“Are you counting that broken window a wicket?” asked the victim of Law Seven, Rectory Rules.
“What do you think?” said W. G. “If I chuck you a ’tice, and it leads you to take liberties, what do you think, Archie?”
“Why, I think your cheek’s increasing,” said the emphatic Archie.
Grace went in first for Gloucestershire, of course.
“One leg, Biffin, if you please,” said she, bending her brown face over her bat handle. “Toddles, will you have the goodness to come from behind the bowler’s arm? Oh, and Biffin, you must not forget that according to Rule Nine anything above medium is a no-ball. Fast bowling’s dangerous here, you know, tempts one to hit so hard. Do you hear that, Charlie?—nothing above medium.”
The best bowler in England was cruel enough to drop in one of his celebrated “yorkers” to his sister first ball. Even with the most accomplished defensive batswomen a yorker is always liable to have a fatal termination. It had in this instance. Crash went Miss Grace’s middle.
“No-ball!” yelled the umpire, just in the nick of time.
“Got that no-ball down to Gloucester, Father?” cried the imperturbable Grace to her parent who sat scoring under a willow tree, a safe distance away. “Oh, and Biffin, I think I’d better have two leg, I was bit inside that one, wasn’t I?” The way in which she lifted a bail and scraped the crease was W.G. to the manner born. “And, Toddles, can’t you keep from dancing behind the bowler’s arm?”
If the best bowler in England thought he was going to catch his sister napping a second time he was the victim of a grievous error. His yorkers had no terrors for her now. She got her bat down to every individual one, and had the temerity to block one so hard that she scored a single off it. She played a watchful and not altogether unscientific game, and despite the fact that three men were on the onside watching the case on behalf of the cucumber frame, she caused the bowling to be changed four times, and stayed in fifty minutes for sixteen. And the manner of her dismissal was decidedly unlucky. The gallant Artilleryman going on with his lobs as a last resource, his sister was no longer able to restrain her ardent soul: she got in a really fine straight in the manner of her brother Archie, whereon running in hard from the library windows, the little parson effected one of the finest catches ever witnessed on the Rectory lawn.
Contrary to expectation the finish was desperately close. Through my ignorance of the ground I had the misfortune to be run out for a duck. Toddles, who succeeded, shaped beautifully, his wrist work and knife-like cutting being a theme for general admiration. After contributing three singles and a two, however, he lost his wicket in a somewhat humiliating way. Grace, fielding mid-off, had by no means forgiven him for his wonderful catch, and was evidently, to judge by her concentrated look, biding her time. Presently, the little parson smashed one right at her all along the carpet at a great pace. Mid-off’s disturbed expression, and the quick way in which she turned round apparently to pursue, clearly indicated that she had been guilty of misfielding, and had allowed the ball to pass her. The unsuspecting Toddles started for a run, whereon the fieldsman like a flash of light produced the missing ball from the infinite recesses of her skirts, returned it hard and true, and the wicket-keeper had the little parson out by about two yards.