox delivery, rather on the short side. The ball rebounded from his rigid bat, and Point just failed to reach it. A little shudder ran round the ground.

The slogger, observing his escape, came to the conclusion that he might as well be outed for a slogger as a poker, and lashed out widely at ball number five, which was a slow and curly one. Now, since Pip, who felt the real bowling instinct, which tells a man what the batsman expects (and prompts him to bowl something entirely different), surging up hotter and stronger in his brain every moment, bowled when still a good two yards behind the crease, the lash-out came much too soon, and the slogger's bat was waving wildly in the air what time his bails were being disturbed by a beautiful curly ball which b.u.mped, very very gently, into his off-stump.

Four for forty-five.

There was no mistaking the shout that arose now. Previous vocal efforts had merely expressed pleased surprise at a good piece of bowling, and had voiced the gratifying fact that the Hivites, though about to be beaten, would not be disgraced; but the tornado which now rent the heavens signified that Pip had set the match on its legs again.

Our hero had now bowled five b.a.l.l.s, all with his head. He had been holding himself in, bowling not as he wanted to bowl, but as Ham had told him to bowl, and as he knew in his heart of hearts he ought to bowl. But now he was to have his sixth ball, which he was permitted to bowl in any way he pleased. Ham should see something!

His mentor was sitting under the trees with Uncle Bill.

"What will the infant phenomenon give us this time?" inquired the reverend gentleman.

"Something terrifically fast, probably to leg," replied Mr. Hanbury, who knew human nature.

He was right. The ball caught the batsman a resounding crack on the back of the thigh, and sped away to the boundary for four--a leg-bye. So ended Pip's first over.