The Wrykyn match was three-parts over, and things were going badly forSedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, andthat Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one day match, and Wrykyn, whohad led on the first innings, had only to play out time to make thegame theirs.

　　Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to beinfluenced by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose moreschool matches than good play ever won. There is a certain type ofschool batsman who is a gift to any bowler when he once lets hisimagination run away with him. Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair,Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon this match in a state of the mostazure funk. Ever since Mike had received Strachan's answer and Adairhad announced on the notice-board that on Saturday, July thetwentieth, Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had been all on thejump. It was useless for Adair to tell them, as he did repeatedly, onMike's authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and that on theirpresent form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team listened, but werenot comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual strength, but thenWrykyn cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard that thisprobably meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be--for them--therewas a very firm impression among the members of the Sedleigh firsteleven that the other school was quite strong enough to knock thecover off _them_. Experience counts enormously in school matches.

　　Sedleigh had never been proved. The teams they played were the sort ofsides which the Wrykyn second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn, fromtime immemorial, had been beating Ripton teams and Free Forestersteams and M.C.C. teams packed with county men and sending men toOxford and Cambridge who got their blues as freshmen.

　　Sedleigh had gone on to the field that morning a depressed side.

　　It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choicebut to take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week,and the wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worseduring the day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.

　　Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this initself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst andnerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find thesurroundings lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlersbecomes magnified. Unless the first pair make a really good start, acollapse almost invariably ensues.

　　To-day the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark ofthe side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and fromwhom, whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty wasexpected--Mike, going in first with Barnes and taking first over, hadplayed inside one from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had beencaught at short slip off his second ball.

　　That put the finishing-touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and theothers, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowedthem to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hitout at anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing backto half-volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting wasnot equal to his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four.

　　Seven wickets were down for thirty when Psmith went in.

　　Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but hewas undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had anenormous reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce heturned into full-tosses and swept to the leg-boundary, and, assistedby Barnes, who had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, heraised the total to seventy-one before being yorked, with his score atthirty-five. Ten minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes notout sixteen, for seventy-nine.

　　Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, andfinally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred andthirty-one.

　　This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the teamhad looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather-hunting. ButAdair and Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy,especially Psmith, who had taken six wickets, his slows playing havocwith the tail.

　　It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling thegame out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate,having another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, theirnervousness had vanished, and they felt capable of better things thanin the first innings.

　　It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and himself went in first.

　　Mike knew the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convincedthat, if they could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle upa score sufficient to give them the game, always provided that Wrykyncollapsed in the second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicketwould be so bad then that they easily might.

　　So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit.

　　The deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, w............