Watching them play

It is a bitter grief to me that now, after a life spent in devotion to duty, I cannot bowl the curly ones. My hand has lost its cunning. It has become more close-fisted, it that expression be permissible, and is trickier with the bowl than with the ball. I can see the wicket still—quite still—but cannot hit it with a curly one, and if I were locked up with it in a field, on condition that no egress would be allowed until I had disturbed its symmetry, I should probably be there now. One deteriorates thus with age. Time mellows our infirmities, and if we lived much longer there would be little left worth interment.

Accepting the inevitable, and recognizing the disability of age, I do not play cricket much at the present time, but make a splendid looker-on. I know how everything should be done when other people are doing it.

That is the real art of criticism. Tell others how to play when you can’t play yourself; and nowadays when a match is on—when I am sunning myself in the pavilion and pointing out, from the safe position of spectator, how I used to play certain balls in the old days when I could see them— people listen with interest. Do they believe me? I never stop to think. They can please themselves, of course, and what they believe or otherwise does not affect my flow of oratory or my great belief in myself. It is no use setting up to be a critic if susceptible to criticism.

Snooker laughs now when, in occasional moments of aberration, I try to bowl a curly one. “Drop it, old man,” he said—not referring to the ball—the other afternoon, when I essayed to sling up one of the old sort, and the wicket-keeper had to walk halfway down the pitch to retrieve it. “You’ll wound yourself if you’re not careful,” continued Snooker, somewhat fiercely; “besides, life is too short for these exhibitions. If you’ll leave the field I’ll come with you as far as the gate and see you are not insulted by the small boys.”

And Snooker, too—a beauty to talk! Why, he never could bowl for nuts. He was once put on first in mistake, having told the captain a lot of lies about what he could do and having contributed to his partial inebriation before the match began, and the error was not discovered until the other side had beaten us without the loss of a wicket! And yet he has the audacity to address me before others in the derisive manner indicated.

But, with all his faults of manner and temper, Snooker is an agreeable companion, especially when he exercises his power of sarcasm on others, and, knowing my indisposition to give anyone a walk-over in a verbal contest, he generally looks out for easier prey.

“Come and take a day off,” he said to me; “you’re not getting richer, only weaker, by this hard work. It never does people any good in the end; that’s where it settles ’em. The more money you leave behind the more there will be for others to spend, and the less they’ll think of you after it has gone.”

“Where to?” I asked wearily, clasping my brow to see if it were still there. “Where shall we go to?”

“There’s rather a swell cricket match,” replied Snooker, examining me with compassion; “and you must come and see it. A little fresh air and the sight of a few human beings—poor creatures, it is true, but the same as in other places—will do you good. You’ll go on writing, my friend, until you try to dive into the inkpot and drown yourself.”

So we went, Snooker and I, to see the match. They were only local elevens, but they played fair cricket; and if I can only lie down in the sun nowadays I don’t care much what there is to look at. When you reach the stage that it is too much trouble to move it is also a task to see.

Yet, despite his years and experiences (he is older even than I, and more experienced), Snooker is all life and animation when there is anything going on. He called my attention to the characteristics of the visiting team, and specially desired me to “pipe off the captain.”

“He’s a great swell,” said my friend, “in his own conceit, and speaks with a boudoir accent acquired from the London Journal. He is dressed in the height of village fashion, and if he looks at you thinks he’s given you something. His girl has come with him to see him make a long score. Rather a nice girl, too.”

“A chumpkins like that,” I said, turning on my back disgustedly, “who scarcely knows which finger to put into his mouth first, or how long to keep it there, always has the nicest girl; whereas a man of”—and I roll over again to get a better look at her. A nice girl, truly.

Then Snooker, who becomes almost infuriated if he notices anyone putting side on, conceived a nefarious plot for the discomfiture of the very swell “captain” of the opposition. How he got into conversation with that splendid young man will never be known, but Snooker is full of devices, and if one fails tries another. He talked to him with vivacity for nearly half an hour, and then returned to me.

“It’s all right,” he said, in a business-like tone. “I’ve taken seven to four in sovereigns that his side don’t win, and laid him an even fiver he don’t make twenty. And now to square our fast bowler—Bill Crease.”

What a man, to be sure! Full of energy and guile even in his declining years! I watched him from my reposeful attitude talking to the redoubtable Bill, who was the “demon” bowler of our district, and who, if he could not get wickets, aimed at legs or stomachs. He did not care what he hit so long as he hit something and somebody howled.

The interview with Bill was satisfactory. Snooker, with smiling face, strolled across the ground.

“What’s happened?” I asked, fatigued by trying to lie still. “How much have you given Bill to murder whom?”

“He’s on a couple to nothing if his side wins,” replied the old warrior, darkly, “and he gets another sovereign if he disab—I mean dismisses the captain before he has scored many.”

“He’s not, of course, to be too fierce and destructive?” I inquired, knowing Bill’s want of money. “You have tried to draw the line, I trust, at manslaughter.”

“Oh! yes,” replied Snooker—“nothing necessarily murderous. But when Bill fairly slips himself with cash in view, they must take their chance. I’ve told him what to do with the captain.”

“What?” I asked, reflecting that if anything happened to the captain somebody might take his girl home, and thinking how I could entertain her en route and afterwards.

“I told Bill to send him down a very hot ’un for the first ball, aimed straight at the pit of his stomach, and then bowl him with a fast yorker. Will that do?” And Snooker smiled down upon me just as he used to do in the old “flapping” days when he was beaten on a hot favourite and only just escaped from the furious mob.

You never saw such an exhibition as the “captain” made. At the wicket he threw a lordly glance around as if to see which was the farthest point of the field to which he could drive the ball most frequently; and he threw himself into a position of studied grace intended to suggest his capacity to make six every time he hit until he became tired of doing so. He received the first ball almost in the pit of his stomach. He only just popped out of the way in time. Of the next one he popped out of the way too soon; it was a fast yorker, and no doubt, thinking of the recent escape of his abdomen, he did not try to play it, only to save himself. It bowled him, and when he returned to the pavilion, biting the grease off his moustache, Snooker was talking to his girl!

Yes, it is true that I do often regret I cannot now bowl the curly ones. It is not pleasant to think that one is growing old, and that one’s best performance is to sit still. But, happily, the less capable we are the more critical we become; and, looking on, I can see and say how things ought to be done. So can Snooker, but he prefers to win money.

Great Scot the Chaser. By G.G. 1897