“Oh! Didn’t you tell him?”
“No. The criticism was unjust—there was no use in repeating it.”
“It was unjust.” Westby had lowered his voice. “I am very much ashamed, Mr. Upton.”
“That’s all right,” said Irving. He took Westby’s hand. “I hope too you’ll get your chance in the game.”
“Thank you.” Westby spoke humbly. “I hope if I do, I won’t make a mess of it again.”
That game was far different in color and feeling from the one with the Freshmen on the Saturday before. Long before it began the boys of St. John’s with their blue banners and flags and the boys of St. Timothy’s with their red were ranged on opposite sides of the field, hurling defiant, challenging cheers across at one another; for St. Timothy’s a band, in which Scarborough beat the drum and was director, paraded back and forth; the little boys were already hopping up and down and trembling and squealing with excitement; already their little voices were almost gone.
Irving knew that to himself alone was this occasion one of less moving interest than that of the preceding Saturday; as he stood and looked on at the waving red and the waving blue and later at the struggle that was being waged in the middle of the field, he wondered how on this afternoon that other game between the red and the blue was going, and how Lawrence was acquitting himself.
Certainly it could not, he thought, be any more close, more hotly contested, than this of the two rival schools. All through the first half they fought each other without scoring.
Once St. Timothy’s had got down to St. John’s fifteen-yard line, but then had been unable to go farther, and Dennison had missed by only a few feet his try for a goal from the field.
Early in the second half St. Timothy’s met with misfortune. Dennison was laid out by a hard tackle; when at last he got to his feet, he limped badly. Louis Collingwood took him by the arm and walked round with him; Dennison was arguing, protesting. But Collingwood led him towards the side-line, patting him on the back, and called “Westby!”