"A goal!"
"Straight from the kick-off—a goal!"
"Oh, played, St. Cuthbert's! One up! Hurrah!"
"Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!" came the delighted chorus of congratulations from Cuthbertians in all parts of the field.
But, until the ball is seen resting in the back of the net, it is as unwise to count a goal as it is to reckon chickens still in the shell. There was a youth behind the Foxenby posts with a muddy mark on the side of his face, and he at least knew no goal had been scored.
The first shot of the match had flashed by the upright—on the wrong side of it for St. Cuthbert's, on the right side of it for Foxenby, whose sigh of heart-felt relief was audible when their rivals' untimely cheers had died down.
"A narrow squeak, old man!" said Dick Forge, the captain of the Foxenby team, to Broome, the inside-left, selected from Holbeck's House.
"Rather!" answered Broome. "It quite turned my heart over. Their centre's got his shooting-boots on this afternoon."
"Helped by the wind, of course. It's buzzing across from goal to goal. Feel the pressure of it! Like running up against a house-side."
"We'll never get going against it, Captain. They'll be a dozen goals up at half-time."