pla-a-a-yed!"

But as the score crept up, the tensity grew. As each ball was delivered,
a chill, rigid silence held the onlookers in its grip. When Trigson,
with the field collected round him, almost to be covered with a sheet,
stonewalled the most tempting lob, the click of the ball on his bat was
an intrusion on the stillness. And always it was followed by a deep
breath of relief that sighed round the ring like a faint wind through a
plantation of larches. When Bobby scored, the tumult broke out like a
crash of thunder; but it subsided again, echoless, to that intense
silence so soon as the ball was "dead."

Curiously, it was not Bobby who made the winning hit but Trigson. "One
to tie, two to win," breathed Puggy as the field changed over, and it
was Trigson who had to face the bowling. The suspense was torture.
Oxford had put on their fast bowler again, and Trigson, intimidated,
perhaps, did not play him with quite so straight a bat as he had opposed
to the lob-bowler. The ball hit Trigson's bat and glanced through the
slips. The field was very close to the wicket, and the ball was
travelling fast. No one seemed to make any attempt to stop it. For a
moment the significance of the thing was not realised; for a moment
only, then followed uproar, deafening, stupendous.

Puggy was stamping fiercely on the top of his cart; the tears were
streaming down his face; he was screaming and yelling incoherent words.
And he was representative of the crowd. Thus men shouted and stamped and
cried when news came of the relief of Kimberley, or when that false
report of victory was brought to Paris in the August of 1870....

The effect upon Ginger was a thing apart. He did not join in the fierce
acclamation; he did not wait to see the chairing of Bobby and Trigson.
The greatness of Stott's character, the fineness of his genius is
displayed in his attitude towards the dramatic spectacle he had just
witnessed.

As he trudged home into Ailesworth, his thoughts found vent in a
muttered sentence which is peculiarly typical of the effect that had
been made upon him.

"I believe I could have bowled that chap," he said.

III

In writing a history of this kind, a certain licence must be claimed. It
will be understood that I am filling certain gaps in the narrative with
imagined detail. But the facts are true. My added detail is only
intended to give an appearance of life and reality to my history. Let
me, therefore, insist upon one