8
MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
There was more than one moment during the first fortnight of term whenMike found himself regretting the attitude he had imposed upon himselfwith regard to Sedleighan cricket. He began to realize the eternal truthof the proverb about half a loaf and no bread. In the first flush of hisresentment against his new surroundings he had refused to play cricket.And now he positively ached for a game. Any sort of a game. An inningsfor a Kindergarten _v_. the Second Eleven of a Home of Rest forCentenarians would have soothed him. There were times, when the sunshone, and he caught sight of white flannels on a green ground, andheard the "plonk" of bat striking ball, when he felt like rushing toAdair and shouting, "I _will_ be good. I was in the Wrykyn team threeyears, and had an average of over fifty the last two seasons. Lead me tothe nearest net, and let me feel a bat in my hands again."
But every time he shrank from such a climb down. It couldn't be done.
What made it worse was that he saw, after watching behind the nets onceor twice, that Sedleigh cricket was not the childish burlesque of thegame which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be. Numbers donot make good cricket. They only make the presence of good cricketersmore likely, by the law of averages.
Mike soon saw that cricket was by no means an unknown art at Sedleigh.Adair, to begin with, was a very good bowler indeed. He was not aBurgess, but Burgess was the only Wrykyn bowler whom, in his threeyears' experience of the school, Mike would have placed above him. Hewas a long way better than Neville-Smith, and Wyatt, and Milton, and theothers who had taken wickets for Wrykyn.
The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men.Barnes, the head of Outwood's, he who preferred not to interfere withStone and Robinson, was a mild, rather timid-looking youth--not unlikewhat Mr. Outwood must have been as a boy--but he knew how to keep ballsout of his wicket. He was a good bat of the old plodding type.
Stone and Robinson themselves, that swashbuckling pair, who now treatedMike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both fairbatsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.
There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing's house.
Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a starat Wrykyn.
* * * * *
One solitary overture Mike made during that first fortnight. He did notrepeat the experiment.
It was on a Thursday afternoon, after school. The day was warm, butfreshened by an almost imperceptible breeze. The air was full of thescent of the cut grass which lay in little heaps behind the nets. Thisis the real cricket scent, which calls to one like the very voice ofthe game.
Mike, as he sat there watching, could stand it no longer.
He went up to Adair.
"May I have an innings at this net?" he asked. He was embarrassed andnervous, and was trying not to show it. The natural result was that hismanner was offensively abrupt.
Adair was taking off his pads after his innings. He looked up. "Thisnet," it may be observed, was the first eleven net.
"What?" he said.
Mike repeated his request. More abruptly this time, from increasedembarrassment.
"This is the first eleven net," said Adair coldly. "Go in after Lodgeover there."
"Over there" was the end net, where frenzied novices were bowling on acorrugated pitch to a red-haired youth with enormous feet, who looked asif he were taking his first lesson at the game.
Mike walked away without a word.
* * * * *
The Archaeological Society expeditions, even though they carried withthem the privilege of listening to Psmith's views of life, proved but apoor substitute for cricket. Psmith, who had no counterattractionshouting to him that he ought to be elsewhere, seemed to enjoy themhugely, but Mike almost cried sometimes from boredom. It was not alwayspossible to slip away from the throng, for Mr. Outwood evidently lookedupon them as among the very faithful, and kept them by his side.
Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow "sicklied o'erwith the pale cast of care." But Psmith followed his leader with thepleased and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing himround the garden. Psmith's attitude toward archaeological researchstruck a new note in the history of that neglected science. He wasamiable, but patronizing. He patronized fossils, and he patronizedruins. If he had been confronted with the Great Pyramid, he would havepatronized that.
He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.
That this was not altogether a genuine thirst was proved in the thirdexpedition. Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the site of anold Roman camp. Psmith approached Mike.
"Having inspired confidence," he said, "by the docility of our demeanor,let us slip away, and brood apart for awhile. Roman camps, to beabsolutely accurate, give me the pip. And I never want to see anotherputrid fossil in my life. Let us find some shady nook where a man maylie on his back for a bit."
Mike, over whom the proceedings connected with the Roman camp had longsince begun to shed a blue depression, offered no opposition, and theystrolled away down the hill.
Looking back, they saw that the archaeologists were still hard at it.Their departure had passed unnoticed.
