"Good Heavens!" groaned Tom Gordon aside plaintively; "I say, Nell, how long do you think the Guv'nor will be on his legs, for I'll slope out, and have a smoke----"
"S--st, Tom!" reproved his sister severely. "You can't--and you've got to play in the cricket match, you know."
Tom groaned again, but less plaintively; and so the speechifying went on, the burden of all being the incalculable advantage of a good sound English education in every walk of life. Did they but choose, every student present--at any rate, students of the stamp of Gunpat-Rai--might "rise to higher things."
So, with a final and formal hand-shake to the lad who had so distinguished himself, the company trooped out into the sunshine and the mission-school lay empty. Only in the place where Gunpat-Rai had sat ere rising to speak, a tiny packet wrapped in silver-leaf betrayed its presence by shining like a star. It was the talisman which his little fifteen-year-old wife had given him that morning ere he started, with tears and laughter, because it was only the first half-chewed, half-sucked piece of dough-cake his firstborn had ever had. It had dropped from his nerveless hand when, in a dire funk, he had stood up in answer to the call of his name.
It did not, however, shine long, for an impudent sparrow soon discovered that it was but dough made silvern, and promptly carried it off.
Meanwhile the cricket match was in full swing, Tom Gordon captaining one side, and the Reverend Mr. Freemantle (who still cherished an old blue cap he had worn in his Oxford days) the other.
Youth, however, had to be allowed for, so the last-comer from Eton found himself, to his great delight, at the head of ten smaller boys--jolly little chaps with bright eyes and boundless obediences--while the big students, including Gunpat-Rai--who was cock at cricket as in English, ranged themselves under their master.
They won the toss, and Tom Gordon, as he suppled his hands with the ball, told himself the bowling must be good.
And good it was, especially in style. The tall young figure in white flannels, close clipped about the lean flanks with the light blue belt, reminded one of a flying Mercury as it poised in delivery. Every woman's eye was on it in admiration. As for the swift balls it sent, they were a revelation to these Indian boys, who had never seen real cricket. They crumpled up before them like agitated spiders when they came off the wicket, and when they came on it, they looked helplessly at the umpire to see if they were really out. The Reverend Mr. Freemantle made a good stand, the memory of many a past day coming back to give half-forgotten skill to his bat, his sheer delight in his youthful adversary's prowess making him bold. Still the score stood ominously at one figure when Gunpat-Rai took his place. Tom Gordon hitched up his belt and looked.
"I should say leg before," he muttered, "but they're so thin, they hardly count."