SNAP

A LEGEND OF THE LONE MOUNTAIN

BY

C. PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY

AUTHOR OF 'SPORT IN THE CRIMEA AND CAUCASUS' ETC.

WITH THIRTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. G. WILLINK

NEW EDITION

LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET 1892

All rights reserved

TO SMALL CLIVE.

I suppose that you'll cost me the deuce of a lot, I suppose I must pay and look pleasant, Though you're only a small insignificant dot— My three-year-old warrior—at present.

But if ever you need the paternal 'tip,' If ever you sin and must suffer, Be brave and go straight, or I'll 'give you gyp'— If I don't you may call me 'a duffer.'

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. FERNHALL v. LOAMSHIRE II. 'MOP FAUCIBUS HÆSIT' III. SNAP'S REDEMPTION IV. THE FERNHALL GHOST V. THE ADMIRAL'S 'SOCK-DOLLAGER' VI. THE BLOW FALLS VII. LEAVE LIVERPOOL VIII. THE MANIAC IX. 'THAT BAKING POWDER' X. AFTER SCRUB CATTLE XI. BRINGING HOME THE BEAR XII. BRANDING THE 'SCRUBBER' XIII. WINTER COMES WITH THE 'WAVIES' XIV. A NIGHT OF ADVENTURE XV. FOUNDING 'BULL PINE' FIRM XVI. BEARS XVII. IN THE BRÛLÊ XVIII. THE LOSS OF 'THE CRADLE' XIX. THE GAMBLERS 'PUT UP' XX. LONE MOUNTAIN XXI. AT THE TOP XXII. AT THE END OF THE ROPE XXIII. READING THE WILL XXIV. SNAP'S SACRIFICE XXV. THE FLIGHT OF THE CROWS XXVI. SNAP'S STORY XXVII. CONCLUSION

ILLUSTRATIONS.

IN THE CHIMNEY ... Frontispiece [missing from source book]

THE ADMIRAL FISHING

'GOOD-BYE' [missing from source book]

SNAP AND THE MADMAN

TONY AND THE SCRUBBER

IN THE WOOD

IN THE BRÛLÉ

'HANDS UP'

ON THE FACE OF THE CLIFF

'GOOD-BYE, PARD'

SNAP'S SACRIFICE

SNAP

CHAPTER I FERNHALL v. LOAMSHIRE

'What on earth shall we do, Winthrop?' asked one of the Fernhall Eleven of a big fair-faced lad, who seemed to be its captain.

'Do! I'll be shot if I know, Wyndham,' he replied. 'It is bad enough to be a bat short, but really I don't know that we can spare a bowler.'

'Ah, well,' suggested another of the group, 'though Hales did very well for the Twenty-two, it isn't quite the same thing bowling against such a team as Loamshire brings down; he might not "come off" after all, don't you know.'

A quiet grin spread over the captain's face. No one knew better than he did the spirit which prompted Poynter's last remark.

Good bowler though he was, Poynter had often been a sad thorn in Winthrop's side. If you put him on first with the wind in his favour, Poynter would be beautifully good-tempered, and bowl sometimes like a very Spofforth. Only then sometimes he wouldn't! Sometimes an irreverent batsman from Loamshire who had never heard of Poynter's break from the leg would hit him incontinently for six, and perhaps do it twice in one over. Then Poynter got angry. His arms began to work like a windmill. He tried to bowl rather faster than Spofforth ever did; about three times as fast as Nature ever meant John Poynter to. The result of this was always the same. First he pitched them short, and the delighted batsman cut them for three; then he pitched them up, and that malicious person felt a thrill of pleasure go through his whole body as he either drove them or got them away to square leg. Then Winthrop had to take him off. This was when the trouble began. Sullenly Poynter would take his place in the field—and it was not every place in the field which suited him.

If you put him in the deep field, he growled at the folly which risked straining a bowler's arm by shying. If you put him close in, he grumbled at the risk he ran of having those dexterous fingers of his damaged by a sharp cut or a 'sweet' drive. For of course he always expected to be put on again, and from the time that he reached his place until the time that he was again put into possession of the ball he did nothing but watch his rival with malicious envy, making a mental bowling analysis for him, in which he took far more note of the hits (or wides if there were any) than he did of the maiden overs which were bowled.

But Frank Winthrop was a diplomatist, as a cricket captain should be, so, though he grinned, he only replied, 'That's true enough, Poynter, but I must have some ordinary straight stuff, such as Hales's, to rest you and Rolles, and put these fellows off their guard against your curly ones.'

