It was maddening! But what annoyed John Hardy even more than that ass Tom Atkins having run him out was that the captain had never given young James Black any opportunity of showing his batting skill, as, being persuaded by Charley Bates, who pooh-poohed the youngster’s abilities in toto, he had only sent him in as “last-man,” and Black hadn’t, of course, the chance of playing a ball. Sidney, however, promised to right the matter in our second innings, should our opponents give us time to play one, and not occupy the wickets, as seemed very probable, for the two days over which the match could only extend: and with this promise Prester John and his protégé, young Jemmy Black, were fain to be content.
The three recruits we had engaged from amongst the visitors to join our scratch eleven had, up to the present, done nothing to warrant our captain’s encomiums on their skill—at least in the batting line, which they had only essayed as yet; it remained to be proved whether they were worth anything in the field; if not, then our chances of receiving a hollow licking were uncommonly bright, as Charley Bates pointed out with his customary cheerful irony.
Well, after luncheon, when we entertained them in the most hospitable manner, as if we loved them instead of feeling sentiments the reverse of amicable towards them, the Inimitables went in for their first innings; and the way they set to work scoring from the moment they commenced to handle the bat, prognosticated that Charley Bates’ evil surmise as to our defeat would be speedily realised.
I think I have already hinted that I somewhat prided myself on my bowling, being celebrated amongst the members of the Little Peddlington Cricket Club for sending in slows of such a judicious pitch that they generally got the man caught out who attempted to drive them, while, should he contemptuously block them, they had such an underhand twist that they would invariably run into the wickets, although they mightn’t seem to have strength to go the distance? From this speciality of mine I was looked upon as a tower of strength in the bowling line to the club; and, consequently, I and one of our visitor recruits, Tomkins by name, were intrusted with the ball at the first start.
Tomkins bowled swift with a pretty fair pitch, and I bowled slow, dead on to the wicket every time; but the two men of the Inimitables who began the batting on their side-men who have gained almost a European reputation in the handling of the willow, and I wouldn’t like to hurt their feelings by mentioning their names now—seemed to play with us as they liked, hitting the ball to every part of the ground, and scoring threes and fours, and even sixes, in the most demoralising manner possible. They hadn’t been in a quarter of an hour when they passed our miserable total, amidst the cheers of their own party—in which the fickle Little Peddlingtonians now joined, and the blue looks of our men—and it appeared as if their scoring would, like Tennyson’s brook, “go on for ever.”
“We must put a stop to this,” said Sidney, when seventy went up on the scoring-board, “and change the bowling,” which he did, by going on himself at my end and putting one of the other visitors, who was also supposed to be a dab with the ball, in the place of Tomkins.
For a time, this did a little good, as it stopped the rapidity of the scoring; but after an over or two, the batsmen, neither of whom had been yet displaced, began putting up the runs again, even quicker than they had done with us; and the hundred was passed almost within the hour from the time they started.
“By George, Limpet,” said the captain, calling me to him out of the field, “you must go on again at the upper end, changing places with that chap. Try a full pitch, and we’ll catch that long-legged beggar out; he’s so confident now that he would hit at anything.”
Going on again, as Sidney had directed, I tried a full-pitched ball after a short delivery or two, and the “long-legged beggar” skied it, amidst the breathless suspense of our team.
Unfortunately, however, no one was there to catch it when it fell to the ground a long way beyond cover-point, and the Inimitables scored six for it—disgusting!