Mike at Wrykyn

CHAPTER
I

MIKE

IT was a morning in the
middle of April, and the Jackson family were consequently breakfasting in
comparative silence. The cricket season had not begun, and except during the
cricket season they were in the habit of devoting their powerful minds at
breakfast almost exclusively to the task of victualling against the labours of
the day. In May, June, July, and August the silence was broken. The three
grown-up Jacksons played regularly in first-class cricket, and there was always
keen competition among their brothers and sisters for the copy of the
Sportsman
which was to be found on the hall table with the letters. Whoever got it
usually gloated over it in silence till urged wrathfully by the multitude to let
them know what had happened; when it would appear that Joe had notched his
seventh century, or that Reggie had been run out when he was just getting set,
or, as sometimes occurred, that that ass Frank had dropped Sheppard or May in
the slips before he had scored, with the result that the spared expert had made
a couple of hundred and was still going strong.

In such
a case the criticisms of the family circle, particularly of the smaller
Jackson sisters, were so breezy and unrestrained that Mrs. Jackson felt it
necessary to apply the closure. Indeed, Marjory Jackson, aged fourteen, had on
three separate occasions been fined pudding at lunch for her caustic comments
on the batting of her brother Reggie in important fixtures. Cricket was a
tradition in the family, and the ladies were resolved that it should not be
their fault if the standard was not kept up.

On this
particular morning silence reigned. A deep gasp from some small Jackson,
wrestling with bread-and-milk, and an occasional remark from Mr. Jackson on the
letters he was reading, alone broke it.

“Mike’s
late again,” said Mrs. Jackson plaintively, at last.

“He’s
getting up,” said Marjory. “I went in to see what he was doing, and he was
asleep. “So,” she added with a satanic chuckle, “I squeezed a sponge over him.
He swallowed an awful lot, and then he woke up, and tried to catch me, so he’s
certain to be down soon.”

“Marjory!”

“Well,
he was on his back with his mouth wide open, so I had to. He was snoring like
anything.”

“You
might have choked him.”

“I
did,” said Marjory with satisfaction. “Jam’ please, Phyllis, you pig.”

Mr.
Jackson looked up.

“Mike
will have to be more punctual when he goes to Wrykyn,” he said.

“Oh,
Father, is Mike going to Wrykyn?” asked Marjory. “When?”

“Next
term,” said Mr. Jackson. “I’ve just heard from Mr. Wain,” he added across the
table to Mrs. Jackson. “The house is full, but he is turning a small room into
an extra dormitory, so he can take Mike after all.”

The
first comment on this momentous piece of news came from Bob Jackson. Bob was
eighteen. The following term would be his last at Wrykyn, and, having won
through so far without the infliction of a small brother, he disliked the
prospect of not being allowed to finish as he had begun.

“I
say!” he said. “What?”

“He
ought to have gone before,” said Mr. Jackson. “He’s nearly fifteen. Much too
old for that private school. He has had it all his own way there, and it isn’t
good for him.”

“He’s
got cheek enough for ten,” agreed Bob.

“Wrykyn
will do him a world of good.”

“We
aren’t in the same house. That’s one comfort.”

Bob was
in Donaldson’s. It softened the blow to a certain extent that Mike should be
going to Wain’s. He had the same feeling for Mike that most boys of eighteen
have for their fifteen-year-old brothers. He was fond of him in the abstract,
but preferred him at a distance.

Marjory
gave tongue again. She had rescued the jam from Phyllis, who had shown signs of
finishing it, and was now at liberty to turn her mind to less pressing matters.
Mike was her special ally, and anything that affected his fortunes affected
her.

“Hooray!
Mike’s going to Wrykyn. I bet he gets into the first eleven his first term.”

“Considering
there are eight old colours left,” said Bob loftily, “besides heaps of last
year’s seconds, it’s hardly likely that a kid like Mike’ll get a look in. He
might get his third, if he sweats.”

The
aspersion stung Marjory.

“I bet
he gets in before you, anyway,” she said.

Bob
disdained to reply. He was among those heaps of last year’s seconds to whom he
had referred. He was a sound bat, though lacking the brilliance of his elder
brothers, and he fancied that his cap was a certainty this season. Last year he
had been tried once or twice. This year it should be all right.

Mrs.
Jackson intervened.

“Go on
with your breakfast, Marjory,” she said. “You mustn’t say ‘I bet’ so much.”

Marjory
bit off a section of her slice of bread-and-jam.

“Anyhow,
I bet he does,” she muttered truculently through it.

There
was a sound of footsteps in the passage outside. The door opened, and the
missing member of the family appeared. Mike Jackson was tall for his age. His
figure was thin and wiry. His arms and legs looked a shade too long for his
body. He was evidently going to be very tall some day. In face, he was
curiously like his brother Joe, whose appearance is familiar to everyone who
takes an interest in first-class cricket. The resemblance was even more marked
on the cricket field. Mike had Joe’s batting style to the last detail. He was a
pocket edition of his century-making brother. “Hullo,” he said, “sorry I’m
late.”

This
was mere custom. He had made the same remark nearly every morning since the
beginning of the holidays.

“All
right, Marjory, you little beast,” was his reference to the sponge incident.

His
third remark was of a practical nature.

“I say,
what’s under that dish?”

“Mike,”
began Mr. Jackson—this again was custom— “you really must learn to be more
punctual”

He was
interrupted by a chorus.

“Mike,
you’re going to Wrykyn next term,” shouted Marjory.

