One after another the Grandcourt bowlers collapsed.

No sort of ball seemed to find its way past the Templeton bats, and no sort of fielding seemed to hem in their mighty hits.
Pontifex--"dear old Ponty," as everybody called him to-day--who had been breaking his friends' hearts by his indolence and indifference all the term, stood up now, and punished the Grandcourt bowling, till the enemy almost yelled with dismay.

The steady Mansfield was never steadier, nor Cartwright more dashing, nor Pledge more artful.

Even Birket, who to- day fleshed his maiden bat on the Grandcourt meadow, knocked up his two and threes, with one cut for four into the tent, till it seemed to Templeton that cricket was in the air, and that even Hooker and Duffield could have pulled the match off single-handed.
But the batting was nothing to the play when Templeton was out and took the offensive.

Pledge was more than dangerous, he was deadly, and knocked the balls about in a manner quite "skeery." Heathcote was perfectly sure he could have made as good a stand as the Grandcourt captain, and began to lay down the law to his hearers as to how this man should have taken one ball and that man "drawn" another, till he became quite amusing, and was recognised for the first time by several of his schoolfellows.
However, the general interest in the match was still too keen to give him the notoriety his indiscretion deserved; and lulled by his apparent immunity and the luxury of his present circumstances, he, like Dick, quite forgot he had no right to be where he was, and even expostulated with Duffield for squashing him and interfering with his view.
Grandcourt went out for a miserable 80; of which 30 had been put on by one man.