Amusement Only

CHAPTER III

AND BATS

Our innings was over-for thirteen runs. We sat there, moping in a crowd, I among the rest, when Mr. Benyon, bustling up, reminded me of my duties as a captain.

"Now then, turn out. Send your men into the field. We can't stop here all day. I'm first man in; soon I'll have to go, and I haven't had a smack at a cricket-ball these twenty years!"

We looked at each other. One part of his address gave us a certain gratification-that part in which he stated that he soon would have to go. We turned out. I suppose a more unpromising set of fieldsmen never yet took their places in the field. The Latchmere men went slouching towards the tent; some of them, I noticed, instead of going in stole towards the rear. These, I suspect, stole off the ground; I never set eyes on them again.

"Mr. Trentham, I-I can't bowl," whispered Mr. Sapsworth to me as we moved across the turf.

He and I had agreed that we should start the bowling. I confess that I felt no more inclined to act up to the letter of our agreement than he did. But Mr. Benyon intervened.

"Now, Bob Sapsworth, you take the bowling one end, and let your captain take the other. Captain, you take first over."

I obeyed without a murmur. It might have been quite a usual thing to see in a match a member of one team ordering about the captain of the other. I do not think that our field was arranged on scientific principles; I may certainly claim that I had nothing to do with its arrangement. There is a suspicion floating through my mind that at one or two points-two, or more-men were placed unusually close together. For instance, at deep mid-off-very deep mid-off-Mr. Hawthorn and Mr. Hedges were not only doing their best to trample on each other's toes, but each was seeking for a place of security behind the other's back.

Mr. Barker shared with Mr. Benyon the honour of being first man in. The Latchmere captain, as a captain, had become quite as much a figurehead as I had. His bearing was indicative of extreme depression. I think he had learned that to take, off-hand, the first substitute who offered, was, now and then, unwise.

To enable him to bat with more advantage, Mr. Benyon had removed his waistcoat, which matched his trousers and his coat. What he had done with it I cannot say; possibly it had vanished, with his other garments, into air. Now he had on a bright red flannel shirt-his tastes in costume seemed a trifle lurid-the sleeves of which were turned up above the elbows. His pose was almost as peculiar as his costume. He stood bolt upright, his legs together, his feet drawn heel to heel; not at all in the fashion of a modern cricketer, who seeks to guard his wickets with his legs. His bat he held straight down in front of him, the blade swinging gently in the air.

I am afraid I wasted more time in preparing to deliver my first ball than I need have done; but if Mr. Benyon had not had a smack with a bat for twenty years it was a good fifteen since I had bowled a ball. After such a lapse of time one requires to pull oneself together before exhibiting one's powers to a cricketer of Mr. Benyon's calibre. He, however, did not seem to recognise the necessity which I myself felt that I was under.

"Hurry up, sir! Don't I tell you that soon I'll have to go?"

I hurried up. I gave him an overhand full pitch which would have made a decent catch for point, if point had been close in, which he wasn't. However, in any case Mr. Benyon would have saved him the trouble. He hit the ball a crack the like of which I had never seen before. He drove it over the hedge, and over the trees, and up to the skies, and out of sight.

"I don't think that's a bad little smack to start with," he observed. "I like your kind of bowling, mister. I suppose that's a boundary." He called to the scorer-if there was one, which I doubt-"Put down Tom Benyon six!" He turned again to me. "It's no good wasting time looking for that ball. I've another in my pocket you can have."

He put his hand into his trousers' pocket. Those remarkable garments fitted him like eel-skins. I had certainly never supposed that he could by any possibility have such a thing as a cricket-ball in one of the pockets. But it appeared that he had. He drew one out and threw it up to me.

My second ball was a colourable imitation of my first, only this time it was wide to leg. To long-leg Mr. Benyon sent it flying.

"Put down Tom Benyon another six!" he cried. "I do like your bowling, mister. I've got another ball which you can have."

He produced a second ball from the same pocket from which the first had come. I could scarcely believe my eyes. But I was discovering, with Horatio, that there were more things in heaven and earth than had been contained in my philosophy. Since Mr. Benyon professed such affection for the style of bowling which I favoured, I sent him down another sample. This time it was fairly straight-by which I mean that it would not have pitched more than a yard from the wickets if Mr. Benyon had allowed it to pitch, which he didn't. He treated it as he had done the first-he drove it, with terrific force, right above my head.

"Never mind about the ball," he said. "I've got another in my pocket."

He had-the third. And in the same pocket from which the other two had come.

My fourth ball he treated to a swipe to square-leg. He seemed to have a partiality for swiping. Quite unnecessarily he allowed that this was so.

"I do like a ball which I can get a smack at," he remarked as he produced a fourth ball from the same pocket of his tightly-fitting trousers which had contained the other three. "A swipe does warm me so. Your kind of bowling, mister, 's just the thing."

It was kind of him to say so; though, to my thinking, his remark did not convey a compliment. When he sent my fifth ball out of sight I wished that his love for swiping had been less, or my bowling of another kind. The sixth, however, which he also produced from the same wondrous store contained in his breeches pocket, he contented himself with what he called "snicking."

"That's what I call a pretty snick," he said.

The "snick" in question was a tremendous drive to deep mid-off. It was stopped, quite involuntarily, by Mr. Hawthorn and Mr. Hedges. So far as I could see, it stunned the pair of them. Neither of them made the slightest attempt to return the ball.

"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.

A little later, looking round the field, I found that Mr. Hawthorn had disappeared, and that Mr. Hedges, stuck in a hedge, was struggling gallantly to reach safety on the other side. It was the last ball of Mr. Sapsworth's over. Mr. Benyon ran thirteen for a hit to leg. He made Mr. Barker run them too-it was the proverbial last straw. As Mr. Barker was running the thirteenth run, instead of going to his wicket he dropped his bat-the bat which he had never had a chance to utilise-and bolted off the field as though Satan was behind him. Mr. Benyon called out to him, but Mr. Barker neither stopped nor stayed. It seemed that the match was going to resolve itself into a game of single wicket.

To make things better, when I came up to bowl I perceived that Mr. Sapsworth's power of endurance had reached its tether. The position he had taken up in the field had not much promise of usefulness. He first stood close up to the hedge, then he stood in the middle of the hedge, then-I doubt if he stood upon the other side. But at least he had vanished from my ken. And I was left alone to bowl to Mr. Benyon. That over!

"I do like your kind of bowling, mister," he observed when, as usual, he sent my first ball out of sight. "Never mind about the ball. I've got one in my pocket you can have."

He had. He produced it-always from the same pocket. It was about the second thousand.

"It does warm me so to swipe." This he said when he had sent my second ball on a journey to find its brother. Then a ball or two later on, "I call that a tidy smack." The "smack" in question had driven the ball, for anything I know to the contrary, a distance of some five miles or so.

The next ball I fielded. It was the first piece of fielding I had done that day, and that was unintentional. It laid me on the ground. It was some moments before I recovered myself sufficiently to enable me to look round. When I did so no one was in sight. I was alone in the field. The opposite wicket was deserted. The bat lay on the ground. And Mr. Benyon had gone!

THE END