Mike, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse [e books for reading txt] 📗
- Author: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
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end for a couple of fluky fours. Then Mike got the bowling for three
consecutive overs, and raised the score to a hundred and twenty-six. A
bye brought Henfrey to the batting end again, and de Freece’s pet
googly, which had not been much in evidence hitherto, led to his
snicking an easy catch into short-slip’s hands.
A hundred and twenty-seven for seven against a total of a hundred and
sixty-six gives the impression that the batting side has the
advantage. In the present case, however, it was Ripton who were really
in the better position. Apparently, Wrykyn had three more wickets to
fall. Practically they had only one, for neither Ashe, nor Grant, nor
Devenish had any pretensions to be considered batsmen. Ashe was the
school wicket-keeper. Grant and Devenish were bowlers. Between them
the three could not be relied on for a dozen in a decent match.
Mike watched Ashe shape with a sinking heart. The wicket-keeper looked
like a man who feels that his hour has come. Mike could see him
licking his lips. There was nervousness written all over him.
He was not kept long in suspense. De Freece’s first ball made a
hideous wreck of his wicket.
“Over,” said the umpire.
Mike felt that the school’s one chance now lay in his keeping the
bowling. But how was he to do this? It suddenly occurred to him that
it was a delicate position that he was in. It was not often that he
was troubled by an inconvenient modesty, but this happened now. Grant
was a fellow he hardly knew, and a school prefect to boot. Could he go
up to him and explain that he, Jackson, did not consider him competent
to bat in this crisis? Would not this get about and be accounted to
him for side? He had made forty, but even so….
Fortunately Grant solved the problem on his own account. He came up to
Mike and spoke with an earnestness born of nerves. “For goodness
sake,” he whispered, “collar the bowling all you know, or we’re done.
I shall get outed first ball.”
“All right,” said Mike, and set his teeth. Forty to win! A large
order. But it was going to be done. His whole existence seemed to
concentrate itself on those forty runs.
The fast bowler, who was the last of several changes that had been
tried at the other end, was well-meaning but erratic. The wicket was
almost true again now, and it was possible to take liberties.
Mike took them.
A distant clapping from the pavilion, taken up a moment later all
round the ground, and echoed by the Ripton fieldsmen, announced that
he had reached his fifty.
The last ball of the over he mishit. It rolled in the direction of
third man.
“Come on,” shouted Grant.
Mike and the ball arrived at the opposite wicket almost
simultaneously. Another fraction of a second, and he would have been
run out.
[Illustration: MIKE AND THE BALL ARRIVED ALMOST SIMULTANEOUSLY]
The last balls of the next two overs provided repetitions of this
performance. But each time luck was with him, and his bat was across
the crease before the bails were off. The telegraph-board showed a
hundred and fifty.
The next over was doubly sensational. The original medium-paced bowler
had gone on again in place of the fast man, and for the first five
balls he could not find his length. During those five balls Mike
raised the score to a hundred and sixty.
But the sixth was of a different kind. Faster than the rest and of a
perfect length, it all but got through Mike’s defence. As it was, he
stopped it. But he did not score. The umpire called “Over!” and there
was Grant at the batting end, with de Freece smiling pleasantly as he
walked back to begin his run with the comfortable reflection that at
last he had got somebody except Mike to bowl at.
That over was an experience Mike never forgot.
Grant pursued the Fabian policy of keeping his bat almost immovable
and trusting to luck. Point and the slips crowded round. Mid-off and
mid-on moved half-way down the pitch. Grant looked embarrassed, but
determined. For four balls he baffled the attack, though once nearly
caught by point a yard from the wicket. The fifth curled round his
bat, and touched the off-stump. A bail fell silently to the ground.
Devenish came in to take the last ball of the over.
It was an awe-inspiring moment. A great stillness was over all the
ground. Mike’s knees trembled. Devenish’s face was a delicate grey.
The only person unmoved seemed to be de Freece. His smile was even
more amiable than usual as he began his run.
The next moment the crisis was past. The ball hit the very centre of
Devenish’s bat, and rolled back down the pitch.
The school broke into one great howl of joy. There were still seven
runs between them and victory, but nobody appeared to recognise this
fact as important. Mike had got the bowling, and the bowling was not
de Freece’s.
It seemed almost an anti-climax when a four to leg and two two’s
through the slips settled the thing.
*
Devenish was caught and bowled in de Freece’s next over; but the
Wrykyn total was one hundred and seventy-two.
*
“Good game,” said Maclaine, meeting Burgess in the pavilion. “Who was
the man who made all the runs? How many, by the way?”
“Eighty-three. It was young Jackson. Brother of the other one.”
“That family! How many more of them are you going to have here?”
“He’s the last. I say, rough luck on de Freece. He bowled rippingly.”
Politeness to a beaten foe caused Burgess to change his usual “not
bad.”
“The funny part of it is,” continued he, “that young Jackson was only
playing as a sub.”
