Part 16 (1/2)

”Then you won't play?” asked Adair.

”I'm not keeping you, am I?” said Mike, politely.

It was remarkable what a number of members of Outwood's house appeared to cherish a personal grudge against Mr. Downing. It had been that master's somewhat injudicious practice for many years to treat his own house as a sort of Chosen People. Of all masters, the most unpopular is he who by the silent tribunal of a school is convicted of favoritism.

And the dislike deepens if it is a house which he favors and not merely individuals. On occasions when boys in his own house and boys from other houses were accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, Mr. Downing distributed his thunderbolts unequally, and the school noticed it. The result was that not only he himself, but also--which was rather unfair--his house, too, had acquired a good deal of unpopularity.

The general consensus of opinion in Outwood's during the luncheon interval was that having got Downing's up a tree, they would be fools not to make the most of the situation.

Barnes's remark that he supposed, unless anything happened and wickets began to fall a bit faster, they had better think of declaring somewhere about half past three or four, was met with a storm of opposition.

”Declare!” said Robinson. ”Great Scot, what on earth are you talking about?”

”Declare!” Stone's voice was almost a wail of indignation. ”I never saw such a chump.”

”They'll be rather sick if we don't, won't they?” suggested Barnes.

”Sick! I should think they would,” said Stone. ”That's just the gay idea. Can't you see that by a miracle we've got a chance of getting a jolly good bit of our own back against those Downing's ticks? What we've got to do is to jolly well keep them in the field all day if we can, and be jolly glad it's so beastly hot. If they lose about a dozen pounds each through sweating about in the sun after Jackson's drives, perhaps they'll stick on less side about things in general in future. Besides, I want an innings against that bilge of old Downing's, if I can get it.”

”So do I,” said Robinson.

”If you declare, I swear I won't field. Nor will Robinson.”

”Rather not.”

”Well, I won't then,” said Barnes unhappily. ”Only you know they're rather sick already.”

”Don't you worry about that,” said Stone with a wide grin. ”They'll be a lot sicker before we've finished.”

And so it came about that that particular Mid-Term Service-Day match made history. Big scores had often been put up on Mid-Term Service Day.

Games had frequently been one-sided. But it had never happened before in the annals of the school that one side, going in first early in the morning, had neither completed its innings nor declared it closed when stumps were drawn at 6.30. In no previous Sedleigh match, after a full day's play, had the pathetic words ”Did not bat” been written against the whole of one of the contending teams.

These are the things which mark epochs.

Play was resumed at 2.15. For a quarter of an hour Mike was comparatively quiet. Adair, fortified by food and rest, was bowling really well, and his first half dozen overs had to be watched carefully.

But the wicket was too good to give him a chance, and Mike, playing himself in again, proceeded to get to business once more. Bowlers came and went. Adair pounded away at one end with brief intervals between the attacks. Mr. Downing took a couple more overs, in one of which a horse, pa.s.sing in the road, nearly had its useful life cut suddenly short.

Change bowlers of various actions and paces, each weirder and more futile than the last, tried their luck. But still the first-wicket stand continued.

The bowling of a house team is all head and no body. The first pair probably have some idea of length and break. The first-change pair are poor. And the rest, the small change, are simply the sort of things one sees in dreams after a heavy supper, or when one is out without one's gun.

Time, mercifully, generally breaks up a big stand at cricket before the field has suffered too much, and that is what happened now. At four o'clock, when the score stood at two hundred and twenty for no wicket, Barnes, greatly daring, smote l.u.s.tily at a rather wide half volley and was caught at short slip for thirty-three. He retired blushfully to the pavilion, amidst applause, and Stone came out.

As Mike had then made a hundred and eighty-seven, it was a.s.sumed by the field, that directly he had topped his second century, the closure would be applied and their ordeal finished. There was almost a sigh of relief when frantic cheering from the crowd told that the feat had been accomplished. The fieldsmen clapped in quite an indulgent sort of way, as who should say, ”Capital, capital. And now let's start _our_ innings.” Some even began to edge toward the pavilion.

But the next ball was bowled, and the next over, and the next after that, and still Barnes made no sign. (The conscience stricken captain of Outwood's was, as a matter of fact, being practically held down by Robinson and other ruffians by force.)

A gray dismay settled on the field.