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 a.s.sembled then.
Fenning came shambling into the tent. I spoke to him.
"Mr. Benyon"s bowling was too much for you, eh, Fenning?"
Unless I am mistaken, Mr. Fenning wiped a tear out of his eye. He certainly put up his hand and rubbed the optic with his knuckles.
"I never seed such bowling! "Tain"t fair!" he said.
"What is there unfair about it, Fenning?"
"It comes so sharp. I never seed the ball afore there was my wickets down."
I smiled. Not so the company. They regarded Mr. Fenning"s words with different eyes. Mr. Hedges gave expression to the general opinion.
"You ain"t never seen such bowling afore, and you won"t never see such bowling again. "Cause why? "Cause it"s a ghost that"s bowling, not a man!"
Mr. Fenning looked about him with open eyes, and with open mouth as well. "A ghost!" he mumbled.
"A ghost!" said Mr. Hedges.
I expostulated.
"Come, Mr. Hedges, you frighten the lad. I am surprised, too, that a man of your age and experience and wisdom should talk nonsense about ghosts."
Mr. Hedges looked up at me a little sharply.
"If he ain"t a ghost, what"s become of the things that he"s took off?"
I asked him what he meant. He pointed across the ground.
"He took off his hat and his coat and his scarf, and he laid "em on the gra.s.s. He ain"t touched "em, and no one ain"t took "em, yet they"re gone! We saw "em go. If he ain"t a ghost, what"s become of the things that he"s took off?"
Mr. Hedges grew a little excited. I looked in the direction in which the old gentleman was pointing. The garments he referred to had apparently vanished, but, of course, their disappearance was susceptible of a most natural explanation. I should have maintained this proposition with more confidence had it not been for something which immediately occurred.
Mr. Benyon was preparing to deliver his first ball to Mr. Sapsworth, and as I eyed him I noted the extremely unworkmanlike att.i.tude in which Mr. Sapsworth awaited the delivery. Preparatory to delivering the ball Mr. Benyon divested himself of his remarkable coat, which matched his trousers, and in so doing disclosed a waistcoat which matched his coat. Neatly folding up the garment, he laid it beside him on the ground. No sooner did it touch the ground than it disappeared.
I am unable to say how, but it did, and that before the eyes of all the lookers-on. This singular behaviour on the part of that curious garment took me by surprise.
After that I was prepared to excuse a certain amount of nervousness on the part of Mr. Sapsworth. To Mr. Benyon Mr. Sapsworth"s nervousness seemed to afford positive pleasure. He cried, in a tone which was perhaps _meant_ to be jovial:
"Now, Bob Sapsworth, prepare to be shaved!"
The ball went from his hand like lightning. Mr. Sapsworth yelled. Mr.
Benyon sent down his second ball--whack! not against the bat, but, I should say, as nearly as possible against the same portion of Mr.
Sapsworth"s frame which it had struck before. Any cricketer might have been demoralised after receiving two such blows, but he would at least have tried to get out of the way of the ball instead of in it. Mr.
Sapsworth placed his person exactly where the ball might be expected to come, and, for once in a way, expectation was realised--it did come. The third, fourth, and fifth b.a.l.l.s found an exactly similar billet, and the sixth not only knocked his bat out of his trembling hands, but all three of his stumps clean out of the ground.
"I said I"d shave you, Bobby!" shouted Mr. Benyon, as the victim went limping from the place of execution.
"Next man in," I said.
"I ain"t going in," courteously rejoined the player whose turn it was to follow. I was about to ask him why, when I was saved the trouble by Mr. Benyon.
"Jack Hawthorn!" Oddly enough, the man"s name was Hawthorn, though how Mr. Benyon came to know that he was next man in is more than I can say. Mr. Hawthorn was a huge fellow quite six feet high; but at the sound of Mr. Benyon"s voice he rose, docile as a child. "I"m waiting for you."
Without pads Mr. Hawthorn went striding across the turf, content to use the bat which Mr. Sapsworth had left lying on the ground. That hero came limping into the tent.
"It"s a ghost," he said.
I could not but feel that the fellow was something of a cur. To this feeling I gave expression.
"Ghost or no ghost, rather than let him pound me all over the body with the ball, I would have made one try to hit at it. And you told me that you were an all-round player."
No doubt the man must have been suffering considerable pain, but I was too much annoyed at his cowardice to feel for him. Besides, the whole thing was so preposterous.
