'"Nōō, sir, nōō! Nōō, sir, nōō!"
'Of course the other fellows went into fits of laughter, and old Cube had fits too, only of another kind, and I expect I shall get "fits" from the Head for trying to get the young idiot off for this match. But I really don't see how we can get on without him,' Winthrop added, as he left his friend at the door, and plodded with a heavy heart up to the head-master's sanctum.
What happened there the narrator of this truthful story does not pretend to know. The inside of a headmaster's library was to him a place too sacred for intrusion, and it was only through the foolish persistence of certain unwise under-masters that he was ever induced to enter it. Whenever he did, he left it with a note of recommendation from that excellent man to the school-sergeant. It was not quite a testimonial to character, but still something like it, and always contained an allusion to one of the most graceful of forest trees, the mournful, beautiful birch. I am told that this is the favourite tree of the Russian peasant. I dare say. I am told he is still uneducated. It was education which, I think, taught me to dislike the birch.
But I am wandering. The only words which reached me as I stood below, wondering if my leave out of bounds would be granted or not—and I had very good reasons for betting on the 'not'—were these:
'Very well, if he is no good as a bat it won't much matter. I'll do what I can for you, only win the toss and go in first.'
He was a good fellow, our Head, and from Winthrop's face as he came downstairs I expect that he thought so.
I was quite right about that leave out of bounds. The head-master felt, no doubt quite properly, that on such a day as the day of the Loamshire match, when there were sure to be lots of visitors about, it would not do for one of the school's chief ornaments to be absent. It was very hard upon me because, you see, I could only buy twelve tarts for my shilling at the tuckshop, whereas if I had got leave out of bounds I could have got thirteen for the same money, only four miles from school! That sense of duty to the public which no doubt will lead me some day to take a seat in the House of Commons enabled me to bear up under my trouble, and about two o'clock I was watching the match with my fellows on the Fernhall playing fields.
Ah, me! those Fernhall playing fields! with their long level stretches of green velvet, their June sunshine and wonderful blue skies! What has life like them nowadays? On this day they were looking their very best, and, though I have wandered many a thousand miles since then, I have never seen a fairer sight. Forty acres there were, all in a ring fence, of level greensward, every yard of it good enough for a match wicket, and the ring-fence itself nothing but a tall rampart of green turf, twelve or fourteen feet high, and broad enough at the top for two boys to walk upon it abreast.
Out in the middle of this great meadow the wickets were pitched, and I really believe that I have since played billiards on a surface less level than the two-and-twenty yards which they enclosed. The lines of the crease gleamed brightly against the surrounding green, and the strong sun blazed down upon the long white coats of the umpires, the Fernhall eleven (or rather ten, for Snap was still absent), and two of the strongest bats in Loamshire.
But, though fourteen figures had the centre of the ground to themselves, there was plenty of vigorous, young life round its edges. There, where the sun was the warmest, with their backs up against the bank which enclosed the master's garden, sat or lay some four hundred happy youngsters, anxiously watching every turn of the match, keen critics, although thoroughgoing partisans. Like young lizards, warmed through with the sun, lying soft against the mossy bank, the scent of the flowers came to them over the garden hedge, and the soft salt breeze came up from the neighbouring sea. You could hear the lip and roll of its waves quite plainly where you lay, if you listened for it, for after all it was only just beyond that green bulwark of turf behind the pavilion. Many and many a time have we boys seen the white foam flying in winter across those very playing-fields, and gathered sea-wrack from the hedges three miles inland. By-and-by, when the match was over, most of the two-and-twenty players in it would race down to the golden sands and roll like young dolphins in the blue waves, for Fernhall boys swam like fishes in those good old days, and such a sea in such sunshine would have tempted the veriest coward to a plunge.