"Run it out!" cried Mr. Benyon. He and Mr. Barker began to run. They ran four, and then they ran two more, and still the ball was not thrown in. Mr. Benyon urged the fielders on. "Hurry up, Bill Hedges!"
Mr. Hedges did not hurry up; he never could have hurried up, even if his manner of "fielding" the ball had not wholly deprived him of his wind. But the ball was at last thrown in--when the pair had run eleven. Forty-one runs off his first over was a result calculated to take the conceit out of the average bowler. And Mr. Benyon's last performance, his "snick," had placed him at the other wicket, prepared to receive Mr. Sapsworth's bowling--when it came.
"Now, Bob Sapsworth, I'll have a smack at you!" he said.
He had. I felt for Mr. Sapsworth. But since I had suffered it was only fair that he should suffer too. Crack--smack--whack went the balls out of sight in all directions. And for each ball that disappeared Mr. Benyon produced another from his breeches pocket. I felt that these things must be happening to me in a dream. I was rapidly approaching the condition in which Alice must have been in Wonderland--prepared for anything.
Time went on. Mr. Sapsworth and I bowled over after over. Mr. Benyon was making a record in tall scoring. No performance of "W. G.'s" ever came within many miles of it. And the balls he lost! And the balls which he produced! And the diabolical ingenuity with which he managed, at the close of every over, to change his end! If Mr. Barker did no hitting, he did some running. He never had a chance to make a stroke, but his partner took care to make him run an incredibly large odd number as a wind up to every over. Mr. Benyon did not seem to be distressed by the exertion in the least; Mr. Barker emphatically did.
Mr. Benyon had buoyed us up by his statement that he would soon have to go. His ideas of soon were different from ours. I suppose, at the outside, our innings had lasted half an hour. How long we bowled to Mr. Benyon is more than I can say. I know that I bowled until I felt that I should either have to stop or drop. By degrees one fact began to be impressed upon me. It was this--that the number of spectators was growing smaller by degrees and beautifully less. Originally there had been quite a crowd assembled. In course of time this had dwindled to half a dozen stragglers. A little later on even these had gone. And not only spectators but cricketers had disappeared. If my eyes did not deceive me, there was not a member of the Latchmere team left on the ground. They had had enough of Mr. Benyon--or his ghost.
What was more, some of our own team took courage, and leg-bail. I caught one of them--the lad Fenning--in the act of scrambling through the hedge. But I had not the heart to stop him. I only wished that I had been so fortunate as to have led the van.
The thing grew serious. So far as I could see, Mr. Hawthorn, Mr. Hedges, Mr. Sapsworth, and I were the only members of the Storwell team left on the ground. And the reflection involuntarily crossed my mind--what fools we were to stay! The amount of running about we had to do! And the way in which Mr. Benyon urged us on! The perspiration was running off from us in streams--I had never had such a "sweater" before!
"I do like your kind of bowling, mister," Mr. Benyon would constantly remark.
If I had had an equal admiration for his kind of batting we should have been quits, but I had not; at least not then.