Hurdles commenced in very cautious style, but it could be seen at a glance that he was a player of the first rank. His bat seemed to be a portion of himself, while his long reach and quickness of foot helped him to deal as he liked with every ball. The schoolmaster, who belonged to the genus Albert Ward, plodded along at the other end, and appeared indifferent as to whether he made runs or not. There was really no need for him to score. Hurdles did quite enough of that. When he had once “got set”—and this process occupied about ten minutes—almost every time he touched the ball it glided to the boundary. Wherever the fielders were placed he found a passage between them, and though he seemed to put little force into his strokes, the ball flew from his bat like lightning. The schoolmaster had just scraped together twenty runs when Hurdles, with a mighty on-drive, reached his hundred.
“This is grand!” cried the enthusiastic Dolly. “They’ll never get him out. Run, Tommy, dear, and bring me my field-glasses.”
A smile flickered over the lips of the Rev. John Trouncer, who was standing near with his pads on still waiting for his innings.
“Do you know,” observed Dolly reflectively, when she had gazed for a long time through the field-glasses, which her little cousin had just brought, “I’m sure I’ve seen Mr. Hurdles somewhere before. Please look, Mr. Cassock, and tell me what you think.”
The rector took the glasses, and made a careful reconnaissance.
“No, no, Miss Temple,” grunted the rector, with the glasses still glued to his eyes; “it’s an utter impossibility.”
“Perhaps I can explain what you want to know,” suggested the curate.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Trouncer,” observed Dolly eagerly. “Now, don’t you think that Mr. Hurdles is very like the Rev. Mr. Stole?”
“Yes, yes,” said the rector. “Very like him, no doubt. But not the man himself. That's absurd!”
“Why, don’t you know,” remarked the curate impressively, “that Mr. Stole ten years ago was the best all-round man”
“Oh, what fun!” Dolly interrupted in high glee. “I’m so glad! Let’s stroll round the ground, Mr. Trouncer.”
With grief it must be stated that the Rev. Samuel Cassock glanced after the pair with a bitter look of anger as they walked away.
“Boy,” said he hoarsely, addressing the bath-chair attendant, “wheel me to the refreshment tent.”
“You see, Miss Temple,” explained the curate, as they sauntered along, “Stole is an awfully conscientious chap, so as soon as he got a living he thought it was his duty to chuck cricket altogether. I never imagined I could have induced him to play, but I persuaded him quite easily.”
“Oh!” was all that Dolly replied; but she thought a great deal.
“I kept it quiet for a joke. Stole went away for his holidays, and has been practising hard. Jove, he’s out at last! I’m in next, Miss Temple, so I must say au revoir. Shall I tell old Hurdles you want to speak to him?”
“Yes,” replied Dolly; and though she tried not to, she was blushing terribly.
Although the schoolmaster was out the next over, and although the rest of the team did not stay long at the wickets, they stayed long enough to enable the Rev. Johnny Trouncer to knock off the runs.
At the dinner party that evening, which Dolly, with the assistance of her aunt, gave to some of the cricketers, the Rev. Athanasius Stole had the honour of taking in his hostess.
“The people here seemed to have entirely forgotten that you had been such a great cricketer,” she remarked to him.
“The memory of the public is proverbially short," he replied. “And ten years is a long time.”
“And why did you take it up again?” she inquired artlessly.
“Because I thought I ought to,” he answered, avoiding her gaze.
Then, as Dolly felt she had asked an indiscreet question, there was an awkward silence.
But later, as they strolled in the grounds together to watch the fireworks, while the envious soldiers were gnawing big cigars, they grew very friendly and confidential.
“Miss Temple,” said the clergyman earnestly, looking up at a rocket that was cleaving its way through the sky, “I never thought that my views of life would change as they have done, and it is you who have changed them!”
He did not pursue the subject any further that evening, but a few weeks later, when they were better acquainted, he did so, and with complete success.
The Rev. Athanasius has been married some years, and there are many little Stoles to whom Dolly is a most devoted mother. He is now a Dean. His face has lost the sad, ascetic expression that used to charm the ladies, but it is more benign and human. He has gained a rich, jovial laugh, which was never heard in the old days of fasting and tribulation, and though his figure, too, has lost its lines and he cannot play cricket as of old, he devotes his leisure to coaching a young Athanasius whom he expects to see some day making great scores at Lord’s.
