But he had to work hard to keep up his position in his own particular speciality, which was that of slogging batsman, for he was a bad bowler, too cowardly to keep a wicket, and too big, heavy, and lazy to field.
At the same time he was too jealous and vain to let others step in and help themselves to some of his laurels, notably the two young Indians, as he called them, for none of the older lads, his fellow-pupils for years past, ever dreamed of disputing his position. But both Glyn and Singh, untroubled by a thought of giving way to the older boy, proved themselves a splendid addition to the eleven that was picked from time to time to combat the town players or some other school.
To Slegge’s annoyance, he very soon found that if the prestige of the school was to be kept up Glyn and Singh must be in the eleven, for the former in a very short time was acknowledged to be the sharpest bowler in the school, while, from long practice together, Singh was an admirable wicket-keeper—one who laughed at gloves and pads, was utterly without fear, and had, as Wrench said—he being a great admirer of a game in which he never had a chance to play—“a nye like a nork.”
“But they can’t beat me at batting,” Slegge said to himself grimly, and he worked at his practice like a slave. But as a slave he made others slave—to wit, all the small unfortunates who took his fancy.
“You needn’t grumble, you lazy little beggars,” he used to say. “Nasty, ungrateful little beasts! See what bowlers I’m making of you, and what fielders!”
And in his manufacture of cricketers he would have out five or six at a time, with three or four cricket-balls, to keep on bowling to him while he went on slogging and hitting the balls in all directions, utterly reckless of the poor little fellows’ exhaustion and of the risks they ran, as he drove or cut the balls right at them or far away over the field.
The natural result was that in regular play Slegge’s score always mounted up when he was not opposed to Glyn and Singh, when there was generally what the delighted younger boys denominated a “swodge of rows;” while Slegge himself, always ready to pick a quarrel, never now attempted to settle it with fists, but he fought pretty hard with his tongue, and always declared that there was “a beastly conspiracy.”
Possibly there was; but it was only between the two friends, who strove their best to put him out, the one by a clean ball which sent stumps and bails flying, the other by laying his wicket low with a sharp movement when Slegge’s long legs had, in his excitement carried him off his ground.
One morning there was a little meeting held under the elms by twelve of the very junior juniors, for they had found out a malicious act on the part of their tyrant, or rather he had openly boasted of it himself, and not only showed the little fellows visually what he had done to his practice-bat, as he called it, but also awakened them thoroughly to his play.
“’Tisn’t fair,” said one of them. “I vote we lay it all before Burney and Severn and Hot Pickles.”