The Ripton last-wicket man was de Freece, the slow bowler. He wasapparently a young gentleman wholly free from the curse ofnervousness. He wore a cheerful smile as he took guard beforereceiving the first ball after lunch, and Wrykyn had plenty ofopportunity of seeing that that was his normal expression when at thewickets. There is often a certain looseness about the attack afterlunch, and the bowler of googlies took advantage of it now. He seemedto be a batsman with only one hit; but he had also a very accurateeye, and his one hit, a semicircular stroke, which suggested the golflinks rather than the cricket field, came off with distressingfrequency. He mowed Burgess's first ball to the square-leg boundary,missed his second, and snicked the third for three over long-slip'shead. The other batsman played out the over, and de Freece proceededto treat Ellerby's bowling with equal familiarity. The scoring-boardshowed an increase of twenty as the result of three overs. Everyrun was invaluable now, and the Ripton contingent made the pavilionre-echo as a fluky shot over mid-on's head sent up the hundred andfifty.

　　There are few things more exasperating to the fielding side than alast-wicket stand. It resembles in its effect the dragging-out of abook or play after the _dénouement_ has been reached. At the fallof the ninth wicket the fieldsmen nearly always look on their outingas finished. Just a ball or two to the last man, and it will be theirturn to bat. If the last man insists on keeping them out in the field,they resent it.

　　What made it especially irritating now was the knowledge that astraight yorker would solve the whole thing. But when Burgess bowled ayorker, it was not straight. And when he bowled a straight ball, itwas not a yorker. A four and a three to de Freece, and a four bye sentup a hundred and sixty.

　　It was beginning to look as if this might go on for ever, whenEllerby, who had been missing the stumps by fractions of an inch,for the last ten minutes, did what Burgess had failed to do. Hebowled a straight, medium-paced yorker, and de Freece, swiping at itwith a bright smile, found his leg-stump knocked back. He had madetwenty-eight. His record score, he explained to Mike, as they walkedto the pavilion, for this or any ground.

　　The Ripton total was a hundred and sixty-six.

　　* * * * *With the ground in its usual true, hard condition, Wrykyn would havegone in against a score of a hundred and sixty-six with the cheeryintention of knocking off the runs for the loss of two or threewickets. It would have been a gentle canter for them.

　　But ordinary standards would not apply here. On a good wicket Wrykynthat season were a two hundred and fifty to three hundred side. On abad wicket--well, they had met the Incogniti on a bad wicket, andtheir total--with Wyatt playing and making top score--had worked outat a hundred and seven.

　　A grim determination to do their best, rather than confidence thattheir best, when done, would be anything record-breaking, was thespirit which animated the team when they opened their innings.

　　And in five minutes this had changed to a dull gloom.

　　The tragedy started with the very first ball. It hardly seemed thatthe innings had begun, when Morris was seen to leave the crease, andmake for the pavilion.

　　"It's that googly man," said Burgess blankly.

　　"What's happened?" shouted a voice from the interior of the firsteleven room.

　　"Morris is out.""Good gracious! How?" asked Ellerby, emerging from the room with onepad on his leg and the other in his hand.

　　"L.-b.-w. First ball.""My aunt! Who's in next? Not me?""No. Berridge. For goodness sake, Berry, stick a bat in the way, andnot your legs. Watch that de Freece man like a hawk. He breaks likesin all over the shop. Hullo, Morris! Bad luck! Were you out, do youthink?" A batsman who has been given l.-b.-w. is always asked thisquestion on his return to the pavilion, and he answers it in ninecases out of ten in the negative. Morris was the tenth case. Hethought it was all right, he said.

　　"Thought the thing was going to break, but it didn't.""Hear that, Berry? He doesn't always break. You must look out forthat," said Burgess helpfully. Morris sat down and began to take offhis pads.

　　"That chap'll have Berry, if he doesn't look out," he said.

　　But Berridge survived the ordeal. He turned his first ball to leg fora single.

　　This brought Marsh to the batting end; and the second tragedyoccurred.

　　It was evident from the way he shaped that Marsh was short ofpractice. His visit to the Infirmary had taken the edge off hisbatting. He scratched awkwardly at three balls without hitting them.

　　The last of the over had him in two minds. He started to play forward,changed his stroke suddenly and tried to step back, and the nextmoment the bails had shot up like the _débris_ of a smallexplosion, and the wicket-keeper was clapping his gloved hands gentlyand slowly in the introspective, dreamy way wicket-keepers have onthese occasions.

　　A silence that could be felt brooded over the pavilion.

