Peter Steele the Cricketer

Front matter

All rights reserved IPeicr Steele, llje Cricketer BY HORACE G. HUTCHINSON AUTHOR OF "creatures of circumstances," "hints on golf" etc., etc. BRISTOL J. W. Arrowsmith, ii Quay Street LONDON Simpkin, Marshall, Hui'i.t-!, K--nt and Company Limited Hrrowsmitb's 3/6 Series. Vol. CONTENTS. Chap. pagg I. SWIVEL-PIPKIN V. THE GITANOS ... 5 II. THE TEMPERING OF THE STEEL . . . 31 in. peter's methods in finance and love . 50 iv. the 'varsity match 68 v. " not quite the game " . . . .86 VI. the course of true love . . .112 vii. the faculty of medicine ... . 140 viii. soldiers' cricket ..... 160 IX. PETER DECLINES A GOOD OFFER l8o X. SIR TIMOTHY BARTER, BART. . . . 197 XI. TANDEM-DRIVING . . . . . 225 XII. SWIVEL-PIPKIN V. PADSTOCK HALL . . 245 XIII. THE MANIFOLD CONSEQUENCES OF A BLACK EYE ....... 268 XIV. TOLLING KNELL AND MARRIAGE CHIME . -gctcr Stole, % (trirkctcr.

Chapter I

5wivel=pipfcfn v. tbe ©ftanos. sent Peter Steele to school when he was A rather young for such a state of life, because he was so great a villain that they could not keep him at home. He was no lean Cassius, but a creature with a round bullet-head sitting close down on an Eton collar in a way that suggested that his latter end would be apoplexy. The Eton collar sat upon the very shortest of Eton jackets. A pair of sturdy legs, generally kept well apart, supported the arrangement. Peter's cheeks were chubby and very rosy ; his hair, cropped short, stood up all over his head like a hedgehog's spines. His eyes were round and roguish. The sins of Peter's villainy, whereby it had become necessary to send him to an establishment where authority was backed by the knowledge of birch-rods in the cupboard, consisted chiefly of sins of insubordination and boisterousness.

He was not a liar nor a coward ; and when his father had introduced him to his house-master, who had said paternal words to him (terrible interviews these, for all concerned) and left him in the charge of little Jackie Nipperkin, whom he had known at home, Peter stood dry-eyed, with legs aggressively wide apart and hands doggedly deep in pockets, watching the fly depart with his parent. Jackie, whom his friends called Nipper, brought him back to the realities of life with : " I say, how much did your guv'nor tip you ? " Five bob," said Peter "Well," said Jackie, "let's go and have some grub." When an old boy (Jackie was an old boy) leads a new boy to the grub shop, other old boys always evince a friendly interest. Peter confirmed his acquaintance with many of them by inviting them to share the sacred rites of his hospitality.

It was all very friendly, but rather expensive. Ninepence, only, was left of the five bob by the time the entertainment was over. That did not much matter though, as Jackie Nipperkin said, because there would be some pocket-money to come at the end of the week. He made a very good start with his schoolfellows, and Nipperkin said he would try to get him made cricket-fag to his own fag-master, the captain of their house eleven. He did not make quite such a good start with his form-master, for he had the misfortune of letting a nice practice ball fall out of his pocket on his second school-day. It rolled along the floor till it reached the master's desk. He asked whose it was. " Mine, sir," Peter said, rising in his place and getting scarlet-faced. " Yours, eh ? What did you bring it into school for ?

" " Don't know, sir. " It doesn't improve the set of your jacket, you know, carrying it in the pocket. I '11 keep it for you." Peter's was the lowest form in the school, and had there been a yet lower form he would not have been as high as he was. But he accepted his position with cheerfulness. Out of school he had compensations. He fagged for the captain of the house eleven, and this was an honour, owed to Nipperkin, which seldom fell to the lot of a new boy. Twice in the first week the captain of the house eleven spoke to him. Once he asked him his name, and the other time he called him " butter-fingers " when he missed a catch. Also he was stronger than most of the boys in his form, though the youngest but one in it; so altogether he was a person of some consideration with his fellows. One day, in the middle of the term, there came an eleven of the M.C.C. to play against the school.

It was not the best eleven that the M.C.C. could put into the field, but the small boys did not know that. Anyone that wore a red-and yellow ribbon was a first-class cricketer to them— they did not ask any more about him ; and when the captain of Peter's house eleven (he was not captain of the school) bowled one of the biggest, second ball, for one run, Peter nearly burst himself with pride and applause. Peter was in great form on this day, for amongst the M.C.C. had come down his uncle, Mr. Charles Steele, whom his friends called Bunny Steele, though to Peter he was Uncle Charles or Uncle Charlie. Peter walked about with his uncle during the M.C.C. innings, and was regarded with envy by other boys less fortunate. Bunny Steele was very popular ; every one chaffed him, and he chaffed every one.

