Explore "David Blaize" by E.F. Benson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
David was sitting on the steps in front of the cricket-pavilion in school-field, with a pad on each leg and a glove on each hand, and an icy lump of nervous fear inside his canvas shirt to take the place of a heart. But nobody paid the least attention to him, or gave him a single word of encouragement, or cared at all for his panic-stricken condition, because everybody was utterly absorbed in what was going on at the wickets. The whole school and the whole staff were there watching the end of the final tie in house-matches in absolute tense silence, except when a run was scored, or a smart piece of fielding prevented one being scored. Then a roar went up from all round the ground, cut off again suddenly, as if a hand had been placed over all the mouths of some many-throated beast, as the bowler received the ball again.
During the pause between overs a buzz of talk rose as if the cork had been taken out of a bottle where sonorous bees were confined; this talk was silenced as the next over began.