"Pooh! They can't even cross the half-way line," snorted the champion of St. Cuthbert's, contemptuously. "See how we're peppering your goalie all the time. Play up, Saints! Bang 'em in, boys! Oo—ooo, a goal—no, hang it, only a corner! Allow for the wind, Monty—allow for the wind!"
"You mean 'allow for the gas', don't you, kid?" asked Robin. "You're a tip-topper at scoring goals with your tongue."
Nevertheless the cocksure young Cuthbertian had every reason for his confidence. Already there were many ominous smudges of mud on the newly-whitewashed goalposts and crossbar, and a series of finely-placed corner-kicks had only been hustled away by what seemed to be desperate scrimmages of the Rugby order, with the luck on Foxenby's side.
The impartial crowd of Walsbridge townspeople, on whose ground the final tie was being played, had read wonderful accounts of the Cuthbertians' rock-like defence—it delighted them to see that these hefty youths knew also the straight route to an opponent's goal. Therefore, they began by wishing Ennis, the goalkeeper of the "Foxes", good luck, and plenty of hard work!
They flocked behind his goal, cheering him again and again as he flung himself backwards and forwards to fist away corking shots, some of which he probably knew very little about, though it just happened that his long body was always in the way. The better the goal-keeper, the more good fortune he enjoys as a rule. Forwards seem somehow magnetized into shooting where he is.
"How about that hatful of goals your team were going to score?" Robin Arkness wanted to know, after twenty minutes of this sort of thing. "Rather overlooked the fact that our side had a goalkeeper, didn't you, Cuthbert kid?"
"He kept that last one out by a sheer fluke," grumbled the young Cuthbertian. "See, there he goes again, bobbing the ball away with his eyes shut."
"How unkind of him!" said Robin, in mock indignation. "Ennis, you're a cad, you know, not letting the nice little Saints add to their twenty-three goals. Stand aside, you naughty man, while they drive holes through the net!"
But older heads than Robin's were being shaken over the sore straits in which Foxenby found themselves so early in the game. Luke Harwood, the prefect of Holbeck's House, and editor of the school magazine, seemed so concerned about it that he voiced his fears to Roger Cayton, prefect of Rooke's House, whose close personal friendship with the captain of the team made him doubly anxious about the way things were going.
"Ennis is marvellous," said Luke, "but one-man shows don't win football matches. Our halves and forwards can't even raise a gallop."