Amusement Only

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 hitting 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 assembled 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 masse. 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.

"We ain't going to play you if you've got eleven men, you know."

I inquired into his meaning.

"We've only got ten," he said. "And one of them's Soft Sawney, and another's Sprouts."

I do not know if those were the correct names of the gentlemen referred to, or only fancy ones by which they were known to their friends; but he laid his hand on two of his followers and hauled them to the front. One was a long, weedy youth, who, one saw at a glance, was more than half an imbecile; and the other was a portly old gentleman of fifty-five or six, with a corporation like a barrel.

Mr. Sapsworth intervened.

"What's that?" he cried. "We've got Hedges!"

He brought Mr. Hedges forward. I could not but feel that, to say the least of it, Mr. Hedges balanced Mr. Sprouts. If Mr. Hedges could run more than a dozen yards without pausing to take breath, I was almost ready to express my willingness to eat my hat.

"But we've only got ten men," persisted Mr. Barker. "You'll only have to have ten. If you think we're going to play against your eleven we won't play you at all, so that's all about it."

There was a prospect of unpleasantness even before the match began. It seemed that one of us would have to retire, in satisfaction of Mr. Barker's rather unjustifiable demand. I was about to retire myself-for I instinctively felt that, as a captain, I was no match for Mr. Barker-when a rather curious incident occurred.

On a sudden a newcomer appeared upon the scene. I say on a sudden, for no one had noticed his approach, and yet, all at once, there he was, standing between the Latchmere captain and myself. To me at any rate his presence was so unexpected, and, indeed, so startling, that I stared. He seemed to have come out of space. He was a big, burly fellow, with smooth cheeks, round face, bullet-shaped head, and sleepy-looking black eyes.

"Let me play for you?" he said.

For a moment Mr. Barker stared at the stranger in surprise, in common with the rest of us. Then he jumped at the offer.

"Let you! rather!" He thrust out his hand and caught the stranger's palm in his. But no sooner had he got it firmly gripped than he dropped it with an exclamation: "Why, what's the matter with you? Ain't you well? Your hand's as cold as a frozen corpse."

I went a little aside with Mr. Sapsworth.

"Who is he?" I asked.

"I don't know, and yet I seem somehow to have seen his face before. But let them have him. He doesn't look as though he were up to much."

He did not. Anyone looking less like a cricketer I have seldom seen. His costume was ridiculous. He had on a pair of large check trousers-a check of the kind which the Oxford tailor explained to the undergraduate was a leetle too large to be seen to advantage on a single pair of understandings. He had on a huge top hat, of a size and shape which would have made the fortune of a "lion comique." A red woollen muffler was wound several times round his neck, and his capacious person was enveloped in an enormous overcoat, the like of which I had never seen before. The day promised to remind us of the torrid zone, yet Mr. Barker had cried out that the stranger's hand felt cold.

In the toss for innings victory fell to us. So we went in. I led the van. My associate was a youth named Fenning. He was a mere lad, and looked too much of a lout to be much of a cricketer. Mr. Barker led the bowling. I soon saw that if he had any strength it was not as a bowler. If I kept my head, I told myself, and he carried away my bails, it would be owing to the ground; for a rougher piece of turf, I suppose, few wickets have been pitched upon. But I was far too nervous to take liberties even with Mr. Barker. And, indeed, when the first over was finished, and I found myself still in, I drew a long breath of self-congratulation.

The other bowler was, in his own line, as meritorious a specimen as his captain. So, on the whole, things were going better than I had expected. I had scored eleven, six off Mr. Barker, and the rest off his friend. Even Fenning had hit up two-literally hit up. I was really beginning to think that I was getting set, which, in my palmiest days had only happened once-thrice happy day! – when something took place which showed me, not for the first time, the advisability of never counting your chickens till the eggs are hatched.

Mr. Barker was just about to commence an over. He actually had the ball in his hand, when the substitute-the stranger who had volunteered to fill the place of the eleventh man-came marching right across the field. Mr. Barker saw him coming, and called out to him to stay where he was. But, wholly unheeding, the substitute strode on. He reached Mr. Barker, and, without saying a word, so far as I could perceive, he coolly held out his hand for the ball. I fully expected that the Latchmere captain would remonstrate, and not only remonstrate, but remonstrate strongly; but, to my surprise, he instantly surrendered the ball, and slunk rather than walked to the place which the stranger had just quitted. So the substitute was left to bowl.