He was rather stout, and red in the face, very cheery. He treated Peter and Jack Nipperkin handsomely at the grub shop, and all the M.C.C. eleven who were not in came to see him do it. They chaffed a good deal : asked Peter if he did not respect his uncle very much ? — to which he said " Yes," naturally, seeing that jam-tarts and an eventual tip were in prospect. When his uncle went in, everybody laughed, his uncle laughing too. But he made thirty-six runs, in real good style ; for though he chaffed, he was a sound good cricketer, though something short of a first-class one, and at every one of the thirty-six runs Peter applauded lustily — rather too lustily for the taste of some of the boys, who were keener on the success of the school than of Peter's uncle. But Peter made up for it all by applauding even more vociferously when the school went in, especially when the captain of his own house began to make runs.

In the end the school was beaten on the first innings, and the M.C.C. men went away in a brake, singing a chorus led by Peter's uncle, who had left half-a sovereign in Peter's hand as he shook it to say good bye. "Jolly old chap, your old uncle, by Jove!" Jackie Nipperkin said. " Wish I 'd got an uncle." " Yes, it's funny being like you," Peter said. "How is it you aren't called by your guv'nor's name ? " " Well, I don't know how it is," replied Jack Nipperkin, by courtesy the Honourable John, and third son of the Right Honourable the Earl of Tankerdine ; "it's somehow like this: my father's Lord Tankerdine — that means earl ; and his eldest son, Quartern, is a lord too, but he 's not an earl. I don't know why. That 's how it is. D'you see?" "Yes, I see," said Peter; "but why aren't you Jackie Tankerdine, if your guv'nor's Lord Tankerdine?

Mine's name 's Nathaniel Steele, so I 'm Peter Steele, don't you see ? Why isn't it the same about you ? " " I don't know, I 'm sure. Quartern's name 's going to be Tankerdine sometime, but mine never is. I don't quite know why." "By Jove! it's awfully rummy, isn't it?" said Peter. "Look out— catch ! " and he took a cricket ball from his pocket and threw it into Jackie's stomach, so that it doubled up that gentleman with breathlessness and himself with laughter. When the M.C.C. eleven came down the next year Peter had grown, but he had not grown out of the lowest form. The School eleven were rather late in turning out, because the sixth form had examinations going on, and the Marylebone eleven took turns at practising at a net. Bunny Steele was there, and called to Peter to come and bowl to him.

He had bowled before, several times, at the nets. " Half-a-crown, if you bowl me, Peter!" his uncle called out. The first two balls went to leg, but the third was a straight half-volley, at which Bunny Steele jumped out so far that he made a "yorker" of it, and it bowled him clean. How they all laughed at Bunny Steele ! After that, Peter was made to go the wicket and they bowled lobs to him till the eleven came out, and they took the nets away. Peter had never had such a day as that in all his life before. A month or two later, when Peter had gone home for the summer holidays, there came down an eleven of the Gitanos to play against the Swivel-pipkin team. Swivel-pipkin was the village of which Nathaniel Steele, Peter's father, was squire ; and it was said, and generally believed by everyone in that neighbourhood at all events, that on Swivel-pipkin Green cricket was played before it was played anywhere else in the country ; but for these questions you should consult the Badminton Library — the Cricket volume. [By-the-by, one of the collaborators of that volume is named Steel, and is a very famous cricketer ; but I am assured by both sides that the Steeles of Swivel -pipkin are no connections of his : in fact, the spelling of the names is not identical.]

The wicket on the green was beautifully rolled and kept, for it was under the charge of old Dan Guardeer, the postman and the keenest cricketer in Swivel-pipkin. He thought nothing, after he had gone his rounds of seventeen miles in the day, of spending a couple of hours or so rolling and mowing, with one of his boys to help him. In winter he spent all his time patching and mending the rotten places, where the bowler's toe had torn the ground. " It 's this yer 'orrid round - arm bowling as does it," he said. " No sort of science there isn't about it at all. Just like the bombardment of Constan tinople." His own bowling was quite of another kind. He came stealing and crouching up to the wicket, with the ball held in both hands before his face just on a level with his eyes, and covering the middle stump at which he was aiming.

