Mates at Billabong

by Mary Grant Bruce

Cecil, however, knew nothing of these comments, and was very well satisfied with himself as they walked slowly along the lane leading to the cricket ground. Jim, on the other side of Mrs. Anderson, tall and handsome in his flannels, with his white hat pulled over his eyes, discoursed cheerfully of school matches, and promised them something worth seeing if young Wally got going with the bat—conversation which did not interest Cecil, who turned it as speedily as might be to matters more to his taste, whereat Jim grew silent, listening with a smile hovering on his well-cut mouth to society doing in the city, told with a view to impressing his hearers with a sense of the narrator's own important share therein. Once Mrs. Anderson met Jim's eye in a brief glance, and reflected the smile momentarily. Behind them, Norah, Wally, and the little doctor kept up a flow of chatter which Wally described as "quite idiotic and awfully comfortable!" The party arrived at the cricket ground on very good terms with itself.

The ground boasted no pavilion save a shed used for the preparation of afternoon tea—a building of which the extreme heat made it almost possible to boil the kettle without lighting a fire! Naturally, no one used it for purposes of watching the play, but there was a row of wattle trees along one side of the ground, and seats placed in their shade made an excellent natural grand stand. Here the non-players betook themselves, while the doctor and the two boys went off to the spot where already most of the other players were gathered—a lean-to under a huge gum-tree, used as a dressing-room by most of the combatants, a number of whom arrived on horseback from long distances. The Billabong boys had changed at the hotel, after putting up their horses, and before repairing to the Andersons', so that they had no dressing to do—which was more than fortunate for them, since the lean-to was so thick with men, boys, valises, discarded garments, leggings and boots, that it resembled a hive in a strong state of disorganization.

Finally, the men were ready; a somewhat motley crowd—not more than seven or eight in flannels, while the remainder were in ordinary dress, with occasionally riding breeches and leggings to be seen, and not a few football jerseys. The Mulgoa men, on being mustered, were found to be a man short, while Cunjee had one to the good. So Murty O'Toole, to his intense disgust, was solemnly handed over to Mulgoa. Then Dr. Anderson, who captained Cunjee, won the toss, and Murty took the field along with his new allies, amid heartless jeers from Mr. Boone, smoking comfortably under a tree, who desired to know should he fetch Mr. O'Toole an umbrella?

The story in detail of a cricket match is generally of particular interest to those who have been there; and as, unfortunately, the number of spectators of the famous battle between Cunjee and Mulgoa was limited, little would be served by an exhaustive description of each over bowled on that day of relentless heat. Cunjee shaped badly from the start. Their two most noted batsmen, a young blacksmith and the post-master, fell victims, without getting into double figures, to the crafty bowling of the Mulgoa captain, Dan Billings—who drove a coach in his spare moments, and had as nice an understanding of how to make a ball break on a fast wicket as of flicking the off leader on the ear with the cracker of his four-in-hand whip. Dr. Anderson scored a couple of fours, and then went out "leg before." He remarked, returning to the "pavilion" sorrowfully, that when one was as round and fat as he, it was difficult to keep out of the way of three little sticks! Then Dave Boone and Wally made a stand that roused the perspiring spectators to something like enthusiasm, for Mr. Boone was a mighty "slogger," and Wally had a neat and graceful style that sent the Cunjee supporters into the seventh heaven. Between them the score mounted rapidly, and the men of Mulgoa breathed a sigh of relief when at length Dave skied a ball from Billings, which descended into the ample hands of Murty O'Toole, who was quite undecided whether to treat his catch as a triumph or a calamity. There was no doubt, however, on the part of his colleagues for the day, who thumped him wildly on the back and yelled again with joy. Mr. Boone retired with a score of forty-five and a wide grin.

Then Jim joined Wally, and kept his end up while his chum put on the runs. Nothing came amiss to Wally that day—slow balls, fast balls, "yorkers," "googlies"—the science of Mulgoa went to earth before the thin brown schoolboy with the merry face. Jim, however, was never at ease, though he managed to remain in a good while; and eventually Dickenson, a wiry little Mulgoa man, found his middle stump with a swift ball—to the intense dismay of Norah, to whom it seemed that the sky had fallen. Cecil smiled serenely.

"I had an idea Jim fancied himself as a bat!" said he.

"Jim never fancies himself at anything!" said Jim's sister, indignantly. "Anyway, he's a bowler far more than a bat."

"Ah, it's possibly not his 'day out.' What a pity!" Cecil murmured.

"Well, we can't always be on our best form, I suppose," said Mrs. Anderson, pacifically. "And, at any rate, Norah, your friend is doing splendidly. Wasn't that a lovely stroke?"

Alas! it soon was apparent that Cunjee was not going to support its ally. One after another the wickets went down, and the batsmen returned from the field "with mournful steps and slow." Wally, seeing his chances diminishing, took liberties with the bowling, and hit wildly, with amazing luck in having catches missed. At last, however, he snicked a ball into cover-point's hands, and retired, amid great applause, having made forty-three. The remaining Cunjee wickets went as chaff before the wind, and the innings closed for 119.