, a great wave of green; as I
saw it then, not yet touched with the first flame of autumn.

I inquired at the first cottage and received my direction to Stott's
dwelling. It lay up a little lane, the further of two cottages joined
together.

The door stood open, and after a moment's hesitation and a light knock,
I peered in.

Sitting in a rocking-chair was a woman with black, untidy eyebrows, and
on her knee, held with rigid attention, was the remarkable baby I had
seen in the train two months before. As I stood, doubtful and, I will
confess it, intimidated, suddenly cold and nervous, the child opened his
eyes and honoured me with a cold stare. Then he nodded, a reflective,
recognisable nod.

"'E remembers seein' you in the train, sir," said the woman, "'e never
forgets any one. Did you want to see my 'usband? 'E's upstairs."

So _this_ was the boy who was designed by Stott to become the greatest
bowler the world had ever seen....

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A relatively easy task for the baseball thrower, but one very
difficult of accomplishment for the English bowler, who is not permitted
by the laws of cricket to bend his elbow in delivering the ball.

CHAPTER III

THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF GINGER STOTT

I

Stott maintained an obstinate silence as we walked together up to the
Common, a stretch of comparatively open ground on the plateau of the
hill. He walked with his hands in his pockets and his head down, as he
had walked out from Ailesworth with me nearly three years before, but
his mood was changed. I was conscious that he was gloomy, depressed,
perhaps a little unstrung. I was burning with curiosity. Now that I was
released from the thrall of the child's presence, I was eager to hear
all there was to tell of its history.

Presently we sat down under an ash-tree, one of three that guarded a
shallow, muddy pond skimmed with weed. Stott accepted my offer of a
cigarette, but seemed disinclined to break the silence.

I found nothing better to say than a repetition of the old phrase.
"That's a very remarkable baby of yours, Stott," I said.

"Ah!" he replied, his usual substitute for "yes," and he picked up a
piece of dead wood and threw it into the little pond.

"How old is he?" I asked.

"Nearly two year."

"Can he ..." I paused; my imagination was reconstructing the scene of
the railway carriage, and I felt a reflex of the hesitation shown by the
rubicund man when he had asked the same question. "