“You’ve got a rum idea of what’s funny,” said Maclaine.
WYATT AGAIN
It was a morning in the middle of September. The Jacksons were
breakfasting. Mr. Jackson was reading letters. The rest, including
Gladys Maud, whose finely chiselled features were gradually
disappearing behind a mask of bread-and-milk, had settled down to
serious work. The usual catch-as-catch-can contest between Marjory and
Phyllis for the jam (referee and time-keeper, Mrs. Jackson) had
resulted, after both combatants had been cautioned by the referee, in
a victory for Marjory, who had duly secured the stakes. The hour being
nine-fifteen, and the official time for breakfast nine o’clock, Mike’s
place was still empty.
“I’ve had a letter from MacPherson,” said Mr. Jackson.
MacPherson was the vigorous and persevering gentleman, referred to in
a previous chapter, who kept a fatherly eye on the Buenos Ayres sheep.
“He seems very satisfied with Mike’s friend Wyatt. At the moment of
writing Wyatt is apparently incapacitated owing to a bullet in the
shoulder, but expects to be fit again shortly. That young man seems to
make things fairly lively wherever he is. I don’t wonder he found a
public school too restricted a sphere for his energies.”
“Has he been fighting a duel?” asked Marjory, interested.
“Bushrangers,” said Phyllis.
“There aren’t any bushrangers in Buenos Ayres,” said Ella.
“How do you know?” said Phyllis clinchingly.
“Bush-ray, bush-ray, bush-ray,” began Gladys Maud, conversationally,
through the bread-and-milk; but was headed off.
“He gives no details. Perhaps that letter on Mike’s plate supplies
them. I see it comes from Buenos Ayres.”
“I wish Mike would come and open it,” said Marjory. “Shall I go and
hurry him up?”
The missing member of the family entered as she spoke.
“Buck up, Mike,” she shouted. “There’s a letter from Wyatt. He’s been
wounded in a duel.”
“With a bushranger,” added Phyllis.
“Bush-ray,” explained Gladys Maud.
“Is there?” said Mike. “Sorry I’m late.”
He opened the letter and began to read.
“What does he say?” inquired Marjory. “Who was the duel with?”
“How many bushrangers were there?” asked Phyllis.
Mike read on.
“Good old Wyatt! He’s shot a man.”
“Killed him?” asked Marjory excitedly.
“No. Only potted him in the leg. This is what he says. First page is
mostly about the Ripton match and so on. Here you are. ‘I’m dictating
this to a sportsman of the name of Danvers, a good chap who can’t help
being ugly, so excuse bad writing. The fact is we’ve been having a
bust-up here, and I’ve come out of it with a bullet in the shoulder,
which has crocked me for the time being. It happened like this. An
ass of a Gaucho had gone into the town and got jolly tight, and
coming back, he wanted to ride through our place. The old woman who
keeps the lodge wouldn’t have it at any price. Gave him the absolute
miss-in-baulk. So this rotter, instead of shifting off, proceeded to
cut the fence, and go through that way. All the farms out here have
their boundaries marked by wire fences, and it is supposed to be a
deadly sin to cut these. Well, the lodge-keeper’s son dashed off in
search of help. A chap called Chester, an Old Wykehamist, and I were
dipping sheep close by, so he came to us and told us what had happened.
We nipped on to a couple of horses, pulled out our revolvers, and
tooled after him. After a bit we overtook him, and that’s when the
trouble began. The johnny had dismounted when we arrived. I thought
he was simply tightening his horse’s girths. What he was really doing
was getting a steady aim at us with his revolver. He fired as we came
up, and dropped poor old Chester. I thought he was killed at first, but
it turned out it was only his leg. I got going then. I emptied all the
six chambers of my revolver, and missed him clean every time. In the
meantime he got me in the right shoulder. Hurt like sin afterwards,
though it was only a sort of dull shock at the moment. The next item
of the programme was a forward move in force on the part of the enemy.
The man had got his knife out now—why he didn’t shoot again I don’t
know—and toddled over in our direction to finish us off. Chester was
unconscious, and it was any money on the Gaucho, when I happened to
catch sight of Chester’s pistol, which had fallen just by where I came
down. I picked it up, and loosed off. Missed the first shot, but got
him with the second in the ankle at about two yards; and his day’s
work was done. That’s the painful story. Danvers says he’s getting
writer’s cramp, so I shall have to stop….’”
“By Jove!” said Mike.
“What a dreadful thing!” said Mrs. Jackson.
“Anyhow, it was practically a bushranger,” said Phyllis.
“I told you it was a duel, and so it was,” said Marjory.
“What a terrible experience for the poor boy!” said Mrs. Jackson.
“Much better than being in a beastly bank,” said Mike, summing up.
“I’m glad he’s having such a ripping time. It must be almost as decent
as Wrykyn out there…. I say, what’s under that dish?”
MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
Two years have elapsed and Mike is home again for the Easter holidays.
If Mike had been in time for breakfast that morning he might
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