'Yes, I suppose it is a mistake to bowl a fellow good balls all the time. It makes him play too carefully,' replied the self-satisfied Poynter.

'Well, but, Winthrop,' insisted the first speaker, 'if you don't do without a change bowler, what will you do? That other fellow in the Twenty-two doesn't bowl well enough, but there are lots of them useful bats.'

'I know all that, but I've made up my mind,' replied the young autocrat. 'I shall play a man short, if I can't persuade Trout' (an irreverent sobriquet for their head-master) 'to let Snap Hales off in time.'

When a captain of a school eleven says that he has made up his mind, the intervention of anyone less than a head-master is useless, so that no one protested.

As the group broke up Wyndham put his arm through Winthrop's, and together they strolled towards the door of the school-house.

'Are you going up to see "the head," Major?' he asked.

'Yes,' replied Winthrop.

'What! about Snap Hales?' demanded Wyndham.

'Yes,' again replied Winthrop, 'about that young fool Snap.'

'What has he been up to now?' demanded his chum.

'Oh, he has been cheeking Cube-root again. It seems old Cube-root couldn't knock mathematics into him anyhow, so he piled on the impositions. Snap did as many lines as he could, but even with three nibs in your pen at once there is a limit to the number which a fellow can do in a day, and Master Snap has so many of these little literary engagements for other masters as well as old Cube that at last he reached a point beyond which no possible diligence would carry him.'

'Poor old Snap!' laughed Wyndham.

'Then, as he had just got into the eleven,' continued Winthrop, 'he didn't like to give up his half-hour with the professional; the result of all which was that yesterday old Cube asked him for his lines and was told—

'"I haven't done them, sir."

'"Haven't done them, sir: what do you mean?" thundered Cube.

'"I hadn't time, sir," pleaded Snap.

'"Not time! Why, I myself saw you playing cricket to-day for a good half-hour. What do you mean by telling me you had not time?" asked Cube.

'"I had not time, sir, because——" Snap tried to say, but Cube stopped him with that abominable trick of his, you know it.

'"Yēēs, Hales, yēēs! Yēēs, Hales, yēēs! So you had no time, Hales! Yēēs, Hales, yēēs!"

'"No, sir, I was obliged to——"

'"To tell me a lie, sir! Yēēs, Hales, yēēs."

'Here Snap's beastly temper gave out, and instead of waiting till he got a chance of telling his story properly to old Cube, who, although he loves mathematics and hates a lie, is a good chap after all, he deliberately mimicked the old chap with—

'"Nōō, sir, nōō! Nōō, sir, nōō!"

'Of course the other fellows went into fits of laughter, and old Cube had fits too, only of another kind, and I expect I shall get "fits" from the Head for trying to get the young idiot off for this match. But I really don't see how we can get on without him,' Winthrop added, as he left his friend at the door, and plodded with a heavy heart up to the head-master's sanctum.

What happened there the narrator of this truthful story does not pretend to know. The inside of a headmaster's library was to him a place too sacred for intrusion, and it was only through the foolish persistence of certain unwise under-masters that he was ever induced to enter it. Whenever he did, he left it with a note of recommendation from that excellent man to the school-sergeant. It was not quite a testimonial to character, but still something like it, and always contained an allusion to one of the most graceful of forest trees, the mournful, beautiful birch. I am told that this is the favourite tree of the Russian peasant. I dare say. I am told he is still uneducated. It was education which, I think, taught me to dislike the birch.

But I am wandering. The only words which reached me as I stood below, wondering if my leave out of bounds would be granted or not—and I had very good reasons for betting on the 'not'—were these:

'Very well, if he is no good as a bat it won't much matter. I'll do what I can for you, only win the toss and go in first.'

He was a good fellow, our Head, and from Winthrop's face as he came downstairs I expect that he thought so.

I was quite right about that leave out of bounds. The head-master felt, no doubt quite properly, that on such a day as the day of the Loamshire match, when there were sure to be lots of visitors about, it would not do for one of the school's chief ornaments to be absent. It was very hard upon me because, you see, I could only buy twelve tarts for my shilling at the tuckshop, whereas if I had got leave out of bounds I could have got thirteen for the same money, only four miles from school! That sense of duty to the public which no doubt will lead me some day to take a seat in the House of Commons enabled me to bear up under my trouble, and about two o'clock I was watching the match with my fellows on the Fernhall playing fields.

