Amidst the eager exclamations of his friends, Tom Clemmer strode into the tent, and began slowly to unbuckle his pads. All the time he stared fixedly into space.
‘I could ha’ hup wi’ my fist,’ he said, after a moment’s wrathful silence, addressing no one in particular, ’an’ I could ha’ gi’en that there grocer-chap sech a— But there! ’tis no sense yammerin’! Doan’t ye run out, sir, or ’a ’ll ha’ ye, same as ’a had me!’
He spoke now to the curate, who was preparing to go to the wicket, and the truth dawned upon us at last. The bowler had played Tom a very ancient and very mean-spirited trick. Old Clemmer, regardless of the agony it caused him, stamped his swaddled foot upon the ground.
‘An’ to think, Tom!’ he groaned, ‘as ye lit up th’ forge-fire special for ’un only laast Sunday, ’cause his ould mare—’
But we had no thought for anything but the disaster that had befallen us, and all that was now imminent. With Tom Clemmer, the one hope of Windlecombe, out of the fight, what might happen to the rest? With bated breath we watched for the third ball. Young Daniel drove it over the bowler’s head, and with a trembling pencil I put down two to his name. Playing with desperate care, he added two more before the end of the over, and we began to pluck up heart again. Young Tom came and stood behind me. His big thumb travelled down the list of names on the scoring-book.
‘’Tis not lost yet!’ he said with reviving cheerfulness. ‘Dan’l may do well, wanst ’a gets set. An’ belike Mr. Weaverly ’ull bide out a bit. Then there be Huggins wi’ his luck; an’ who knaws but what the boys ’ull account fer a dozen or so atween ’em?’
I had now time, as the fielders were accommodating themselves to the left-handed batting of the curate, to glance down the list. The last name came upon me as an utter surprise.
‘What? Never old Stallwood! Why, he must be seventy, if he’s a—’
‘Ay! Cap’n Stall’ard sure enow! ’Tis a joke, more ’n anything. But ne’er another livin’ sowl there wur, as cud— Oh, Jupitty! Mr. Weaverly’s hout leg-afore!’
But it was not Mr. Weaverly’s leg. With a white face, his body bent to the shape of an inverted letter L, and both arms clasped about his middle, the curate came tip-toeing back to the tent. He sat down silently in a corner. Huggins—a lean, red-whiskered giant in moleskins—burst out into the sunshine and made for the wicket, waving his bat like a war-club and murmuring imprecations as he went.