But it was not always dead on the middle stump that he would launch it, with that under hand action of his — for he could make it break either way, in or out ; and there were stories of his bowling John Benson, the hard-hitting blacksmith of Green heart, the next village, with a ball that pitched well outside the legs and broke round, without any hill to help it, so that it took the middle stump. Swivel-pipkin never played a match without old Guardeer's assistance. He would start very early on his rounds, and generally had them over in good time. In this way he was only able to deliver the letters that came by the first mail, and if people wanted their second mail they must just make shift to go without it, for there was more im port business — namely, a cricket match — on. The out-fielding was a little rough, especially where the ground sloped away and grew boggy down towards the duck-pond.

There the gypsies' horses always made it full of holes; but then that was a long way from the wicket, and no one but John Benson had ever been known to hit so far, and the ball which he had hit into the duck-pond was still shown, with an inscription on it, in the Man of Timber public-house. A road ran on either side of the green. The gate of Squire Steele's drive opened upon the road on the south side, and nearly opposite it were gates of a much grander place, with a gravelled avenue that went winding up the hill under great trees. This led to Tankerdine Castle, the home of the Earls of Tankerdine and of Jackie Nipperkin. Lord Tankerdine was a warm supporter of cricket and of all sport. He was a tall, thin old man of courteous manner, kindly at heart. worldly-weak in character, with nothing but his class prejudices to serve him by way of virtues or of vices.

His wife was dead, and he and his house were governed by a daughter, Lady Blanche, tall and eagle-faced like himself. He had a younger daughter, Lady Emily, and two sons older than Jackie. The older sons, Lord Quartern and the Honourable Robert Nipperkin, played regularly on the village green when they were at home. They had a ground close under the Castle windows, but it was very mossy and slow, and no one would have cared to play on it when there was old Guardeer's wicket down below. The Nipperkin family were strangely divided, in age. Lord Quartern and Lady Blanche were twins, and Robert little more than a year younger ; but then came a gap of a dozen years between Robert and Jackie, who was two years older again than Lady Emily, the youngest. The Gitanos' match was in many ways the best that Swivel-pipkin played.

The Gitanos were all nice, jovial, cheery fellows — all gentlemen, too : " Not that that matters much, you know," as Bunny Steele said. " There 're a lot of pros. I 'd sooner play cricket with, by a long sight, than numbers of these nasty, jealous, cross-grained amateurs." And no doubt he was right. The Gitanos' was a two days' match, the only two days' match Swivel-pipkin played, and the players were bedded out and about in the country houses round. Several of them were at the Castle. Bunny Steele and another — an old friend — were at Squire Steele's at the Manor, and kept Peter in a perpetual state of bubbling laughter by their jokes and cheery ways, so that his cheeks ached all round. David Steele, Peter's elder brother — some called them, rather profanely, Old Testa ment and New Testament Steele— was a soldier, and tried hard to play in this match, but could not get his leave granted.

He was not really a great loss — he was a poor cricketer. The cricketers and their noisy ways were rather a trial to Mrs. Steele. " I am sure, Nathaniel, they are drinking too much," she would say, as her husband came to her for the cellar key — her keeping of the key was suggestive of the bent of mind which made her call her husband by his name at full length. After dinner, on the first night of the cricketers' arrival, she took counsel with them about Peter. She was troubled that he remained in the lowest form. "Let the boy alone, Susy, he's getting on first rate," said his uncle. " But he is so ignorant, Charles," his mother objected. " He learns nothing." " He is learning to be a gentleman. I don't see what you want more than that." " I want him to be a Christian gentleman, Charles, which is something a good deal more.

It seems to me that his religious instruction is almost entirely neg lected." " You let him alone, Susy, the boy plays with a straight bat already, and a boy who can stand up to a yorker on the leg-stump will never tell a lie." " Of course he won't ! " said his mother, flashing up. " Peter tell a lie, indeed ! What is your opinion, Mr. Brewster ? " she asked, turning to the curate who was dining. He was a good but gaunt creature, who observed Lent more zealously than was physically good for him. But he was an active cover-point, and had a quick return. "You see," he said, in his pulpit manner, "at some schools they pay exclusive attention to boys who are likely to do them credit, by winning scholarships and so on, and neglect the ordinary boys. Now there are more ordinary boys than extraordinary ones.

Other schools distribute their attentions more equally. But every parent thinks its own child an extraordinary one, therefore every parent likes to send its own child to the school where they cherish the— shall we say ? — swans, to the neglect of the — may we say ? — geese." Mrs. Steele seldom liked a joke. She glared rather hard at the curate. " And which do you consider Peter ? " she asked severely. The curate found himself in a fix, but he got out cleverly. "Well, Mrs. Steele," he said, "they say that it is always the ugly ducklings that turn into swans, you know, so it wouldn't do for me to tell you that Peter was that." " Now, Swan, come here," said Bunny Steele, as Peter came into the room to say good-night, " Tell me, how long can a goose stand on one leg ?" " Get up and try," Peter answered readily.