Undoubtedly, as a trundler Mr. Benyon was superb. I have no hesitation in saying that I do not remember to have seen finer bowling than his on any ground in England. He combined two things which, so far as I am aware, are not to be found together in any living player--pace _and_ break. But it was not his bowling, fine as it was, which promised to work our ruin, so much as the absurd belief entertained by the members of the team that he--check trousers and all--was a ghost. An idea came into my head. I resolved that I would ask him, point-blank, in the face of all the people, if he was a ghost. If his answers did not satisfy the doubters nothing would.
The opportunity occurred just as he was about to begin his following over. Moving from the tent, I advanced towards the wickets.
"Excuse me, Mr. Benyon, but before you commence to bowl might I speak to you a word?"
He turned and looked at me. As he did so I was conscious that, in the most emphatic sense of the word, his appearance was peculiar. He looked as though he were a corpse, and an unhealthy corpse to boot--the sort of corpse that no man would spend a night with willingly. And this unpleasant appearance was accentuated by his ridiculous attire. Fancy a dead man, of a bloated habit of body, taking his walks abroad in a suit of checks--each check twelve inches square! I was so uncomfortably conscious that Mr. Benyon did not look a clubbable kind of man that I faltered in my speech.
"You will excuse me, Mr. Benyon, if the question I am about to put to you appears to you even worse than absurd, but the members of my team have some ridiculous notion in their heads that you are a certain Tom Benyon who died twenty years ago, and who now lies buried in the churchyard. I am sure, therefore, you will forgive my asking, are you a ghost?"
Mr. Benyon eyed me, and I eyed him--not willingly, but because, for some reason or other, I could not help it. At last he answered, speaking in a sort of shout,
"I am."
Of course such an answer was absurd--ridiculously absurd. As I sit here writing no man could be more conscious of its absurdity than I am. But _then_ it was not _that_ I was so conscious of as of a cold shiver going all down my back, and of a sort of feeling as though Providence had sent me out into the world knock-kneed. I struggled against a strong inclination to sit down upon the turf and stop there.
But being at the same time dimly aware that I was making an unexampled fool of myself, I made a frantic effort to regain the use of my tongue.
"Oh, you--you are a ghost! I--I thought so. Tha--thanks."
How I got back to the tent I have not the faintest notion. But I do know that after that exhibition of the sort of stuff that I was made of, disaster followed hard upon disaster.
The first wicket--my own--had fallen for thirteen runs. The second, and the third, had seen the score unaltered. Hawthorn was the fourth man in. He was so fortunate as to appear upon the scene just as I put my fatal question--it was to give him a chance I put it. The answer settled him--that is, if there was anything left to settle. I am not able to state exactly what became of him, but I have a clear impression that he was out at the end of the over. Moreover, of this I am well a.s.sured, that nine wickets fell without an addition being made to the score. I suppose that is, in its way, a record.
Whether Mr. Benyon owed the inhabitants of his native place a grudge the evidence before me does not enable one to decide; but, if he did, he certainly paid it in full that day. Although he bowled at the wickets he hit the players first. Nor was this, so far as appearances went, in any way his fault; they seemed to have a singular knack of getting just in the way of the ball. The order of the innings was this: the ball hit each man five times, and the wickets once. At the end of each of Mr. Benyon"s overs a batsman returned to the tent a sadder and a lamer man.
One case in particular was hard. It was the case of Mr. Hedges. He was the last man in; when his turn came, with the score still at thirteen runs, he stuck to his seat like glue.
"Won"t somebody go in for me?" he asked, as he saw his doom approaching. "I ain"t no cricketer," he added, a little later on. "Now am I?" He asked the question of his friends, but his friends were still. He addressed himself to Mr. Sapsworth. "Bob Sapsworth, you asked me to play, now didn"t you? You says to me, "If you play, William Hedges," you says, "I shouldn"t be surprised but what the gent as we"re going to ask to captain us stands you a free lunch," you says, "not to speak of drinks," you says." I p.r.i.c.ked up my ears at this, but held my tongue. "But you says nothing about being bowled at by a ghost, now did you now; I ask you, Bob Sapsworth, did you now?"
Mr. Sapsworth was silent. The old gentleman went on:
"I shan"t go in," he announced. That was when the ninth batsman had received Mr. Benyon"s first ball--upon his person. "Nothing shan"t make me go in to be bowled at by a ghost." This second announcement followed the delivery of the second ball upon the batsman"s person. "I ain"t no cricketer, and I don"t know nothing about the rules of the game, and I ain"t going to stand up to be chucked at by a ghost," and Mr. Hedges struck his fist upon the board. There came a yell from the wickets; Mr. Hedges gripped his seat tightly with his hands. "I won"t go in!" he cried. Another ball, another yell. Mr. Hedges repeated his determination over and over again, as if in its reiteration he sought for strength to keep it. "I won"t! I won"t! I won"t!"