　　The voice of the scorer, addressing from his little wooden hut themelancholy youth who was working the telegraph-board, broke it.

　　"One for two. Last man duck."Ellerby echoed the remark. He got up, and took off his blazer.

　　"This is all right," he said, "isn't it! I wonder if the man at theother end is a sort of young Rhodes too!"Fortunately he was not. The star of the Ripton attack was evidently deFreece. The bowler at the other end looked fairly plain. He sent themdown medium-pace, and on a good wicket would probably have beensimple. But to-day there was danger in the most guileless-lookingdeliveries.

　　Berridge relieved the tension a little by playing safely through theover, and scoring a couple of twos off it. And when Ellerby not onlysurvived the destructive de Freece's second over, but actually lifteda loose ball on to the roof of the scoring-hut, the cloud beganperceptibly to lift. A no-ball in the same over sent up the first ten.

　　Ten for two was not good; but it was considerably better than one fortwo.

　　With the score at thirty, Ellerby was missed in the slips off deFreece. He had been playing with slowly increasing confidence tillthen, but this seemed to throw him out of his stride. He played insidethe next ball, and was all but bowled: and then, jumping out to drive,he was smartly stumped. The cloud began to settle again.

　　Bob was the next man in.

　　Ellerby took off his pads, and dropped into the chair next to Mike's.

　　Mike was silent and thoughtful. He was in after Bob, and to be on theeve of batting does not make one conversational.

　　"You in next?" asked Ellerby.

　　Mike nodded.

　　"It's getting trickier every minute," said Ellerby. "The only thingis, if we can only stay in, we might have a chance. The wicket'll getbetter, and I don't believe they've any bowling at all bar de Freece.

　　By George, Bob's out!... No, he isn't."Bob had jumped out at one of de Freece's slows, as Ellerby had done,and had nearly met the same fate. The wicket-keeper, however, hadfumbled the ball.

　　"That's the way I was had," said Ellerby. "That man's keeping such ajolly good length that you don't know whether to stay in your groundor go out at them. If only somebody would knock him off his length, Ibelieve we might win yet."The same idea apparently occurred to Burgess. He came to where Mikewas sitting.

　　"I'm going to shove you down one, Jackson," he said. "I shall go innext myself and swipe, and try and knock that man de Freece off.""All right," said Mike. He was not quite sure whether he was glad orsorry at the respite.

　　"It's a pity old Wyatt isn't here," said Ellerby. "This is just thesort of time when he might have come off.""Bob's broken his egg," said Mike.

　　"Good man. Every little helps.... Oh, you silly ass, get _back_!"Berridge had called Bob for a short run that was obviously no run.

　　Third man was returning the ball as the batsmen crossed. The nextmoment the wicket-keeper had the bails off. Berridge was out by ayard.

　　"Forty-one for four," said Ellerby. "Help!"Burgess began his campaign against de Freece by skying his firstball over cover's head to the boundary. A howl of delight went upfrom the school, which was repeated, _fortissimo_, when, moreby accident than by accurate timing, the captain put on two morefours past extra-cover. The bowler's cheerful smile never varied.

　　Whether Burgess would have knocked de Freece off his length or not wasa question that was destined to remain unsolved, for in the middle ofthe other bowler's over Bob hit a single; the batsmen crossed; andBurgess had his leg-stump uprooted while trying a gigantic pull-stroke.

　　The melancholy youth put up the figures, 54, 5, 12, on the board.

　　Mike, as he walked out of the pavilion to join Bob, was not consciousof any particular nervousness. It had been an ordeal having to waitand look on while wickets fell, but now that the time of inaction wasat an end he felt curiously composed. When he had gone out to batagainst the M.C.C. on the occasion of his first appearance for theschool, he experienced a quaint sensation of unreality. He seemed tobe watching his body walking to the wickets, as if it were some oneelse's. There was no sense of individuality.

　　But now his feelings were different. He was cool. He noticed smallthings--mid-off chewing bits of grass, the bowler re-tying the scarfround his waist, little patches of brown where the turf had been wornaway. He took guard with a clear picture of the positions of thefieldsmen photographed on his brain.

　　Fitness, which in a batsman exhibits itself mainly in an increasedpower of seeing the ball, is one of the most inexplicable thingsconnected with cricket. It has nothing, or very little, to do withactual health. A man may come out of a sick-room with just that extraquickness in sighting the ball that makes all the difference; or hemay be in perfect training and play inside straight half-volleys. Mikewould not have said that he felt more than ordinarily well that day.

　　Indeed, he was............