Mike

The Ripton last-wicket man was de Freece, the slow bowler.  He was apparently a young gentleman wholly free from the curse of nervousness.  He wore a cheerful smile as he took guard before receiving the first ball after lunch, and Wrykyn had plenty of opportunity of seeing that that was his normal expression when at the wickets.  There is often a certain looseness about the attack after lunch, and the bowler of googlies took advantage of it now.  He seemed to be a batsman with only one hit; but he had also a very accurate eye, and his one hit, a semicircular stroke, which suggested the golf links rather than the cricket field, came off with distressing frequency.  He mowed Burgess’s first ball to the square-leg boundary, missed his second, and snicked the third for three over long-slip’s head.  The other batsman played out the over, and de Freece proceeded to treat Ellerby’s bowling with equal familiarity.  The scoring-board showed an increase of twenty as the result of three overs.  Every run was invaluable now, and the Ripton contingent made the pavilion re-echo as a fluky shot over mid-on’s head sent up the hundred and fifty.

There are few things more exasperating to the fielding side than a last-wicket stand.  It resembles in its effect the dragging-out of a book or play after the dénouement has been reached.  At the fall of the ninth wicket the fieldsmen nearly always look on their outing as finished.  Just a ball or two to the last man, and it will be their turn to bat.  If the last man insists on keeping them out in the field, they resent it.

What made it especially irritating now was the knowledge that a straight yorker would solve the whole thing.  But when Burgess bowled a yorker, it was not straight.  And when he bowled a straight ball, it was not a yorker.  A four and a three to de Freece, and a four bye sent up a hundred and sixty.

It was beginning to look as if this might go on for ever, when Ellerby, who had been missing the stumps by fractions of an inch, for the last ten minutes, did what Burgess had failed to do.  He bowled a straight, medium-paced yorker, and de Freece, swiping at it with a bright smile, found his leg-stump knocked back.  He had made twenty-eight.  His record score, he explained to Mike, as they walked to the pavilion, for this or any ground.

The Ripton total was a hundred and sixty-six.

With the ground in its usual true, hard condition, Wrykyn would have gone in against a score of a hundred and sixty-six with the cheery intention of knocking off the runs for the loss of two or three wickets.  It would have been a gentle canter for them.

But ordinary standards would not apply here.  On a good wicket Wrykyn that season were a two hundred and fifty to three hundred side.  On a bad wicket—­well, they had met the Incogniti on a bad wicket, and their total—­with Wyatt playing and making top score—­had worked out at a hundred and seven.

A grim determination to do their best, rather than confidence that their best, when done, would be anything record-breaking, was the spirit which animated the team when they opened their innings.

And in five minutes this had changed to a dull gloom.

The tragedy started with the very first ball.  It hardly seemed that the innings had begun, when Morris was seen to leave the crease, and make for the pavilion.

“It’s that googly man,” said Burgess blankly.

“What’s happened?” shouted a voice from the interior of the first eleven room.

“Morris is out.”

“Good gracious!  How?” asked Ellerby, emerging from the room with one pad on his leg and the other in his hand.

“L.-b.-w.  First ball.”

“My aunt!  Who’s in next?  Not me?”

“No.  Berridge.  For goodness sake, Berry, stick a bat in the way, and not your legs.  Watch that de Freece man like a hawk.  He breaks like sin all over the shop.  Hullo, Morris!  Bad luck!  Were you out, do you think?” A batsman who has been given l.-b.-w. is always asked this question on his return to the pavilion, and he answers it in nine cases out of ten in the negative.  Morris was the tenth case.  He thought it was all right, he said.

“Thought the thing was going to break, but it didn’t.”

“Hear that, Berry?  He doesn’t always break.  You must look out for that,” said Burgess helpfully.  Morris sat down and began to take off his pads.

“That chap’ll have Berry, if he doesn’t look out,” he said.

But Berridge survived the ordeal.  He turned his first ball to leg for a single.

This brought Marsh to the batting end; and the second tragedy occurred.