Mr. Hedges, who was seated at the scorer's side, brought down his fist upon the trestle-table with a bang.
"I knew it was! I knowed him all along!" Mr. Hedges was in a state of odd excitement. "That chap who bowled you ain't a man, sir--he's a ghost."
"He manages to put a good deal of pace on the ball for a ghost," I answered.
"And so he ought to. Did you hear what name he said? He said Tom Benyon! There wasn't a better cricketer in all these parts than Tom Benyon used to be. He played up in Lunnon more than once, I know, and got well paid for playing too. But he always was a queer sort, was Tom. I knew him well. I saw him buried. And if it is him, and not his ghost, he ain't grown a day older these twenty years, he ain't."
I laughed. I supposed the old gentleman was jesting. But not a bit of it. When our second man had gone to the wicket Mr. Sapsworth drew me aside.
"I don't like the look of this," he said.
"Nor I," I answered, supposing he referred to Mr. Benyon's bowling. "He'll bring down our stumps like ninepins."
"It isn't that. It--it's the man," he said.
"Do you mean the ghost?" I asked jokingly.
"It's easy to laugh. But----" Mr. Sapsworth paused. I could see he was ashamed of himself, yet had his suspicions none the less. "I thought I had seen him before, and I had. It is Tom Benyon."