"It's a ghost," he said.
I could not but feel that the fellow was something of a cur. To this feeling I gave expression.
"Ghost or no ghost, rather than let him pound me all over the body with the ball, I would have made one try to hit at it. And you told me that you were an all-round player."
No doubt the man must have been suffering considerable pain, but I was too much annoyed at his cowardice to feel for him. Besides, the whole thing was so preposterous.
Undoubtedly, as a trundler Mr. Benyon was superb. I have no hesitation in saying that I do not remember to have seen finer bowling than his on any ground in England. He combined two things which, so far as I am aware, are not to be found together in any living player--pace and break. But it was not his bowling, fine as it was, which promised to work our ruin, so much as the absurd belief entertained by the members of the team that he--check trousers and all--was a ghost. An idea came into my head. I resolved that I would ask him, point-blank, in the face of all the people, if he was a ghost. If his answers did not satisfy the doubters nothing would.
The opportunity occurred just as he was about to begin his following over. Moving from the tent, I advanced towards the wickets.
"Excuse me, Mr. Benyon, but before you commence to bowl might I speak to you a word?"
He turned and looked at me. As he did so I was conscious that, in the most emphatic sense of the word, his appearance was peculiar. He looked as though he were a corpse, and an unhealthy corpse to boot--the sort of corpse that no man would spend a night with willingly. And this unpleasant appearance was accentuated by his ridiculous attire. Fancy a dead man, of a bloated habit of body, taking his walks abroad in a suit of checks--each check twelve inches square! I was so uncomfortably conscious that Mr. Benyon did not look a clubbable kind of man that I faltered in my speech.
"You will excuse me, Mr. Benyon, if the question I am about to put to you appears to you even worse than absurd, but the members of my team have some ridiculous notion in their heads that you are a certain Tom Benyon who died twenty years ago, and who now lies buried in the churchyard. I am sure, therefore, you will forgive my asking, are you a ghost?"
Mr. Benyon eyed me, and I eyed him--not willingly, but because, for some reason or other, I could not help it. At last he answered, speaking in a sort of shout,