"Pip" Part 8

"Come, that's better. What part?"

"All the cricket."

"Are you a keen cricketer, then?"

"I'm no good, sir, but I am keen."

"Well, trot down and change, and then we'll go to the field and I'll run over your points at a net. We will see if you are as good a cricketer as you are a scholar. Stay and have some cake first. Perhaps you will excuse me if I smoke a pipe. Masters have their vices, you see. I haven't smoked for nearly three hours."

So the pair sat, Pip with a large piece of cake balanced delicately on his knee, morbidly anxious not to spill crumbs on the floor; and Hanbury lolling back in his armchair, smoking his pipe and surveying this st.u.r.dy youth before him, who knew every cricketer's average and had never heard of Cinderella.

As Pip was changing into flannels a few minutes later he encountered Mumford.

"Come to the grub-shop," said that hero.

"Can't," said Pip shortly. "Seen the comb anywhere?"

"Comb? What for?" said Mumford, who considered parting the hair during term-time an affectation.

"My hair, of course, silly swine," replied Pip, without heat.

"You must be cracked! Come to the grub-shop," reiterated his friend.

"Can't. Promised to go to a net with Ham."

And Pip, having worked up the conversation to this artistic climax, departed, leaving Mumford, who was not an athlete, in a state of incoherent amazement.

Mr. Hanbury presently arrived at the net, with two more small boys picked up on the way. Each was given an innings, with a little helpful coaching, Pip coming last. He stood up to the bowling manfully, and occasionally slogged one of his weaker brethren; but his bat was anything but straight, and Ham bowled him at will.

"M' yes," said Mr. Hanbury, "you are only an average lot of batsmen. Can any of you bowl?"

There was a respectful chorus of "No, sir," as custom demanded.

"Well, try. I am going to have a knock."

Pip and company bowled a few laborious overs, and speedily proved that their estimate of their own powers was based upon truth, their preceptor treating their deliveries with little ceremony.

Finally they were ranged in a semicircle, and Ham gave them fielding practice.

Here Pip felt more at home. He was quick on his feet and possessed a "nippy" pair of hands. His ground fielding was especially good.

"Hallo!" cried Mr. Hanbury, as Pip got to a ball which kept low down on his left, and returned it particularly smartly; "which hand did you throw in that ball with, young man?"

Pip surveyed two grubby paws doubtfully.

"I think it was my left, sir," he said apologetically. "I can't help it sometimes."

"Ambidextrous, eh? Catch this. Now, throw it in again--left hand."

Pip did so, wondering.

"Do you ever bowl left-handed?" was the next inquiry.

"No, sir."

"Well, just come to a net for a few minutes. You other people can cut off to tea now."

The tea-bell had just rung, and the field was emptying rapidly.

"Now, my son," said the master, "you are going to bowl to me with your left hand. Plug them in."

Pip did so. His first ball was a fast half-volley, and was promptly treated as it deserved.

"Now, another. Take my ball. The groundboy will field yours."

Pip, full of importance at having some one to field for him, bowled again. This time he sent down a good length ball. Mr. Hanbury stepped out to it, played right outside it, and next moment his leg-stump was lying on the ground. He was clean bowled.

CHAPTER IV

PIP FINDS HIS VOCATION

MR. HANBURY made no comment, but requested Pip to bowl again. "A good fast one," he said.

Pip, with the most natural air in the world, obeyed orders. This time he bowled a yorker, somewhere in the direction of the off-stump. Mr.

Hanbury did not trouble to play it, but chopped his bat down into the block-hole to stop it. The ball, however, chiefly owing to the fact that it curled some inches in the air, missed his bat and bowled him off his pads.

"One more," said Ham.

Pip, divided between elation at bowling a master and apprehension as to the consequences thereof, delivered his fourth ball--a full pitch to the off this time. Bad ball as it was, the curl in the air was most apparent; but Ham, who took the measure of most bowling after the third ball, stepped across, and, playing apparently about three inches inside it, caught it fairly and sent it flying.

"That will do, thanks," he said. "Now, run off to tea, but drop into my study after prayers for a minute."

Pip made his appearance very promptly after prayers.

Mr. Hanbury, who was smoking and correcting exercises, nodded to a chair, and after a few minutes' silence, broken by sundry grunts and the thud of a merciless blue pencil, put down his work and addressed Pip.

"Now, my man, I want to have a word with you. You are what is known as a natural bowler. Why you didn't find it out for yourself I can't think.

Didn't you, in your extreme infancy, often feel an inclination to stir your porridge with your left hand?"

Pip reflected; and sundry nursery incidents, of no previous import, suddenly acquired a new significance in his mind.

"Yes, sir," he said, "I did. But my nur--my people used to tell me not to, and I got out of the way of it, I suppose."

"They always do it," said Ham sympathetically. "Now, listen. A man may be the fastest and straightest bowler in the world, but unless he has _pitch_ he has nothing, nothing, nothing! A straight ball is no good if it is a long hop or a full pitch, and the only way to acquire the art is to practise and practise and practise until you can drop the ball on a threepenny-bit at twenty yards. Now, if I take you for half an hour at a net after tea for the next few weeks, will you agree to do something for me in return?"