"Aw, shut up!" said Lennie. "Somebody'll turn up.—Who's comin' in at the gate now? Ain't it the parson from York, and five gents what can handle a bat. Hell!—ain't my name cockadoodle!"
In top hats and white linen suits these gentlemen had ridden their twenty-five miles for a game. What price the Reds now!
Tom's side was in first, Easu and Ross Ellis bowling, Easu, big, loose, easy, looked strange and native, as if he belonged to the natural salt of the earth there. He seemed at home, like an emu or a yellow mimosa tree. He was a bowler of repute. But somehow Jack could not bear to see him palm the ball before he bowled: could not bear to watch it. Whereas fat Ross Ellis, the other bowler, spitting on his hand and rolling the ball in elation after getting the wicket of the best man from York, Jack didn't mind him.—But unable to watch Easu, he walked away across the paddock, among the squatting mothers whose terror was the flying leather ball.
"Your turn at the wickets, Mr. Grant," called the excited, red-faced parson, who, Lennie declared, "Couldn't preach less or act more."
"We're eight men out for twenty-six rounds, so smack at 'em. If ye can get the loose end on Ross, do it. I'll be in t'other end next and stop 'em off Easu. I come in right there as th' useful block."
Jack was excited. And when he was excited, phrases always came up in his mind. He had the sun in his eyes, but the bat felt good.
"If a gentleman sees bad, he ignores it. He——"
Here comes the ball from that devil Easu!
How's that!
"Finds good and fans it to flame—fans it to——"