Amusement Only Part 53

"We have all been giving Mary Ann presents, and I suppose you, Mr.

Whiting, have been giving her something too." That was what Mrs.

Macpherson said to me only the other day. I have given Mary Ann two or three trifles, and I said so. "And what," inquired Mrs. Macpherson, "has Mary Ann given you?"

"Her love."

Someone sn.i.g.g.e.red. I cannot pretend to explain why, except on the supposition that romance is dead; at least in that circle of society in which the Snellings move. But that is not the only society the world contains.

As a matter of fact, Mary Ann has given me a pair of slippers, worked by her own hands. It is true that they are a trifle large for me, and that I shall never be able to keep them on my feet except when I am sitting still. But Mary Ann does not seem to think that that matters, so why should I? Her youngest sister, Clara Louisa, has quite gratuitously informed me that she has had them by her for some considerable time, and that, not to put too fine a point on it, they were originally designed for another individual altogether--a Mr.

Pilbeam. But even supposing that what Clara Louisa says is true--of which I have no evidence--I have, surely, cause to congratulate myself on standing literally in Mr. Pilbeam's shoes, even if they are a little s.p.a.cious.

On the whole I do not know that I regret that accident I had with Mary Ann. It is true that there are times when I am a little disposed to wish that she were not quite so good a manager; now and then every man likes to call his soul his own. On the other hand, she is well qualified to protect me from the rest of the family. She will keep them at bay. Because it is beginning to dawn on me that, singlehanded, she is more than a match for them all. Which is just as well. If she had been like me they would have rent us limb from limb. As it is, unless I am mistaken, some of the rending will be on our side. And they know it!

P.S.--The cards are out for the wedding. It is to take place on Tuesday fortnight. We are going for our honeymoon to Italy and the South of France. A second cousin of Mary Ann's is in the Cook's Tours line. He has given us free pa.s.ses all the way to the end of our journey, and all the way back again; and coupons for free board and lodging at the hotel. It's a wedding present. So that, as Mary Ann says, our honeymoon need cost us practically nothing. Besides which we can always sell the coupons and railway pa.s.ses which we don't use.

Nothing could be more delightful.

A SUBSt.i.tUTE.

THE STORY OF MY LAST CRICKET-MATCH.

CHAPTER I.

I AM APPOINTED CAPTAIN.

I have some idea of cricket--not much, perhaps, but I certainly have some. I was not in the 'Varsity team, nor near it; but I played in the Freshman's match, and provided myself with spectacles. I was nearly in the school team once. That was when I carried my bat for forty-five. I must own that my performance was a surprise to everyone--and to myself among the rest. But as I never repeated it--or anything like it--they left me, very wisely, out of the eleven.

Thus it will be seen that, from a cricketing point of view, I did not, even in my best days, come up to first-rate form; and my best days were, reckoning from last summer, quite fifteen years ago. During those fifteen years I do not remember once handling a bat, far less. .h.i.tting at a cricket-ball with one; and yet, in this state of unpreparedness, I had the presumption last summer to captain a team, and to lead them on--well, not to victory but to disgrace. It's a fact.

The match was Storwell _v_. Latchmere. Storwell was _my_ team; and as I do not think a more remarkable match was ever known in the whole annals of cricketing history, I here venture to report it.

When they first asked me to play I thought they were mad.

Storwell-on-Sea is a village on the south coast--I beg pardon; I believe it is called by the inhabitants a town. It is a pretty place, and not unknown--in the locality. It has a season and all that kind of thing, and it was during the season I was there. And one day a deputation of the inhabitants called on me at my lodgings to ask if I would lead the local cricket club to, say, victory. As I have said, my first impression was that they were mad; either that, or else that they were "playing it off" on the unprotected stranger.

I hinted so much to the deputation. The deputation smiled. The chief spokesman was the local barber; his name was Sapsworth. He explained that Mr. Wingrave had sent them there. Wingrave was the vicar; we were "up" together, and he must have known quite well whereabouts my cricketing form came in. I decided to crush the deputation before the thing went farther.

