Short Fiction, P. G. Wodehouse [books for 20 year olds .txt] 📗

It won’t be so cold-blooded as tossing. See?”

“You mean⁠—?”

“Whichever of us makes the bigger score today wins. The loser has to keep absolutely off the grass. Not so much as a look or a remark about the weather. Then, of course, after the winner has had his innings, if he hasn’t brought the thing off, and she has chucked him, the loser can have a look in. But not a moment before. Understand?”

“All right.”

“It’ll give an interest to a rotten match,” said Dick.

Tom rose to a point of order.

“There’s one objection. You, being a stodgy sort of bat, and having a habit of sitting on the splice, always get put in first. I’m a hitter, so they generally shove me in about fourth wicket. In this sort of match the man who goes in fourth wicket is likely to be not out half a dozen at the end of the innings. Nobody stays in more than three balls. Whereas you, going in first, will have time for a decent knock before the rot starts. Follow?”

“I don’t want to take any advantage of you,” said Dick condescendingly. “I shan’t need it. We’ll see Drew after breakfast and get him to put us both in first.”

The Rev. Henry Drew, cricketing curate, was the captain of the side.

Consulted on the matter after breakfast, the Rev. Henry looked grave. He was taking this match very seriously, and held decided views on the subject of managing his team.

“The point is, my dear Ellison,” he said, “that I want the bowling broken a bit before you go in. Then your free, aggressive style would have a better chance. I was thinking of putting you in fourth wicket. Would not that suit you?”

“I thought so. Tell him, Dick.”

“Look here, Drew,” said Dick; “you’ll regard what I’m going to say as said under seal of the confessional and that sort of thing, won’t you?”

“I shall, of course, respect any confidence you impart to me, my dear Henley. What is this dreadful secret?”

Dick explained.

“So you see,” he concluded, “it’s absolutely necessary that we should start fair.”

The Rev. Henry looked as disturbed as if he had suddenly detected symptoms of Pelagianism in a member of his Sunday school class.

“Is such a contest quite⁠—? Is it not a little⁠—um?” he said.

“Not at all,” said Dick, hastening to justify himself and friend. “We must settle the thing somehow, and neither of us will back out. If we didn’t do this we should have to toss.”

“Heaven forbid!” said the curate, shocked.

“Well, is it a deal? Will you put us in first?”

“Very well.”

“Thanks,” said Tom.

“Good of you,” said Dick.

“Don’t mention it,” said Harry.

There are two sorts of country cricket. There is the variety you get at a country-house, where the wicket is prepared with a care as meticulous as that in fashion on any county ground; where red marl and suchlike aids to smoothness have been injected into the turf all through the winter; and where the out-fielding is good and the boundaries spacious. And there is the village match, where cows are apt to stroll on to the pitch before the innings and cover-point stands up to his neck in a furze-bush.

The game which was to decide the fate of Tom and Dick belonged to the latter variety. A pitch had been mown in the middle of a meadow (kindly lent by Farmer Rollitt on condition that he should be allowed to umpire, and his eldest son Ted put on to bowl first). The team consisted of certain horny-handed sons of toil, with terrific golf-shots in the direction of square-leg, and the enemy’s ranks were composed of the same material. Tom and Dick, in ordinary circumstances, would have gone in to bat in such a match with a feeling of lofty disdain, as befitting experts from the civilised world, come to teach the rustic mind what was what.

But on the present occasion the thought of all that depended on their bats induced a state of nerves which would have done credit to a test match.

“Would you mind taking first b-b-ball, old man?” said Tom.

“All r-right,” said Dick. He had been on the point of making the request himself, but it would not do to let Tom see that he was nervous.

He took guard from Farmer Rollitt, and settled himself into position to face the first delivery.

Whether it is due to the pure air of the country or to daily manual toil is not known, but the fact remains that bowlers in village matches, whatever their other shortcomings, seldom fall short in the matter of speed. The present trundler, having swung his arm round like a flail, bounded to the crease and sent down a ball which hummed in the air. It pitched halfway between the wickets in a slight hollow caused by the foot of a cow and shot. Dick reached blindly forward, and the next moment his off-stump was out of the ground.

A howl of approval went up from the supporters of the enemy, lying under the trees.

Tom sat down, limp with joy. Dick out for a duck! What incredible good fortune! He began to frame in his mind epigrammatic sentences for use in the scene which would so shortly take place between Miss Dolly Burn and himself. The next man came in and played flukily but successfully through the rest of the over. “Just a single,” said Tom to himself as he faced the bowler at the other end. “Just one solitary single. Miss Burn⁠—may I call you Dolly? Do you remember that moonlight night? On the Char? In my Canadian canoe? We two?”

“ ’S that?” shrieked bowler and wicket-keeper as one man.

Tom looked blankly at them. He had not gone within a mile and a half of the ball, he was certain. And yet⁠—there was the umpire with his hand raised, as if he were the Pope bestowing a blessing.

He walked quickly back to the trees, flung off his pads, and began to smoke furiously.

“Well?” said a voice.

Dick was standing before