Thus the affair was taken out of our hands, and when the day arrived we pitched the stumps where Kippy, giving due consideration to the Colonel's foliage, thought the light was most advantageous.
The Village won the toss, and old Tom Pratt took guard and proceeded to dig himself in by making what he termed his "block-hole." I visualised the choleric blue eye of the Colonel and shuddered.
For a time matters proceeded uneventfully. Then, at the fall of the fourth wicket, the game suddenly developed, Jim Butcher, batting at the pergola end, giving us an exhibition of his famous scoop shot, which landed full pitch through the drawing-room window. It was a catastrophe of such dimensions that even the boldest spirit quailed before it, and the Colonel's butler, batting at the other end, immediately dissociated himself from the proceedings and bolted from the field.
Kippy, as befitted a warrior of parts, was the first to recover.
"'Ere," he exclaimed, "we carn't 'ave this; wot do you think the Colonel will say?"
I do not suppose there was anyone who had not thought of it.
"We got to 'ave fresh rules," Kippy continued. "Anyone breaking a winder 'as to retire, mend the winder, and 'is side loses ten runs." Only a super mind could in the time have framed a punishment so convincingly deterrent.
The scoop shot from the pergola end was ruled out in a sentence, and we were treated to a masterly and Jessopian demonstration of how to get an off ball past square-leg.
But no completely efficient form of organisation can be encompassed in an hour, nor can man legislate for the unknown factor.
In this case Kippy was not aware that, on the far side of the shrubbery, against an ancient sun-bathed wall, stood the greenhouse which sheltered the Colonel's prize grapes. And so Jim Butcher, playing this time from the rockery end, brought off the double event and caused another new clause to be added to the local rules. With thirty-seven to his credit and still undefeated he was making history in the village, though it must be admitted that no one was ever less anxious to retain the post of honour, and when the gardener laid out the damaged fruit nothing short of Kippy's appeal would have persuaded him to continue his innings.