"To show you the sort of man you propose should captain you, I need only mention that it is more than fifteen years since I had a bat in my hand."

But the admission did not crush them: quite the other way. It opened the floodgates of their eloquence.

"That's nothing," Mr. Sapsworth cried. "There's Hedges here; we've had to put him in; he don't even know the rules of the game, and he's just turned sixty-one."

I glanced at Mr. Hedges, thus frankly referred to. He was a smiling, red-faced, bald-headed old gentleman, who, if not considerable in height, was great in girth. He would certainly have turned the scale at sixteen stone. I felt that, to cricketers who intended to play Mr.

Hedges, any objections which I might urge would appear quite trivial.

"When is the match to be?" I asked.

"To-morrow," was the startling reply.

I was speechless. That I, after fifteen years' total abstention, should be asked to captain a team the members of which were entire strangers to me, and of whose individual styles of play I had not the faintest notion, in a match against an unknown foe, at four-and-twenty hours' notice, was a little hard to credit. It was altogether too preposterous. I told them so. But they could not be brought to see it.

The end of it was that I agreed to play. No man knows to what a depth of folly he can sink until he tries.

CHAPTER II.

MR. BENYON BOWLS.

The match was to be played on Mr. Stubbs's field. Mr. Stubbs was a local butcher. Mr. Sapsworth had kindly promised to come and escort me to the scene of action. He arrived at half-past nine, just as I was opening my morning's letters. On the way he gave me a chart of the country. It appeared that in batting we were not strong, in fielding we were weak, and that our bowling was more than shaky.

"But we shall pull through," Mr. Sapsworth added; "especially now,"

and he glanced at me.

"I hope you are under no delusion as to my powers, Mr. Sapsworth. I never was a first-rate cricketer, and, as I have already told you, it is more than fifteen years since I handled a bat."

"If you'll excuse my saying so, sir, I've generally noticed that them who doesn't say much does a deal."

That was one way of looking at it, no doubt; but if I did a deal, I could only say that it would be a pleasant surprise to me.

"And our opponents--what sort of a team are they?"

Mr. Sapsworth turned up his nose--not metaphorically, but as a matter of fact.

"If we're bad," he said, "they're wuss. There's only one thing I've ever seen those Latchmere blokes much good at, and that is cheating.

You'll have to keep a sharp eye on them, or they'll have all our chaps out when they ain't; and they won't go out themselves, not even when you've bowled their three stumps down all of a row."

"Surely," I suggested, "those sort of questions are for the umpires to decide."

"Umpires!" Up went Mr. Sapworth's nose again. "They bring their own umpire, and he's got his own ideas of umpiring, he has. But we've got our own umpire as well as them."

I said nothing; but Mr. Sapsworth's words conveyed to my mind pleasant impressions of the strict rigour of the game.

When we arrived there was a goodly gathering already a.s.sembled in Mr.

Stubbs's field. A tent was erected; in and about it was a nondescript collection of men and boys; some forty or fifty others, availing themselves of the opportunity afforded them for a little practice, were actually disporting themselves on the pitch on which we were presently to play. I consoled myself with the reflection that the worse the ground was the more _my_ bowling would tell.

Mr. Sapworth introduced me to the crowd _en ma.s.se_. Several persons touched their caps to me; others nodded their heads; some grinned.

"Good-morning, gentlemen. We're going to have a fine day for our match. Our team all here?"

Mr. Sapworth took upon himself to answer; he had been searching about him with his eyes.

"They're here all right. I suppose those Latchmere chaps ain't come yet?"

They had not come, and they did not come for an hour or more. I employed the interval in becoming acquainted with the individual members, arranging the order of going in, and their positions in the field; matters in appearance simple enough, but more difficult in practice. But at last the preliminaries were settled somehow, and the Latchmere men appeared upon the ground.

Their captain, coming up, was introduced to me. I was informed afterwards that he was a blacksmith. I thought he was by the way in which he grasped my hand. His opening speech was a little surprising.