Without doubt he was an eccentric character. Up to that moment he had been fielding in his woollen muffler, his overcoat, and, last but not least, his wonderful top hat. These, however, he now doffed, and laid in a heap upon the ground. Their disappearance revealed the fact that he wore a tight-fitting jacket which was the same wonderful pattern in checks as his trousers. From the look of him, I certainly never supposed that he could bowl. My surprise was, therefore, all the greater when I discovered that he could. His action was peculiar. He went right up to the wicket, and stood quite still, delivering the ball with a curious flourish of the wrist. Its pace was amazing. It pitched a good two feet to the off, and broke right in-perhaps aided by the ground, though he certainly had found a spot. I was so astounded by the pace-which reminded me of the old stories told of Lillywhite; you could hear it "humming" in the air-that I never even moved my bat. It was that which saved me. As it was the bat was all but driven out of my hand. I told myself that on the arrival of a second edition I should have to go. Yet I did manage to stop the next four balls-how, I have not the faintest notion; but the sixth-for it seemed that, in those parts, they bowled six to the over-took my middle stump, breaking it clean off at the top.

As I entered the tent the scorer cried out-

"What name?"

"Tom Benyon," replied the bowler.

Mr. Hedges, who was seated at the scorer's side, brought down his fist upon the trestle-table with a bang.

"I knew it was! I knowed him all along!" Mr. Hedges was in a state of odd excitement. "That chap who bowled you ain't a man, sir-he's a ghost."

"He manages to put a good deal of pace on the ball for a ghost," I answered.

"And so he ought to. Did you hear what name he said? He said Tom Benyon! There wasn't a better cricketer in all these parts than Tom Benyon used to be. He played up in Lunnon more than once, I know, and got well paid for playing too. But he always was a queer sort, was Tom. I knew him well. I saw him buried. And if it is him, and not his ghost, he ain't grown a day older these twenty years, he ain't."

I laughed. I supposed the old gentleman was jesting. But not a bit of it. When our second man had gone to the wicket Mr. Sapsworth drew me aside.

"I don't like the look of this," he said.

"Nor I," I answered, supposing he referred to Mr. Benyon's bowling. "He'll bring down our stumps like ninepins."

"It isn't that. It-it's the man," he said.

"Do you mean the ghost?" I asked jokingly.

"It's easy to laugh. But-" Mr. Sapsworth paused. I could see he was ashamed of himself, yet had his suspicions none the less. "I thought I had seen him before, and I had. It is Tom Benyon."

"He says he is Tom Benyon, and I suppose he should know best."

"Yes." Mr. Sapsworth fidgeted. "But Tom Benyon's been dead these twenty years."

"Dead!" I cried, and laughed. "He showed himself too much alive for me, at any rate."

"When I was a youngster," continued Mr. Sapsworth, "Tom Benyon used to come into my father's shop to be shaved. He was always on the drink. One morning I was all alone, minding the shop for father, when he came in, mad drunk. I never shall forget that morning, never. He made me sit in the shaving-chair, and set about to shave me. He soaped me all over-face and hair and all. I was that there frightened I couldn't make a sound. I never shall forget how I sat and watched him, with the soap all in my eyes, as he put an edge upon the razor. Then he set about shaving off my hair. He had got off about half of it, and I was streaming with blood, when who should come in but my father. If he hadn't Tom Benyon would have made an end of me."

He paused. I perceived that the mere recollection of his little adventure affected him unpleasantly.

"There was something queer about his death. Some people said it was drink had done for him, some of 'em said he had done for himself. Anyhow, the whole country-side was at his funeral. I was there. I remember it as plainly as though it was yesterday."

While I was looking at Mr. Sapsworth, and pondering his words, there came the sound of laughter from the middle of the ground. It was not a loud laugh, but it was a distinctly disagreeable one. I looked round. Mr. Benyon was laughing at Mr. Fenning's discomfiture. He had served him as he had served me-he had taken his middle stump right out of the ground. I turned to Mr. Sapsworth.

"You follow."

"Me!" Mr. Sapsworth turned several shades whiter. "Me!" He looked about him with a frightened air. "Mr. Trentham, I-I can't," he said.

"Nonsense, Sapsworth! You don't mean to say that you are going to allow yourself to be frightened by any nonsense about a ghost, and in broad daylight too!"

The little man did not look by any means reassured by my tone of derision. He seemed more inclined to take to his heels than to take his place at the wickets. It is not impossible that he might have done so had he not been addressed from a different quarter.

"Bob Sapsworth!" It was Mr. Benyon calling to the little barber right across the field. "Come and be shaved!"

I own that I myself was startled. The words were apposite, to say the least of it. We had just been speaking of Mr. Sapsworth's experience of the shaver's art as practised by Mr. Benyon's hands, and here was Mr. Benyon's namesake inviting him, if not to be cut, at least to come again. On Mr. Sapsworth the effect of the invitation was surprising. He had on his pads, his bat was in his hand. Without a word he shuffled towards the stumps. If ever I saw a man go to the wickets in a state of "mortal funk," I saw him then.

I myself moved towards the scoring-tent. The state of things within it at once impressed me as peculiar. It had been filled, a little time ago, with jovial faces. Now, the owners of those faces might have been attendants at a funeral. And many a man has had a livelier following to the grave than I saw assembled then.