" That 's stale." " Stale, is it ? Well, look here, you '11 be about on the green when the match begins to-morrow, won't you ? " " You bet," said Peter. " Well, that 's ail right. Mind you are." This was said with a significance that did not strike Peter until the morrow. He was early up, drawing aside the blind to look at the weather. It promised gloriously, with a gossamer-laden haze in the air and a heavy dew, glistening grey, which would all clear away when the sun climbed to any height. So he got back to bed again and thought about the match. He did not quite know which side he wanted to win. Local zeal stirred him to wish the victory of Swivel-pipkin, personal and family considerations made him rather desire the success of the Gitanos, whom his uncle was captaining, while his friends, Lord Quartern and Bob Nipperkin, were also playing for it.

It was a hard matter to decide, and he went to sleep again considering it. It was a very glorious morning when Peter woke up again. He had laid all his plan of campaign the previous afternoon — to meet Jackie Nipperkin, who would come down in the brake with the cricketers from the Castle, and lie on the grass all day and watch and clap. It was very simple. So he had all the after breakfast interval to admire his uncle and the fellow- Gitano he had brought with him, and watch them get out their cricket bags and occasionally play catch with them on the lawn. " Why doesn't Nat play ? " he heard his uncle's friend ask him ; and Peter laughed at the idea of any one so old as his father playing. His uncle seemed to take the question quite seriously, however. "Nat?" he said. "Oh, he says the ground gets farther and farther away, and just that last four inches a between your fingers and the grass let an awful lot of the balls under.

I shall be having to give it up myself soon." " Not yet awhile, I hope," the other said. Peter thought they were an interminable time about beginning. He strolled down to the gate once or twice to see what was going on. The tent had been put up, and old father Cass, the gypsy, was on guard by it ; but it was only on the second time of his going to look that he saw old Guardeer marking out the crease with a tin-pail full of whitewash. People's letters were often rather late in coming on Gitano match days. After all though, it was only half-past eleven or so when all was ready, the elevens putting on blazers and caps, in place of tweeds and billycocks, in the tent, and Peter with Jackie Nipperkin, Sammy Cass the gypsy's son, and Tom Guardeer, the postman's boy, were disposed on their stomachs on the ground, having secured a good front place.

There were no boundaries, but old Cass acted in combination with Joe Dennison, the policeman, in keeping folks back from crowding too near the players. These occasions were the only ones on which the gypsy and the policeman found themselves working at all on the same lines ; but now they were in all good fellowship, and Cass's caravan and starveling horses had good places for the match down in the direction of the duck-pond. The stumps were in the ground, and presently out went the umpires, with the bails — the landlord of the Man of Timber on behalf of Swivel-pipkin, and some stranger for the Gitanos. Then the Gitanos began to take the field and called to the landlord for the ball, and began throwing it to one another. They were wonderful catches Peter thought. Suddenly he heard his own name shouted in his uncle's voice.

He could hardly believe it till he heard it repeated. Then he started off at a run : he thought his uncle wanted to send him on a message and he wished he had been in hiding somewhere. But when his uncle said : " Peter, you 've got to play ; we 're a man short," he hardly knew whether he stood on his head or heels. " Look sharp you young beggar," his uncle said, as he stood staring. " Take off your coat and waistcoat and pitch 'em into the tent. You'll do like that. Square-leg 's your place, at both ends." So Peter chucked his coat and waistcoat into the tent and went out into the field, feeling that of all men in Swivel-pipkin that day he was the biggest and most fortunate. They threw the ball to him and he caught it — harder, and he caught it again — finally came one from his uncle that took his breath away to look at, so fast it came.

But he would not have drawn his hand away, that day, if it had been a cannon-ball. He tried the catch manfully, but it came on his hand with a 2 * smack and jumped out again. It hurt so that he had to give his hand a good lick with his tongue and plunge it into his pocket for comfort. " What a beastly shame, Bunny," several called out. " Not a bit," said his uncle. " Do him good. Didn't hurt you, did it, Peter ? " " No, not a bit," said Peter, trying to look brave ; and then he suddenly bethought him that he had left the ball where it lay, so he ran and picked it up and threw it as hard as he could back at his uncle. By this time the bats were coming out, and the field fell into their places. Peter kept a very bright look-out at square-leg. He had his trouser-pocket full of toffee, and the sticky stuff that had come off on his hand felt rather uncomfortable ; but he reflected that perhaps this would serve to help him to hold the ball, and the thought comforted him.

