'Round the wicket, sir?' asked the umpire as Snap took the ball in hand.
'No, Charteris, over,' was the short reply, as Hales turned to measure his run behind the sticks.
'What! a new bowler?' asked Hawker of the wicket-keeper as he took a fresh guard; 'who is he?'
'An importation from the Twenty-two; got his colours last week,' answered Wyndham, and a smile spread over Hawker's face, as he saw in fancy a timid beginner pitching him half-volleys to be lifted over the garden hedge, or leg-balls with which to break the slates on the pavilion.
But Hawker had to reserve his energy for a while, being much too good a cricketer to hit wildly at anything. With a quiet, easy action the new bowler sent down an ordinary good-length ball, too straight to take liberties with, and that was all. Hawker played it back to him confidently, but still carefully, and another, and another, of almost identical pitch and pace, followed the first. 'Not so much to be made off this fellow after all,' thought Hawker, 'but he will get loose like the rest by-and-by, no doubt.' Still it was not as good fun as he had expected. The fourth ball of Snap's first over was delivered with exactly the same action as its predecessors, but the pace was about double that of the others and Hawker was only just in time to stop it. It was so very nearly too much for the great man that for a moment it shook his confidence in his own infallibility. That momentary want of confidence ruined him. The last ball of the over was not nearly up to the standard of the other four; it was short-pitched and off the wicket, but it had a lot of 'kick' in it, and Hawker had not come far enough out for it. There was an ominous click as the ball just touched the shoulder of his bat, and next moment, as long-slip remarked, he found it revolving in his hands 'like a stray planet.'
Don't talk to me of the lungs of the British tar, of the Irish stump orator, or even of the 'Grand Old Man' himself! They are nothing, nothing at all, to the lungs we had in those days. It was Snap's first wicket for the school, and Snap was the school's favourite, as the scapegrace of a family usually is, and caps flew up and fellows shouted until even Hawker didn't much regret his discomfiture if it gave the boys such pleasure. He was very fond of Fernhall boys, that sinewy man from the North, and, next to their own heroes, Fernhall liked him better than most men. Even now they show the window through which he jumped on all fours, and many a neck is nearly dislocated in trying to follow his example.
In the next over from his end Hales had to deal with Grey, and he found his match. He tried him with slow ones, he tried him with fast ones, he tried to seduce him from the paths of virtue with the luscious lob, to storm him with the Eboracian pilule or ball from York. It was not a bit of good, up went the shutter, and a maiden over left Snap convinced that the less he had to do with Grey the better for him, and left Grey convinced that Fernhall had got a bowler at last who bowled with his head. Was it wilfully, I wonder, that Snap gave Grey on their next meeting a ball which that steady player hit for one? It may not have been, and yet there was a grin all over the boy's dark face as he saw Grey trot up to his end. That run cost Loamshire two batsmen in four balls—one bowled leg before wicket, and the other clean-bowled with an ordinary good-length ball rather faster than its fellows.
Those old fields rang with Hales's name that afternoon, and at 6.30, thanks chiefly to his superb bowling, the county had still two to score to win, and two wickets to fall. One of the men still in was Grey. At the end of the over the stumps would be drawn, and the game drawn against the school, even if (as he might do) Snap should bowl a maiden. That, however, could hardly be; even Grey would hit out at such a crisis. At the very first ball the whole school trembled with excitement. The Loamshire man played well back and stopped a very ugly one, fast and well pitched, but it would not be altogether denied, and curled in until it lay quiet and inoffensive, absolutely touching the stumps.
Ah, gentlemen of Loamshire! if you want to win this match why can't you keep quiet? Don't you think the sight of that fatal little ball, nestling close up to his wicket, is enough to disconcert any batsman in the last over of a good match? And yet you cry, 'Steady, Thompson, steady!' Poor chap, you can see that he is all abroad, and the boy's eyes at the other end are glittering with repressed excitement. He is fighting his first great battle in public, and knows it is a winning one. There is a sting and 'devil' in the fourth ball which would have made even Grace pull himself together. It sent Thompson's bails over the long-stop's head, and mowed down his wicket like ripe corn before a thunder-shower.
And now the chivalry of good cricket was apparent; Loamshire had no desire to 'play out the time.' Even as Thompson was bowled, another Loamshire man left the pavilion, ready for the fray. If it had been 'cricket,' Hawker, the Loamshire captain, would have gladly played out the match. As it was, his man was ready to finish the over. As the two men passed each other the new-comer gave his defeated friend a playful dig in the ribs, and remarked, 'Here goes for the score of the match, Edward Anson, duck, not out!'