Joe Low, that stripling, had the other wicket.
Smack! Jack scored the first run off Easu, running for his life.
"You can be a gentleman even if you are a bush-whacker."
Nine wickets had fallen to Easu for twenty-seven runs, and Easu was elated. Then the parson came forth and stood opposite Jack. He at once whacked Ross' ball successfully, for three. Jack hitched his belt after the run, and hit out for another.
Smack! no need to run that time. It was a boundary.
Lennie's voice outside yelling admiration roused his soul, as did Easu's yelling agrily to Ross: "You give that ball to Sam, this over. You blanky idjut!"
Ross picked up the returning leather, and sent down a sulky grubber which Jack naturally skied. Herbert, placed at a point in the shade, came out to catch it, and missed.
Somehow the parson had steadied Jack's spirit. And when, in a crisis, Jack got his spirit steadied, it seemed to him he could get a semi-magical grip over a situation. Almost as if he could alter the swerve of the ball by his pure, clairvoyant will. So it seemed. And keyed up against the weird, handsome, native Easu, as if by a magic of will Jack held the wicket and got the runs. It was one of those subtle battles which are beyond our understanding. And Jack won.
But Easu got him out in the end. In the first innings, a terrific full pitch came down crash over his head on to the middle wicket, when he had made his first half century; that was Easu; and Easu stumped him out in the second innings, for twenty.
Nevertheless, the Reds were beaten by a margin of sixteen runs before the parson and the gentlemen in top hats set off for their long and dusty ride to York.