Ah, me! those Fernhall playing fields! with their long level stretches of green velvet, their June sunshine and wonderful blue skies! What has life like them nowadays? On this day they were looking their very best, and, though I have wandered many a thousand miles since then, I have never seen a fairer sight. Forty acres there were, all in a ring fence, of level greensward, every yard of it good enough for a match wicket, and the ring-fence itself nothing but a tall rampart of green turf, twelve or fourteen feet high, and broad enough at the top for two boys to walk upon it abreast.

Out in the middle of this great meadow the wickets were pitched, and I really believe that I have since played billiards on a surface less level than the two-and-twenty yards which they enclosed. The lines of the crease gleamed brightly against the surrounding green, and the strong sun blazed down upon the long white coats of the umpires, the Fernhall eleven (or rather ten, for Snap was still absent), and two of the strongest bats in Loamshire.

But, though fourteen figures had the centre of the ground to themselves, there was plenty of vigorous, young life round its edges. There, where the sun was the warmest, with their backs up against the bank which enclosed the master's garden, sat or lay some four hundred happy youngsters, anxiously watching every turn of the match, keen critics, although thoroughgoing partisans. Like young lizards, warmed through with the sun, lying soft against the mossy bank, the scent of the flowers came to them over the garden hedge, and the soft salt breeze came up from the neighbouring sea. You could hear the lip and roll of its waves quite plainly where you lay, if you listened for it, for after all it was only just beyond that green bulwark of turf behind the pavilion. Many and many a time have we boys seen the white foam flying in winter across those very playing-fields, and gathered sea-wrack from the hedges three miles inland. By-and-by, when the match was over, most of the two-and-twenty players in it would race down to the golden sands and roll like young dolphins in the blue waves, for

Fernhall boys swam like fishes in those good old days, and such a sea in such sunshine would have tempted the veriest coward to a plunge.

But the match was not over yet, although yellow-headed Frank Winthrop began to think that it might almost as well be. He was beginning to despair. It was a one-day match: the school had only made 156, while the county had only two wickets down for 93; of course there was no chance of a second innings; the two best bats in Loamshire seemed set for a century apiece; Poynter had lost his temper and seemed trying rather to hurt his men than to bowl them, and everyone else had been tried and had failed. What on earth was an unfortunate captain to do? Just then a figure in a long cassock and college cap, a fine portly figure with a kindly face, turned round, and, using the back of a trembling small boy for a desk, wrote a note and despatched the aforesaid small boy with it to the rooms of the Rev. Erasmus Cube-Root. A minute or two before, Winthrop had found time to exchange half-a-dozen words with 'the Head' whilst in the long field, and now he turned and raised his cap to him, while an expression of thankfulness overspread his features. The two Loamshire men at the wickets were Grey

and Hawker, both names well known on all the cricket-fields of England, and one of them known and a little feared by our cousins at the Antipodes. This man, Hawker, had been heard to say that he was coming to Fernhall to get up his average and have an afternoon's exercise. It looked very much as if he would justify his boast. He was an aggravating bat to bowl to, for more reasons than one. One of his tricks, indeed, seemed to have been invented for the express purpose of chaffing the bowler.

As he stood at the wicket his bat was almost concealed from sight behind his pads, his wicket appeared to be undefended, and all three stumps plainly visible to his opponent. Alas! as the ball came skimming down the pitch the square-built little athlete straightened himself, the bat came out from its ambush, and you had the pleasure of knowing that another six spoiled the look of your analysis. If he was in very high spirits, and you in very poor form, he would indulge in the most bewildering liberties, spinning round on his heels in a way known to few but himself, so as to hit a leg ball into the 'drives.' Altogether he was, as the boys knew, a perfect Tartar to deal with if he once got 'set.'

Grey, the other bat, was quite as exasperating in his way as Hawker, only it was quite another way. He it was who had broken poor Poynter's heart. You did not catch him playing tricks. You did not catch him hitting sixes, or even threes; but neither did you catch him giving the field a chance, launching out at a yorker, or interfering with a 'bumpy' one. Oh, no! It didn't matter what you bowled him, it was always the same story. 'Up went his shutter,' as Poynter feelingly remarked, 'and you had to pick up that blessed leather and begin again.' Sometimes he placed a ball so as to get one run for it, sometimes he turned round and sped a parting ball to leg, and sometimes he snicked one for two. He was a slow scorer, but he seemed to possess the freehold of the ground he stood upon. No one could give him notice to quit. Such were the men at the wicket, and such the state of the game, when a tall, slight figure came racing on to the ground in very new colours, and with fingers which, on close inspection, would have betrayed a more intimate acquaintance with the ink-pot than

