The Hill Part 41

"Well fielded; well fielded, sir!"

"A very close squeak," says the Caterpillar. "They won't steal many runs from the Demon."

"Sometimes," says Iris Warde, "I really think that he _is_ a demon."

The Caterpillar nods. "You're more than half right, Miss Warde."

Presently, the first wicket falls; then the second soon after. And the score is under twenty. The Rev. Septimus is beaming; the Bishop seated beside him looks as if he were about to p.r.o.nounce a benediction; Charles Desmond is scintillating with wit and good humour. Visions of a single innings victory engross the minds of these three. They are in the front row of the pavilion, and they mean to see every ball of the game.

But soon it becomes evident that a determined stand is being made. Runs come slowly, but they come; the score creeps up--thirty, forty, fifty.

Fluff goes on to bowl. On his day Fluff is tricky, but this, apparently, is not his day. The runs come more quickly. The Rev. Septimus removes his hat, wipes his forehead, and replaces his hat. It is on the back of his head, but he is unaware of that. The Bishop appears now as if he were reading a new commination--to wit, "Cursed is he that smiteth his neighbour; cursed is he that bowleth half volleys." The Minister is frowning; things may look black in South Africa, but they're looking blacker in St. John's Wood.

One hundred runs for two wickets.

The Eton cheers are becoming exasperating. A few seats away Warde is twiddling his thumbs and biting his lips. Old Lord Fawley has slipped into the pavilion for a brandy and soda.

At last!

Scaife takes off Fluff and puts on a fast bowler, changing his own place in the field to short slip. The ball, a first ball and very fast, puzzles the batsman, accustomed to slows. He mistimes it; it grazes the edge of his bat, and whizzes off far to the right of Scaife, but the Demon has it. Somehow or other, ask of the spirits of the air--not of the writer--somehow his wonderful right hand has met and held the ball.

"Well caught, sir; well caught!"

"That boy ought to be knighted on the spot," says Charles Desmond. Then the three generously applaud the retiring batsman. He has played a brilliant innings, and restored the confidence of all Etonians.

The Eton captain descends the steps; a veteran this, not a dashing player, but sure, patient, and full of grit. He asks the umpire to give him middle and leg; then he notes the positions of the field.

"Whew-w-w-w!"

"D----n it!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es Charles Desmond. Bishop and parson regard him with grat.i.tude. There are times when an honest oath becomes expedient.

The Eton captain has cut the first ball into Fluff's hands, and Fluff has dropped it! Alastair Kinloch, from the top of the Trent coach, screams out, "Jolly well m.u.f.fed!" The great Minister silently thanks Heaven that point is the Duke's son and not his.

And, of course, the Eton captain never gives another chance till he is dismissed with half a century to his credit. Meantime five more wickets have fallen. Seven down for 191! Eton leaves the field with a score of 226 against Harrow's 289. Harrow goes in without delay, and one wicket is taken for 13 runs before the stumps are drawn. Charles Desmond looks at the sky.

"Looks like rain to-night," he says anxiously.

And so ends Friday's play.

The morrow dawned grey, obscured by mist rising from ground soaked by two hours' heavy rain. You may be sure that all our friends were early at Lord's, and that the pitch was examined by thousands of anxious eyes.

The Eton fast bowler was seen to smile. Upon a similar wicket had he not done the famous hat-trick only three weeks before? The rain, however, was over, and soon the sun would drive away the filmy mists. No man alive could foretell what condition the pitch would be in after a few hours of blazing sunshine. The Rev. Septimus told Charles Desmond that he considered the situation to be critical, and, although he had read the morning paper, he was not alluding even indirectly to South African affairs. Charles Desmond said that, other things being equal, the Hill would triumph; but he admitted that other things were very far from equal. It looked as if Harrow would have to bat upon a treacherous wicket, and Eton on a sound one.

At half-past ten punctually the men were in the field. Scaife issued last instructions. "Block the bowling; don't try to score till you see what tricks the ground will play. A minute saved now may mean a quarter of an hour to us later." Caesar nodded cheerfully. The fact that the luck had changed stimulated every fibre of his being. And he said that he felt in his bones that this was going to be a famous match, like that of '85--something never to be forgotten.