“Mike,
Father’s just had a letter to say you’re going to Wrykyn next term.” From
Phyllis.

“Mike,
you’re going to Wrykyn.” From Ella.

Gladys
Maud Evangeline, aged three, obliged with a solo of her own composition, in
six-eight time, as follows:

“Mike
Wryky. Mike Wryky. Mike Wryke Wryke Wryke Mike Wryke Wryke Mike Wryke Mike
Wryke.”

“Oh,
put a green baize cloth over that kid, somebody,” groaned Bob.

Whereat
Gladys Maud, having fixed him with a chilly stare for some seconds, suddenly
drew a long breath, and squealed deafeningly for more milk.

Mike
looked round the table. It was a great moment. He rose to it with the utmost
dignity.

“Good,”
he said. “I say, what’s under that dish?”

After breakfast, Mike and
Marjory went off together to the meadow at the end of the garden. Saunders, the
professional, assisted by the gardener’s boy, was engaged in putting up the
net. Mr. Jackson believed in private coaching; and every spring since Joe, the
eldest of the family, had been able to use a bat a man had come down from the
Oval to teach him the best way to do so. Each of the boys in turn had passed
from spectators to active participants in the net practice in the meadow. For
several years now Saunders had been the chosen man, and his attitude towards
the Jacksons was that of the Faithful Old Retainer in melodrama. Mike was his
special favourite. He felt that in him he had material of the finest order to
work upon. There was nothing the matter with Bob. In Bob he would turn out a
good, sound article. Bob would be a Blue in his third or fourth year, and
probably a creditable performer among the rank and file of a county team later
on. But he was not a cricket genius, like Mike. Saunders would lie awake at
night sometimes thinking of the possibilities that were in Mike. The strength
could only come with years, but the style was there already. Joe’s style, with
improvements.

Mike
put on his pads; and Marjory walked with the professional to the bowling
crease.

“Mike’s
going to Wrykyn next term, Saunders,” she said. “All the boys were there, you
know. So was Father, ages ago.”

“Is he,
miss? I was thinking he would be soon.”

“Do you
think he’ll get into the school team?”

“School
team, miss! Master Mike get into a school team! He’ll be playing for England in
another eight years. That’s what he’ll be playing for.”

“Yes,
but I meant next term. It would be a record if he did. Even Joe only got in
after he’d been at school two years. Don’t you think he might, Saunders? He’s
awfully good, isn’t he? He’s better than Bob, isn’t he? And Bob’s almost
certain to get in this term.”

Saunders
looked a little doubtful.

“Next
term!” he said. “Well, you see, miss, it’s this way. It’s all there, in a
manner of speaking, with Master Mike. He’s got as much style as Mr. Joe’s got,
every bit. The whole thing is, you see, miss, you get these young gentlemen of
eighteen, and nineteen perhaps, and it stands to reason they’re stronger.
There’s a young gentleman, perhaps, doesn’t know as much about what I call real
playing as Master Mike’s forgotten; but then he can hit ‘em harder when he does
hit ‘em, and that’s where the runs come in. They aren’t going to play Master
Mike because he’ll be in the England team when he leaves school. They’ll give a
cap to somebody that can make a few then and there.”

“But
Mike’s jolly strong.”

“Ah,
I’m not saying it mightn’t be, miss. I was only saying don’t count on it, so
you won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t happen. It’s quite likely that it will,
only all I say is don’t count on it. I only hope that they won’t knock all the
style out of him before they’re done with him. You know these school
professionals, miss.”

“No, I
don’t, Saunders. What are they like?”

“Well,
there’s too much of the come-right-out-at-everything about ‘em for my taste.
Seem to think playing forward the alpha and omugger of batting. They’ll make
him pat balls back to the bowler which he’d cut for twos and threes if he was
left to himself. Still, we’ll hope for the best, miss. Ready, Master Mike? Play.”

As
Saunders had said, it was all there. Of Mike’s style there could be no doubt.
Today, too, he was playing more strongly than usual. Marjory had to run to the
end of the meadow to fetch one straight drive. “He hit that hard enough, didn’t
he, Saunders?” she asked, as she returned the ball.

“If he
could keep on doing ones like that, miss,” said the professional, “they’d have
him in the team before you could say knife.”

Marjory
sat down again beside the net, and watched more hopefully.

CHAPTER
II

THE JOURNEY DOWN

THE seeing off of Mike on
the last day of the holidays was an imposing spectacle, a sort of pageant.
Going to a public school, especially at the beginning of the summer term, is no
great hardship, more particularly when the departing hero has a brother on the
verge of the school eleven and three other brothers playing for counties; and
Mike seemed in no way disturbed by the prospect. Mothers, however, to the end
of time will foster a secret fear that their sons will be bullied at a big
school, and Mrs. Jackson’s anxious look lent a fine solemnity to the proceedings.

And as
Marjory, Phyllis, and Ella invariably broke down when the time of separation
arrived, and made no exception to their rule on the present occasion, a
suitable gloom was the keynote of the gathering. Mr. Jackson seemed to bear the
parting with fortitude, as did Mike’s Uncle John (providentially roped in at
the eleventh hour on his way to Scotland, in time to come down with a handsome
tip). To their coarse-fibred minds there was nothing pathetic or tragic about
the affair at all. Among others present might have been noticed Saunders,
practising late cuts rather coyly with a walking-stick in the background; the
village idiot, who had rolled up on the chance of a tip; Gladys Maud
Evangeline’s nurse, smiling vaguely; and Gladys Maud Evangeline herself,
frankly bored with the whole business.