On the opposite side had collected the adherents and supporters of the Rockspur Eleven, but, although they were in the majority, they could not drown the noise made by the visitors. Everybody seemed good-natured, and there was bantering and bandying of words.
The grand-stand and much of the standing room to the ropes was filled with older persons, who, however, seemed scarcely less excited and eager than the boys and girls, and who joked with each other and anxiously discussed the possibilities of the game.
The field lay stretched before them like a white-ribbed skeleton, the goal-posts rising at either end. It was in splendid condition, and all were certain that a battle royal must take place there that day.
Suddenly a new sound arose, and then, as onto the field trotted eleven shaggy-headed lads, togged in their football suits, dirt-stained, mud-bespattered garments of victory, there was a great upheaval to the left of the grand-stand, and the mass of fresh-faced, youthful humanity broke into a wildly swaying surge of crimson, while the Highland cheer sounded short and sharp and clear, like the barking of hundreds of wolves on a still winter’s night.
“’Rah! ’rah! ’rah! Here we are! High-land, my land! ’Rah! ’rah! ’rah!”
Instantly this was drowned by another sound, deeper, intenser, more like thunder, as the Rockspur Eleven quickly followed their antagonists onto the chalk-marked gridiron. There was another upheaval, mightier than the first, and the blue-and-white was waving here in a dense mass, there in streaks, yonder in spots, but all round the field. The Rockspur cheer of greeting was like rolling thunder, the rattle of musketry, the starward hiss of red rockets and the boom of cannon.
“Boo, bum, burr! Rick, rock, spur! Rockspur—s-s-s-ss! Rockspur—boom! Rockspur!”
How the blood tingled! How one thrilled to the very finger tips! Carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, staid, middle-aged men forgot themselves and their dignity, and when they realized what they were doing, found they were swinging their hats and yelling at the top of their voices, the sound being swallowed up and drowned in the general uproar. Youth, incarnate, never-dying, all-powerful, imbued by conscious vigor and power, invested with confidence and courage unshattered by the buffets of Time; youth, the little-prized, the fleeting, the sadly-regretted, the vainly-sought; youth, the beautiful and glorious—it was there, and the great crowd offered homage to it.
In the lull that followed after some moments of tumult, a white-haired citizen of Rockspur, who had passed the three-score mark, flourished his cane in the air and shrilly cried:
“Them’s our boys, an’ they kin beat at football jest the same as they beat at baseball, an’ don’t you fergit it!”