Charles Desmond spoke few words while his son was batting. It was a tradition among the Desmonds that they rose superior to emergency. The Minister wondered whether his Harry would rise or fall. The fast bowler delivered the first ball. It b.u.mped horribly. The Rev. Septimus shuddered and closed his eyes. Caesar got well over it. The third ball was cut for three. The fourth whizzed down--a wide. The fast bowler dipped the ball into the sawdust.

"It isn't all jam for him," whispered the Rev. Septimus.

"Well bowled--well bowled!"

Alas! the middle stump was knocked clean out of the ground. Caesar's partner, a steady, careful player, had been bowled by his first ball.

Two wickets for 17.

The crowd were expecting the hero, but Fluff was walking towards the wickets, wondering whether he should reach them alive. Never had his heart beat as at this moment. Scaife had come up to him as soon as he had examined the pitch.

"Fluff, I am putting you in early because you are a fellow I can trust.

My first and last word is, hit at nothing that isn't wide of the wicket.

The ground will probably improve fast."

Fluff nodded. A hive of bees seemed to have lodged in his head, and an active automatic hammer in his heart; but he didn't dare tell the Demon that funk, abject funk, possessed him, body and soul.

The second bowler began his first over. He bowled slows. Desmond played the six b.a.l.l.s back along the ground. A maiden over.

And then that thick-set, muscular beast, for so Fluff regarded him, stared fixedly at Fluff's middle stump. Fluff glanced round. The wicket-keeper had a grim smile on his lips, for his billet was no easy one. Cosmo Kinloch at short slip looked as if it were a foregone conclusion that Fluff would put the ball into his hands. Then Fluff faced the bowler. Now for it!

The first ball was half a foot off the wicket, but Fluff let it go by.

The second came true enough. Fluff blocked it. The third flew past Fluff's leg, but he just snicked it. Desmond started to run, and then stopped, holding up his hand. Cheers rippled round the ring for the first hit to the boundary. That was a bit of sheer luck, Fluff reflected.

After this both boys played steadily for some ten minutes. Then, very slowly, Caesar began to score. He had made about fifteen when he drove a ball hard to the on, Fluff backing up. Desmond, watching the travelling ball, called to him to run. It seemed to Desmond almost certain that the ball would go to the boundary. Too late he realized that it had been magnificently fielded. Desmond strained every nerve, but his bat had not reached the crease when the bails flew to right and left.

Out! And run out!

Three wickets for 41!

A quarter of an hour later Fluff was bowled with a yorker. He had made eleven runs, and kept up his wicket during a crisis. Harrow cheered him loudly.

And then came the terrible moment of the morning. Scaife went in when Fluff's wicket fell. The ground had improved, but it was still treacherous. The fast bowler sent down a straight one. It shot under Scaife's bat and spread-eagled his stumps.

The wicket-keeper knows what the Harrow captain said, but it does not bear repeating. Every eye was on his scowling, furious face as he returned to the pavilion; and the Rev. Septimus scowled also, because he had always maintained that any Harrovian could accept defeat like a gentleman. Upon the other side of the ground the Caterpillar was saying to his father. "I always said he was hairy at the heel."

It was admitted afterwards that the Duffer's performance was the one really bright spot in Harrow's second innings. Being a bowler, he went in last but one. It happened that Fluff's brother was in possession of the ball. It will never be known why the Duffer chose to treat Cosmo Kinloch's balk with utter scorn and contempt. The Duffer was tall, strong, and a terrific slogger. n.o.body expected him to make a run, but he made twenty in one over--all boundary hits. When he left the wicket he had added thirty-eight to the score, and wouldn't have changed places with an emperor. The Rev. Septimus followed him into the room where the players change.

"My dear boy," he said, "I've never been able to give you a gold watch, but you must take mine; here it is, and--and G.o.d bless you!"

But the Duffer swore stoutly that he preferred his own Waterbury.

Eton went in to make 211 runs in four hours, upon a wicket almost as sound as it had been upon the Friday. Scaife put the Duffer on to bowl.

The Demon had belief in luck.

"It's your day, Duffer," he said. "Pitch 'em up."

The Duffer, to his sire's exuberant satisfaction, "pitched 'em up" so successfully that he took four wickets for 33. Four out of five! The other bowlers, however, being not so successful, Eton acc.u.mulated a hundred runs. The captains had agreed to draw stumps at 7.30. To win, therefore, the Plain must make another hundred in two hours; and three of their crack batsmen were out.