The Hampdenshire Wonder. J. D. Beresford

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СКАЧАТЬ “I shall take him to Gregory in the morning if it’s not all right,” he said. Gregory was a well-known surgeon in Nottingham.

      Again one sees, now, that the visit to Gregory should not have been postponed, but at the time one does not take extraordinary precautions in such a case as this. A split finger is such an everyday thing, and one is guided by the average of experience. After all, if one were constantly to make preparation for the abnormal, ordinary life could not go on. …

      I heard that Gregory pursed his lips over that finger when he had learned the name of his famous patient. “You’ll have to be very careful of this, young man,” was Findlater’s report of Gregory’s advice. It was not sufficient. I often wonder now whether Gregory might not have saved the finger. If he had performed some small operation at once, cut away the poison, it seems to me that the tragedy might have been averted. I am, I admit, a mere layman in these matters, but it seems to me that something might have been done.

      I left Nottingham on Saturday after lunch—the weather was hopeless—and I did not make use of the information I had for the purposes of my paper. I was never a good journalist. But I went down to Ailesworth on Monday morning, and found that Findlater and Stott had already gone to Harley Street to see Graves, the King’s surgeon.

      I followed them, and arrived at Graves’s house while Stott was in the consulting-room. I hocussed the butler and waited with the patients. Among the papers, I came upon the famous caricature of Stott in the current number of Punch—the “Stand-and-Deliver” caricature, in which Stott is represented with an arm about ten feet long, and the batsman is looking wildly over his shoulder to square leg, bewildered, with no conception from what direction the ball is coming. Underneath is written “Stott’s New Theory—the Ricochet. Real Ginger.” While I was laughing over the cartoon, the butler came in and nodded to me. I followed him out of the room and met Findlater and Stott in the hall.

      Findlater was in a state of profanity. I could not get a sensible word out of him. He was in a white heat of pure rage. The butler, who seemed as anxious as I to learn the verdict, was positively frightened.

      “Well, for God’s sake tell me what Graves said,” I protested.

      Findlater’s answer is unprintable, and told me nothing.

      Stott, however, quite calm and self-possessed, volunteered the information. “Finger’s got to come off, sir,” he said quietly. “Doctor says if it ain’t off to-day or to-morrer, he won’t answer for my ’and.”

      This was the news I had to give to England. It was a great coup from the journalistic point of view, but I made up my three columns with a heavy heart, and the congratulations of my editor only sickened me. I had some luck, but I should never have become a good journalist.

      The operation was performed successfully that evening, and Stott’s career was closed.

      VII

       Table of Contents

      I have already referred to the obsession which dominated Stott after his accident, and I must now deal with that overweening anxiety of his to teach his method to another man.

      I did not see Stott again till August, and then I had a long talk with him on the Ailesworth County Ground, as together we watched the progress of Hampdenshire’s defeat by Lancashire.

      “Oh! I can’t learn him nothing,” he broke out, as Flower was hit to the four corners of the ground, “ ’alf vollies and long ’ops and then a full pitch—‘e’s a disgrace.”

      “They’ve knocked him off his length,” I protested. “On wicket like this. …”

      Stott shook his head. “I’ve been trying to learn ’im,” he said, “but he can’t never learn. ’E’s got ’abits what you can’t break ’im of.”

      “I suppose it is difficult,” I said vaguely.

      “Same with me,” went on Stott, “I’ve been trying to learn myself to bowl without my finger”—he held up his mutilated hand—“or left-’anded; but I can’t. If I’d started that way. … No! I’m always feeling for that finger as is gone. A second-class bowler I might be in time, not better nor that.”

      “It’s early days yet,” I ventured, intending encouragement, but Stott frowned and shook his head.

      “I’m not going to kid myself,” he said, “I know. But I’m going to find a youngster and learn ’im. On’y he must be young.”

      “No ’abits, you know,” he explained.

      The next time I met Stott was in November. I ran up against him, literally, one Friday afternoon in Ailesworth.

      When he recognised me he asked me if I would care to walk out to Stoke-Underhill with him. “I’ve took a cottage there,” he explained, “I’m to be married in a fortnight’s time.”

      His circumstances certainly warranted such a venture. The proceeds of matinee and benefit, invested for him by the Committee of the County Club, produced an income of nearly two pounds a week, and in addition to this he had his salary as groundsman. I tendered my congratulations.

      “Oh! well, as to that, better wait a bit,” said Stott.

      He walked with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. He had the air of a man brooding over some project.

      “It is a lottery, of course …” I began, but he interrupted me.

      “Oh that!” he said, and kicked a stone into the ditch; “take my chances of that. It’s the kid I’m thinking on.”

      “The kid?” I repeated, doubtful whether he spoke of his fiancée, or whether his nuptials pointed an act of reparation.

      “What else ’ud I tie myself up for?” asked Stott. “I must ’ave a kid of my own and learn ’im from his cradle. It’s come to that.”

      “Oh! I understand,” I said; “teach him to bowl.”

      “Ah!” replied Stott as an affirmative. “Learn ’im to bowl from his cradle; before ’e’s got ’abits. When I started I’d never bowled a ball in my life, and by good luck I started right. But I can’t find another kid over seven years old in England as ain’t never bowled a ball o’ some sort and started ’abits. I’ve tried. …”

      “And you hope with your own boys … ?” I said.

      “Not ’ope, it’s a cert;” said Stott. “I’ll see no boy of mine touches a ball afore he’s fourteen, and then ’e’ll learn from me; and learn right. From the first go off.” He was silent for a few seconds, and then he broke out in a kind of ecstasy. “My Gawd, ’e’ll be a bowler such as ’as never been, never in this world. He’ll start where I left orf. He’ll. …” Words failed him, he fell back on the expletive he had used, repeating it with an awed fervour. “My Gawd!”

      I had never seen Stott in this mood before. It was a revelation to me of the latent potentialities of the man, the remarkable depth and quality of his ambitions. …

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