Fathers of Men

“More or less is no good. Have you nothing to show by way of a receipt?”

“Sandham may have. I know he stumped up a lot that very Sunday you saw us.”

“Then what did you think of doing, if you did get out to see him after dinner?”

“Stave him off till the holidays, I suppose.”

“You didn’t mean to stump up any more?”

“No, I’m hard up, that’s the point.”

“And you’d have stayed him off by promising him a good bit more if he’d wait?”

“By hook or crook!” cried Evan, desperately. “But unless I can get away from the match, I’m done.”

Jan put on an air of sombre mystery, lightened only by the crafty twinkle in his eyes. Chips would have read it as Jan’s first step to the rescue. But Evan missed the twinkle, and everything else except the explicit statement:

“You can’t get away, Evan.”

“Then it’s all up with me!”

“Not yet a bit.”

“But the fellow means it!”

“Let him mean it.”

“If I’m not there – ”

“Somebody else may take your place.”

“In the field? My dear fellow – ”

“No, not in the field, Evan, nor yet at the crease. In Yardley Wood!”

Jan allowed himself a smile at last. And Chips could not have been quicker than Evan to see his meaning now.

“Who will you get to go, Jan,” he was asking eagerly without more ado.

“You must leave that to me, Evan.”

“One of the Old Boys?”

“If I’m to help you, Evan, you must leave it all to me.”

“Of course you know so many more of them than I do. It’s your third year…”

Evan was unconsciously accounting for an enviable influence among the young men with the famous colours. To be sure, Jan was now a Pilgrim himself; he was already one of them. Jan Rutter! But it was certainly decent of him, very decent indeed, especially when they had seen so little of each other all the year. Evan was not unaware that he had treated Jan rather badly, that Jan was therefore treating him really very well. It enabled him to overlook the rather triumphant air of secrecy which it pleased Jan to adopt. After all, it was perhaps better that he should not know beforehand who was actually going to step into the breach. The chances were that almost any Old Boy, remembering that blackguard Mulberry, would be only too glad to give him a fright, if not to lend the money to pay him off.

But even Evan was not blinded, by these lightening considerations, to his immediate obligations to Jan.

“I never expected you to help me like this,” he said frankly. “I only came to ask you about this afternoon. I – I was thinking of shamming seedy!”

Jan seemed struck with the idea; he said, more than once, that it was a jolly good idea; but there would have been a great risk of his being seen, and now thank goodness all that was unnecessary. If only they could first save the follow, and then get those Old Boys out quickly before lunch! That would be worth doing still, Jan hastened to add, as though aware of some inconsistency in his remarks. His eyes were alight. He looked capable of all his old feats, as he stood up in the litter from which a fag could not cleanse the Augean study.

But Evan fell into a shamefaced mood; he was getting a sad insight into himself as compared with Jan; his self-conceit was suffering even on the surface. Jan would never have fallen into Mulberry’s clutches; he would have kept him in his place, as indeed Sandham had done; either of those two were capable of coping with fifty Mulberrys, whereas Evan had to own to himself that he was no match for one. He may even have realised, even at that early stage of his career, that in all the desperate passes of life he was a natural follower and a ready leaner on others. If he was not so very ready to lean on Jan, there were reasons for his reluctance… And at least one reason did him credit.

“I don’t know why you should want to do all this for me,” he murmured on their way down to the ground. “It isn’t as if I’d ever done anything for you!”

“Haven’t you!” said Jan. They were arm-in-arm once more, to his huge inward joy.

“I’ll do anything in the world after this. I’ll never forget it in all my days.”

“You’ve done quite enough as it is.”

“I wish I knew what!” sighed Evan, honestly.

And he seemed quite startled when Jan reminded him.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SECOND MORNING’S PLAY

“By Jove!” exclaimed Carpenter in the scoring tent. “I haven’t seen Jan do that for years. It used to mean that he was on the spot.”

“He did it when he went in just now,” replied the præpostor who was scoring. “It only meant five more runs to him then.”

“But those five saved the follow! I don’t believe he meant to get any more.”

“You don’t suggest that he got out on purpose, Chips?”

“I shouldn’t wonder. I know he told me the wicket would be just right for him when the heavy roller had been over it. By Jove, he’s doing it again!”

What Jan had done, and was doing again, was something which had been chaffed out of him his first year in the Eleven. He was pulling the white cap, with the honourably faded blue ribbon, tight down over his head, so that his ears became unduly prominent, and his back hair gaped transversely to the scalp.

The scorer remarked that he had better sharpen his pencil, and Jan retorted that he had better watch the over first. It was the first over of the Old Boys’ second innings, and the redoubtable Swiller had already taken guard. Jan ran up to the wicket, with all his old clumsy precision, but more buoyancy and verve than he put into his run now as a rule. And the Swiller’s shaven face broke into a good-humoured grin as the ball went thud into the wicket-keeper’s gloves; it had beaten him completely; the next one he played; off the third he scored a brisk single; and this brought Charles Cave to the striker’s crease, with the air of the player who need never have got out in the first innings, and had half a mind not to do it again.

Curious to find that even in those comparatively recent days there were only four balls to the over in an ordinary two-day match; but such was the case, according to the bound volume consulted on the point; and the fourth and last ball of Jan’s first over in a memorable innings has a long line to itself in the report. It appears to have been his own old patent, irreproachable in length, but pitching well outside the off-stump, and whipping in like lightning. It sent Charles Cave’s leg-bail flying over thirty yards, if we are to believe contemporary measurements. But the reporter refrains from stating that Jan had given the peak of his cap a special tweak, though the fact was not lost upon him at the time.

“Bowled, sir, bowled indeed!” roared Chips from the tent. “I knew it’d be a trimmer; didn’t you fellows see how he pulled down his cap?”

And the now really great Charles Cave stalked back to the pavilion with the nonchalant dignity of a Greek statue put into flannels and animated with the best old English blood. But at the pavilion chains he had a word to say to the next batsman, already emerging with indecent haste.

The next batsman was one of the bronzed brigade who could not grace the old ground every season. This one had been in the Eleven two years in his time, and had since made prodigious scores in regimental cricket in India. In the first innings, nevertheless, he had shown want of practice and failed to score; hence this bustle to avoid the dreaded pair. He was rewarded by watching Swiller Wilman play an over from young Cave with ease, scoring three off the last ball, and then playing a maiden from Jan with more pains than confidence. The gallant soldier did indeed draw blood, with a sweeping swipe in the following over from the younger Cave. But the first ball he had from Jan was also his last; and the very next one was too much for ex-captain Bruce.

“I told you it’d all come back, Rutter,” said Wilman with wry laughter at the bowler’s end. “I’m sorry I commenced prophet quite so soon.”

“It’s the wicket,” Jan explained, genuinely enough. “I always liked a wicket like this – the least bit less than fast – but you’ve got its pace to a nicety.”