with the cricket-ball. Although it would have been nearer to have passed right under the head-master's nose, the new-comer went a long way round, eyeing that dignitary with nervous suspicion, and raising his cap with great deference when the eye of authority rested upon him. As soon as he came on to the ground he dropped naturally into his place, and anyone could have seen at a glance that, whatever his other merits might or might not be, Snap Hales was a real keen cricketer. When a ball came his way there was no waiting for it to reach him on his part. He had watched it, as a hawk does a young partridge, from the moment it left the bowler's hands, and was halfway to meet it already. Like a flash he had it with either hand—both were alike to him—and in the same second it was sent back straight and true, a nice long hop, arriving in the wicket-keeper's hands at just about the level of the bails.

But Winthrop had other work for Snap to do, and at the end of the over sent him to replace Rolles at short-slip.

'By George, Towzer, they are going to put on Snap Hales,' said one youngster to another on the rugs under the garden hedge.

'About time, too,' replied his companion; 'if he can't bowl better than those two fellows he ought to be kicked.'

'Well, I dare say both you and he will be, if he doesn't come off to-day. I expect it was your brother who got him off his lines to-day, and he won't be a pleasant companion for either of you if the school gets beaten with half-a-dozen wickets to spare.'

Towzer, the boy addressed, was brother to the captain of the eleven, and his fag. Snap Hales, when at home, lived near the Winthrops, so that in the school, generally, they were looked upon as being of one clan, of which, of course, Frank Winthrop was the chief. Willy Winthrop was Towzer's proper name, or at least the name he was christened by; but anyone looking at the fair-haired jolly-looking little fellow would have doubted whether his godfathers were wiser than his schoolfellows. No one would ever have dreamed of him as a future scholar of Balliol, nor, on the other hand, as a sour-visaged failure. He was a bright, impertinent Scotch terrier of a boy, and his discerning contemporaries called him Towzer.

But we must leave Towzer for the present and stick to Snap. Everyone was watching him now, and none more closely or more kindly than the man whom Snap considered chief of his born enemies, 'the Head.' 'Yes, he is a fine lad,' muttered that great man, 'I wish I knew how to manage him. He has stuff in him for anything.' And indeed he might have, though he was hardly good-looking. Tall and spare, with a lean, game look about the head, the first impression he made upon you was that he was a perfect athlete, one of Nature's chosen children. Every movement was so easy and so quick that you knew instinctively that he was strong, though he hardly looked it; but his face puzzled you. It was a dark, sad-looking face, certainly not handsome, with firm jaw and somewhat rugged outlines, and yet there was a light sometimes in the big dark eyes which gave all the rest the lie, and made you feel that his masters might be right, after all, when they said, 'There is no misdoing at Fernhall of which "that Hales" is not the leader.'

At any rate he appeared to be out of mischief just now.

'Round the wicket, sir?' asked the umpire as Snap took the ball in hand.

'No, Charteris, over,' was the short reply, as Hales turned to measure his run behind the sticks.

'What! a new bowler?' asked Hawker of the wicket-keeper as he took a fresh guard; 'who is he?'

'An importation from the Twenty-two; got his colours last week,' answered Wyndham, and a smile spread over Hawker's face, as he saw in fancy a timid beginner pitching him half-volleys to be lifted over the garden hedge, or leg-balls with which to break the slates on the pavilion.

But Hawker had to reserve his energy for a while, being much too good a cricketer to hit wildly at anything. With a quiet, easy action the new bowler sent down an ordinary good-length ball, too straight to take liberties with, and that was all. Hawker played it back to him confidently, but still carefully, and another, and another, of almost identical pitch and pace, followed the first. 'Not so much to be made off this fellow after all,' thought Hawker, 'but he will get loose like the rest by-and-by, no doubt.' Still it was not as good fun as he had expected. The fourth ball of Snap's first over was delivered with exactly the same action as its predecessors, but the pace was about double that of the others and Hawker was only just in time to stop it. It was so very nearly too much for the great man that for a moment it shook his confidence in his own infallibility. That momentary want of confidence ruined him. The last ball of the over was not nearly up to the standard of the other four; it was short-pitched and off the wicket, but it

had a lot of 'kick' in it, and Hawker had not come far enough out for it. There was an ominous click as the ball just touched the shoulder of his bat, and next moment, as long-slip remarked, he found it revolving in his hands 'like a stray planet.'