Mike

Now, Saunders was a conscientious man, and, doubtless, bowled the very best ball that he possibly could.  On the other hand, it was Mike’s first appearance for the school, and Saunders, besides being conscientious, was undoubtedly kind-hearted.  It is useless to speculate as to whether he was trying to bowl his best that ball.  If so, he failed signally.  It was a half-volley, just the right distance away from the off-stump; the sort of ball Mike was wont to send nearly through the net at home....

The next moment the dreams had come true.  The umpire was signalling to the scoring-box, the school was shouting, extra-cover was trotting to the boundary to fetch the ball, and Mike was blushing and wondering whether it was bad form to grin.

From that ball onwards all was for the best in this best of all possible worlds.  Saunders bowled no more half-volleys; but Mike played everything that he did bowl.  He met the lobs with a bat like a barn-door.  Even the departure of Morris, caught in the slips off Saunders’s next over for a chanceless hundred and five, did not disturb him.  All nervousness had left him.  He felt equal to the situation.  Burgess came in, and began to hit out as if he meant to knock off the runs.  The bowling became a shade loose.  Twice he was given full tosses to leg, which he hit to the terrace bank.  Half-past six chimed, and two hundred and fifty went up on the telegraph board.  Burgess continued to hit.  Mike’s whole soul was concentrated on keeping up his wicket.  There was only Reeves to follow him, and Reeves was a victim to the first straight ball.  Burgess had to hit because it was the only game he knew; but he himself must simply stay in.

The hands of the clock seemed to have stopped.  Then suddenly he heard the umpire say “Last over,” and he settled down to keep those six balls out of his wicket.

The lob bowler had taken himself off, and the Oxford Authentic had gone on, fast left-hand.

The first ball was short and wide of the off-stump.  Mike let it alone.  Number two:  yorker.  Got him!  Three:  straight half-volley.  Mike played it back to the bowler.  Four:  beat him, and missed the wicket by an inch.  Five:  another yorker.  Down on it again in the old familiar way.

All was well.  The match was a draw now whatever happened to him.  He hit out, almost at a venture, at the last ball, and mid-off, jumping, just failed to reach it.  It hummed over his head, and ran like a streak along the turf and up the bank, and a great howl of delight went up from the school as the umpire took off the bails.

Mike walked away from the wickets with Joe and the wicket-keeper.

“I’m sorry about your nose, Joe,” said the wicket-keeper in tones of grave solicitude.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“At present,” said the wicket-keeper, “nothing.  But in a few years I’m afraid it’s going to be put badly out of joint.”

CHAPTER XIV A SLIGHT IMBROGLIO

Mike got his third eleven colours after the M.C.C. match.  As he had made twenty-three not out in a crisis in a first eleven match, this may not seem an excessive reward.  But it was all that he expected.  One had to take the rungs of the ladder singly at Wrykyn.  First one was given one’s third eleven cap.  That meant, “You are a promising man, and we have our eye on you.”  Then came the second colours.  They might mean anything from “Well, here you are.  You won’t get any higher, so you may as well have the thing now,” to “This is just to show that we still have our eye on you.”

Mike was a certainty now for the second.  But it needed more than one performance to secure the first cap.

“I told you so,” said Wyatt, naturally, to Burgess after the match.

“He’s not bad,” said Burgess.  “I’ll give him another shot.”

But Burgess, as has been pointed out, was not a person who ever became gushing with enthusiasm.

So Wilkins, of the School House, who had played twice for the first eleven, dropped down into the second, as many a good man had done before him, and Mike got his place in the next match, against the Gentlemen of the County.  Unfortunately for him, the visiting team, however gentlemanly, were not brilliant cricketers, at any rate as far as bowling was concerned.  The school won the toss, went in first, and made three hundred and sixteen for five wickets, Morris making another placid century.  The innings was declared closed before Mike had a chance of distinguishing himself.  In an innings which lasted for one over he made two runs, not out; and had to console himself for the cutting short of his performance by the fact that his average for the school was still infinity.  Bob, who was one of those lucky enough to have an unabridged innings, did better in this match, making twenty-five.  But with Morris making a hundred and seventeen, and Berridge, Ellerby, and Marsh all passing the half-century, this score did not show up excessively.