He endeavoured to receive with proper gravity and dignity the ball from Sidney, who gave him a few words of appropriate advice, but he failed utterly in the attempt. That grin would not leave his face: it was as much a part of his physiognomy as his nose, I believe!
Little chap as he was, however, his advent produced a change at once. His first three overs were maidens, balls that were dead on to the wicket, and so true and ticklish that the Inimitable champions did not dare to play them. In the next, bang went one of the two stickers’ leg-stump at young Black’s first ball; with the second he caught and bowled the fresh man who came in, before he scored at all—four wickets for a hundred and fifty runs, not one of which had been put on since he came on to bowl. Things began to look up, or, at all events, did not appear in so sombre a light as they had done previously.
“Bravo, Black!” resounded from every part of the field; but the little fellow took no notice of the applause, beyond grinning more widely than ever, “his mouth stretching from ear to ear,” as Charley Bates said, green with envy and jealousy of the other’s performance.
The new bowler seemed to demoralise the batsmen even as they had previously demoralised us, for I had a bit of luck a little further on, taking one wicket by a low-pitched ball, and getting another man out with a catch; and then Black, as if he had been only playing with the Inimitables hitherto, braced himself up to the struggle, and began laying the stumps low right and left.
It was a wonder that such a small chap could send in the balls at the terrific speed he did, balls that set leg-guards and pads at defiance, and splintered one of the batsmen’s spring-handled bats as if it had been match wood; but he did it.
His last over in that first innings of the Inimitables, however, was the crowning point in his victorious career. With four consecutive balls he took the four last wickets of our opponents, and sent them off the ground without putting up a run—the whole eleven being out for one hundred and fifty-six runs—or not quite the century beyond us; and the principal feature of Black’s triumph was, that from the moment he handled the leather, the Inimitables only scored six to the good, but one run of which was off his bowling.
I should like you to beat that analysis, if you can!
With the disposal of our antagonists so easily at the end, we began our second innings with more sanguine expectations than could have been imagined from our previous prostration.
“Black had better go in as first man along with you, Hardy, and see what he can do,” our captain said.
The two accordingly went to the wickets at the beginning of the innings; and there they remained without giving a single chance until the conclusion of the day’s play, when the stumps were drawn at seven o’clock in the evening.