He wondered if his mother or father had come down from the Manor and could see him out in the field; but his back wras that way, and he dared not take his eyes from the wickets for fear the game should begin before he was aware and he be caught inattentive. At last the landlord of the Man of Timber called "Play!" and the game was started. Now, the cricket of Swivel-pipkin was something different from the ordinary cricket of the village green, for not only did Swivel-pipkin claim, as, I believe many others claim, to be the first green on which cricket ever was played, but it never thought it had done its duty unless it sent up half a dozen or so to play in the Colts' match against the County eleven. It had the right cricketing traditions, the villager was early taught the merit of the straight bat, and there were few keener or more caustic critics of cricket than the wise old gentlemen who sat, with churchwarden pipes between their gums, around the Swivel-pipkin green.

When all preliminaries were over, and the landlord had called " Play ! " the ball was received by Mr. Widgery, the grocer. He was an old man, and it had been the custom, as long as anyone in Swivel-pipkin could remember anything, for him to go in first and receive the first ball. He was an old man, but no one had ventured to tell him so or to hint that younger men, as cricketers, were more worthy. At the other end was a youngster who had done good work for the Colts in the last trial match. For a time matters went pretty quietly. Peter had leisure to reflect how Jackie Nipperkin and Sammy Cass and Tom Guardeer would be envying him. After they had made a dozen runs the Colt played one off his legs to Peter. It came quite slowly, and Peter picked it up and threw it in. " Throw at my head — at my head, I tell you !

" his uncle shouted to him, running to the wicket. He had rather suspected that the batsmen might try to steal a short run when they saw the ball going to a little boy. But Mr. Widgery was rather old for short runs. " Well fielded ! " one or two of the Gitanos said, as Peter picked up the ball and threw it in. " Dash them ! " Peter said to himself. " Do they think I 'm a duffer, that I shouldn't field a thing like that? " Presently he got one that was hard enough for him. The Colt swung round at a leg ball, caught it fairly in the middle of the bat, and it came singing, just shoulder high, for Peter. Peter jumped at it. It would have been a catch, though a very hard one, for a man, but Peter could only reach his fingers to it. But that was just enough to deflect it however, and to turn it, with little abatement of speed, into the stomach of the umpire, the landlord of the Man of Timber, which was a large mark.

This was hard luck on the batsman, for it should have been a three-er at least, but Peter dashed at the ball and threw it in, and they ran Mr. Widgery out, for he had started, thinking such a hit must certainly mean a run or two. He was so far out of his ground that neither the wicket-keep nor he thought of asking " How 's that ? " but if they had asked, the umpire would have been much too far gone to answer. Thus a delicate question of the rules would have arisen. Agnosticism on the part of an umpire results in favour of the batsman. Probably, however, the other umpire would have given it out. As it was, Mr. Widgery retired, and all the field gathered around to diagnose the case of the local umpire, who lay groaning on the ground with his face the colour of a sloe and his hands clasping the injured part.

They sent Tom Guardeer running to the Man of Timber for gin, which seemed to give the landlord great comfort, and as it was to his advantage to show a good object lesson in proof of its qualities, he soon was brought back to the perpendicular, and the game went on again. The next bat was very quickly caught by Bunny Steele at the wicket, standing back ; and then John Benson, the blacksmith from the neighbouring village, who had been engaged for the occasion in Swivel-pipkin's service, came in, and a great stand was made. When Benson came in the field spread out on all sides, like a man's fist opening itself, in respect for his hitting powers. All the bowler's artifice, and the artifice of many bowlers, for there were several changes, seemed in vain for a while. The batsmen hit the ball all over the field, and fifty went up, and then sixty and seventy, before they were separated.

At length the bowler sent down rather a short ball on John Benson's legs. He swiped at it prodigiously hard, but, because it was a little short, he got right under it, and it went up and up almost straight into the air. The batsmen started running, and had nearly completed a run before the ball began to come down again. Almost every man in the field might have got under it, and really it should perhaps have been Bunny Steele's catch, since he had the wicketkeeping gloves : but he saw that it was coming straight down to Peter, and that Peter was ready to receive it ; so he sang out, " Let Peter have it ! " Then they all stood watching, and Peter stood and waited with his hands ready. The ball had gone up, growing smaller and smaller until it had almost gone out of sight ; and then it began growing bigger and bigger again, as it descended.