"That's nothing," Mr. Sapsworth cried. "There's Hedges here; we've had to put him in; he don't even know the rules of the game, and he's just turned sixty-one."
I glanced at Mr. Hedges, thus frankly referred to. He was a smiling, red-faced, bald-headed old gentleman, who, if not considerable in height, was great in girth. He would certainly have turned the scale at sixteen stone. I felt that, to cricketers who intended to play Mr. Hedges, any objections which I might urge would appear quite trivial.
"When is the match to be?" I asked.
"To-morrow," was the startling reply.
I was speechless. That I, after fifteen years' total abstention, should be asked to captain a team the members of which were entire strangers to me, and of whose individual styles of play I had not the faintest notion, in a match against an unknown foe, at four-and-twenty hours' notice, was a little hard to credit. It was altogether too preposterous. I told them so. But they could not be brought to see it.
The end of it was that I agreed to play. No man knows to what a depth of folly he can sink until he tries.
CHAPTER II.
MR. BENYON BOWLS.
The match was to be played on Mr. Stubbs's field. Mr. Stubbs was a local butcher. Mr. Sapsworth had kindly promised to come and escort me to the scene of action. He arrived at half-past nine, just as I was opening my morning's letters. On the way he gave me a chart of the country. It appeared that in batting we were not strong, in fielding we were weak, and that our bowling was more than shaky.
"But we shall pull through," Mr. Sapsworth added; "especially now," and he glanced at me.