"Your m-manners are very b-bad, Speug, and I am a-ashamed of you. D-don't you know that the 'B-bumbees' have been p-playing in England and w-won their match? Twenty-two runs and s-seven wickets to fall. G-good s-sport, my Speug; read it in the newspaper."
"It wasna bad. I didna think the 'Bumbees' had as muckle spunk in them; seven wickets, did ye say, against the English? If I had kenned that, Nestie, ye little scoundrel, I would have given them a cheer. Seven wickets—they did the job properly." And Speug took his "gundy" with relish.
"Speug!"—and Nestie spoke with much impressiveness—"I have an idea. Why shouldn't the Seminary challenge the 'Bumbees' to a match next s-summer? We could p-practice hard all this summer, and begin s-soon next year and t-try them in July."
"It would be juist michty," said Speug, who was cheered at the thought of any battle, and he regarded Nestie with admiration, and then his face fell and he declared it of no use.
"They wouldna come, dash them for their cheek! and if they came they'd lick us clean. They have a professional and they play from morning till night. We're light-weights, Nestie. If they went in first, we'd never get them oot; and if we went in, they'd have us oot in half an 'oor."
"For shame, Speug, to run down the Seminary as if you were a 'Penny'! Didn't the county professional say that Robertson was the b-best young player he'd seen for t-ten years? And Bauldie hits a good b-ball, and no b-bowler can get you out, Speug, and there are other chaps just want p-practice. We might be b-beaten, but we'd make a stiff fight for the old Seminary."
"Ye can bowl, Nestie," said Speug generously, as they went back to school at the trot; "ye're the trickiest overhand I ever saw; and Jock Howieson is a fearsome quick and straicht bowler; and for a wicket-keeper Dunc Robertson is no easy to beat. Gosh!" exclaimed Speug, as they wheeled into the back-yard, "we'll try it."
The Seminary were slow to move, but once they took fire they burned gloriously; and when Dunc Robertson and Nestie Molyneux, who had been sent up to St. Columba's as the most presentable deputation, returned and informed the school assembled round the Russian guns that the "Bumbees" would send down their second eleven, since the first was too old for the Seminary, and play a single innings match on a Saturday afternoon in the end of July, next year, the Seminary lifted up their voice in joyful anticipation.
It did not matter that the "Bumbees" had only consented in terms of condescension by way of encouraging local sport, as they had tried to organise a Drumtochty eleven, or that it was quite understood that the result would be a hopeless defeat for the Seminary. They were coming, and the Seminary had a year to make ready; and if they were beaten in cricket, well, it couldn't be helped, but it was the first time Bulldog's boys had been beaten in anything, and they would know the reason why.
Special practice began that evening and continued that evening, and every other evening except Sundays as long as light lasted and on till the middle of October, when football could no longer be delayed. Practice began again a month before the proper season and continued on the same lines till the great day in July. The spirit of the Seminary was fairly up, and from the Rector who began freely to refer to the Olympian games, to the little chaps who had just come from a dame's school and were proud to field balls at bowling practice, the whole school was swept into the excitement of the coming event, and it is said that Bulldog stumped over every evening after dinner to watch the play and was the last to leave.