[“Something crashed against him, driving the remaining breath from his body.”]
They led him away to the side-lines, for the leather harness had failed him and the bones had slipped out again. And while the spectators held their breaths, Fales tried to kick a goal. Victory for the Blue depended on his efforts, and he knew it. Weary and panting, he directed the poising of the ball, stepped forward and kicked. The pigskin rose erratically, turned lazily over and dropped weakly to earth in front of the charging Broadwood line. And Fales sat down on the turf, rolled onto his face, buried his head in his arms and wept!
Said the scoreboard: Broadwood 6; Visitors 6.
[CHAPTER XXV]
KENDALL IS MISTAKEN
Kendall sat in a corner of the barge as it rattled its way through clouds of dust back to Wissining. They had pulled his wrist into place again, bandaged it and put it back in a sling. Every bump of the barge’s weak springs made it throb painfully. But it was not his injury that Kendall minded. It was the knowledge that he had failed his fellows and the school. That was what hurt. He had lost the game, he told himself miserably. It had needed only that goal from the field to win, and he had missed it. He still wondered how it had happened. He had dropped the ball as well as he knew how, had kicked at the right instant, his instep had met it squarely, he was convinced that he had made no miscalculation of the distance. And yet, by some unhappy chance, the ball had barely cleared the bar underneath instead of sailing over. Since the whistle had blown he had avoided the glances of his teammates, was avoiding them now. He knew that by to-morrow they would find excuses for him, the kinder-hearted ones at least, but now they must all loathe him; and he didn’t want to read that loathing in their faces. So he kept his eyes on the roadside all the way back to school, only occasionally conscious of his aching wrist, and was very unhappy and weary and sore.
Here and there some of the fellows were conversing jerkily in tired voices, but there was no joking to-day, no bantering, no laughing, no singing as the team went home. It seemed to them all that the tie had been a defeat. For the moment they had lost sight of the fact that Broadwood had outweighed them and that in playing their rival to a tied score they had perhaps gained some glory after all. Yardley had grown accustomed to victory on the gridiron, and anything less than a victory spelled disgrace to them. They were thankful, each and every one of them, that until the barge reached Yardley they would not have to face their fellows. Now and then a lighter vehicle passed, and the occupants leaned out and shouted and waved their flags as they went by. But the players made no response. Perhaps one or two grinned stoically; perhaps here and there a fellow’s face worked and his throat choked up. To-morrow—even later this same evening—they would begin to see things less pessimistically, but now, thoroughly tired, aching and sore, it seemed to them that they were little better than pariahs. The bottom had just dropped out of everything and they were left dangling in space!
When the barge rolled up the drive to the front of Oxford a crowd had already gathered about the steps, a throng of nearly a hundred, and the returning warriors were met with cheers that were hearty and loyal. A look of dull surprise overspread some of the faces in the barge; some of the fellows smiled a little; others grew frankly tearful. All shouldered their way through the crowd and sought their rooms, avoiding the hands that would have detained them and the questions that met them. Afterward, as other vehicles returned and emptied their loads, the gathering grew and the cheers became louder and louder, and when, finally, some two hundred voices took up the strains of the school song and sang it through proudly and lovingly and even exultantly, you’d never have guessed that Yardley held herself defeated!
Number 28 was dark when Kendall reached it. Gerald was not there, and he was very glad. He didn’t light the lights, but crossed to the window-seat, after he had taken off his coat and cap, and threw himself down among the cushions to think it all over again. Thinking, however, made it no better. It seemed to him that he was disgraced; that even his usefulness to the school was over. He hated to think of the morrow when he would have to face the fellows and read the verdict in their faces. He could imagine the whispers as he went by. “That’s the failure that lost the Broadwood game for us!” Of course, there would be some who wouldn’t let it make any difference. They’d be disappointed in him, but they’d try not to let him see, and they’d be loyal still—Gerald, for instance, and Harry and, yes, probably The Duke. And perhaps one or two others. And maybe after a while he would get over it. Perhaps by the time the Winter term began it would be half forgotten and he could hold up his head again.