"A fatiguing pursuit, this grubbing for mementos of the past," saidPsmith. "And, above all, dashed bad for the knees of the trousers. Mineare like some furrowed field. It's a great grief to a man of refinement,I can tell you, Comrade Jackson. Ah, this looks a likely spot."
They had passed through a gate into the field beyond. At the farther endthere was a brook, shaded by trees and running with a pleasant soundover pebbles.
"Thus far," said Psmith, hitching up the knees of his trousers, andsitting down, "and no farther. We will rest here awhile, and listen tothe music of the brook. In fact, unless you have anything important tosay, I rather think I'll go to sleep. In this busy life of ours thesenaps by the wayside are invaluable. Call me in about an hour." AndPsmith, heaving the comfortable sigh of the worker who by toil hasearned rest, lay down, with his head against a mossy tree stump, andclosed his eyes.
Mike sat on for a few minutes, listening to the water and makingcenturies in his mind, and then, finding this a little dull, he got up,jumped the brook, and began to explore the wood on the other side.
He had not gone many yards when a dog emerged suddenly from theundergrowth, and began to bark vigorously at him.
Mike liked dogs, and, on acquaintance, they always liked him. But whenyou meet a dog in someone else's wood, it is as well not to stop inorder that you may get to understand each other. Mike began to threadhis way back through the trees.
He was too late.
"Stop! What the dickens are you doing here?" shouted a voice behind him.
In the same situation a few years before, Mike would have carried on,and trusted to speed to save him. But now there seemed a lack of dignityin the action. He came back to where the man was standing.
"I'm sorry if I'm trespassing," he said. "I was just having a lookround."
"The dickens you--Why, you're Jackson!"
Mike looked at him. He was a short, broad young man with a fairmoustache. Mike knew that he had seen him before somewhere, but he couldnot place him.
"I played against you, for the Free Foresters last summer. In passingyou seem to be a bit of a free forester yourself, dancing in among mynesting pheasants."
"I'm frightfully sorry."
"That's all right. Where do you spring from?"
"Of course--I remember you now. You're Prendergast. You made fifty-eightnot out."
"Thanks. I was afraid the only thing you would remember about me wasthat you took a century mostly off my bowling."
"You ought to have had me second ball, only cover dropped it."
"Don't rake up forgotten tragedies. How is it you're not at Wrykyn? Whatare you doing down here?"
"I've left Wrykyn."
Prendergast suddenly change
d the conversation. When a fellow tells youthat he has left school unexpectedly, it is not always tactful toinquire the reason. He began to talk about himself.
"I hang out down here. I do a little farming and a good deal ofputtering about."
"Get any cricket?" asked Mike, turning to the subject next his heart.
"Only village. Very keen, but no great shakes. By the way, how are youoff for cricket now? Have you ever got a spare afternoon?"
Mike's heart leaped.
"Any Wednesday or Saturday. Look here, I'll tell you how it is."
And he told how matters stood with him.
"So, you see," he concluded, "I'm supposed to be hunting for ruins andthings"--Mike's ideas on the subject of archaeology were vague--"but Icould always slip away. We all start out together, but I could nip back,get onto my bike--I've got it down here--and meet you anywhere youliked. By Jove, I'm simply dying for a game. I can hardly keep my handsoff a bat."
"I'll give you all you want. What you'd better do is to ride straight toLower Borlock--that's the name of the place--and I'll meet you on theground. Anyone will tell you where Lower Borlock is. It's just off theLondon road. There's a signpost where you turn off. Can you come nextSaturday?"
"Rather. I suppose you can fix me up with a bat and pads? I don't wantto bring mine."
"I'll lend you everything. I say, you know, we can't give you a Wrykynwicket. The Lower Borlock pitch isn't a shirt front."
"I'll play on a rockery, if you want me to," said Mike.
* * * * *
"You're going to what?" asked Psmith, sleepily, on being awakened andtold the news.
"I'm going to play cricket, for a village near here. I say, don't tell asoul, will you? I don't want it to get about, or I may get lugged in toplay for the school."
"My lips are sealed. I think I'll come and watch you. Cricket I dislike,but watching cricket is one of the finest of Britain's manly sports.I'll borrow Jellicoe's bicycle."
* * * * *
That Saturday, Lower Borlock smote the men of Chidford hip and thigh.Their victory was due to a hurricane innings of seventy-five by anewcomer to the team, M. Jackson.