"Oh, the full-blooded villain!" exclaimed Penny.
Someone handed Honion another ball, and he bowled. Radley hit it with great force into the net on the off side. Our spirits sank. Honion was good; he was great; but he was not great enough for Radley.
The third ball Radley tapped straight to where I was standing, and I fielded it.
"Bowl," said he.
I did not wish to do so, but it was impossible to disobey. And, as I prepared to bowl, the silence became eloquent again. The new man, the eleventh-hour bowler, was measuring himself with Radley. I realised that my first ball teased him. My second laid his leg-stump on the ground. A yell of joy showed to what a height the spirits of the crowd had risen. But mine sank in proportion: I should never bowl him out twice in one day....
The bell rang, and the field was cleared.
All over the ground there was an anticipatory silence, which made the striking of the school-clock sound wonderfully loud. Then an ovation greeted Lancaster, as he led his classic team on to the ground.
The Masters had won the toss, and the two, who were to open the batting, left the pavilion amid applause, and assumed their places at the wicket. Lancaster placed his field, bowled a lightning ball, and splintered an old Oxonian's middle stump.
Here was excitement! Delirious boys prophesied that eight years' defeats would be wiped off the slate by the school's dismissing the Masters for a handful of runs, scoring a great score, and then dismissing them again, so as to win an innings victory. But stay! Who is this coming in first-wicket-down? Not Radley? Yes, by heaven, it is! He has come to see that no rot sets in. Now, Honion, you may well spit on your hands. A laugh trembles its way round the spectators, as Lancaster places his men in the deep field. He is ready to be knocked about.
The first over closes for ten, all off Radley's bat, two fours and a two. The new bowler, White, deals in slows, and the scoring partakes of the nature of the bowling. But the outstanding fact of that over is this: that Radley hit the last ball with terrific force along the ground, and it was so brilliantly fielded and thrown in that it scattered the stumps before Radley, who had started to run, could reach the crease. Suddenly, crisply, half a thousand mouths snapped out the query: "How's that!"