Fisher minor wondered if the reason was that he had none. But he was too full of his mission to trouble about that, and, keeping his prize well in sight, for fear he should go astray, had the satisfaction of seeing him arrive on the field of battle just as the opposing forces were taking their places, and just as the Classic seniors were inwardly calling themselves fools for having depended for a moment on a hopeless fellow of this sort.
The Classic juniors felt a good deal compromised by the champion’s shabby cloth trousers and flannel shirt, but they cheered lustily all the same, while the Moderns, having expressed their indignation to one another, relieved their feelings by laughing.
But a moment after, everybody forgot everything but the match.
The Rendlesham men looked very trim and dangerous in their black and white uniform; and when presently their captain led off with a magnificent place-kick which flew almost into the School lines, Classics and Moderns forgot their differences and squirmed with a common foreboding. Fullerton promptly returned the ball into medias res, and the usual inaugural scrimmage ensued. To the knowing ones, who judged from little things, it seemed that the present match was likely to be as even as any of its predecessors. The forwards were about equally weighted, and the quarter and half-backs who hovered outside seemed equally alert and light-footed.
Presently the ball squeezed out on the School side and gave Ranger the first chance of a run. He used it well, and with Fisher major and Yorke on his flanks got well past the Rendlesham forwards amid loud cheers from the oak tree. But the enemy’s quarter-back pinned him in a moment; yet not before he had passed the ball neatly to Fisher on his left. Fisher struggled on a few yards further with the captain and Dangle backing up, but had to relinquish the ball to the former before he could reach the half-backs. Yorke, always wary and cool-headed, had measured the forces against him, and as soon as he had the ball, ran back a step or two, to break the ugly rush of two of the enemy who were nearest, and then with a sweep distanced them, and charging through their half-backs made a dash for the goal. For a moment friend and foe held their breath. He looked like doing it. But in his détour he had given time for Blackstone, the Rendlesham fast runner, to get under way and sweep down to meet him just as he reeled out of the clutches of the half-backs. Next moment Yorke was down, and Dangle was not there to pick up the ball.
This rush served pretty well to exhibit the strong and weak points of either side. It was evident, for instance, that both Ranger and Yorke were men to be marked by the other side, and that Dangle, on the contrary, was playing slack.
A series of scrimmages followed, in the midst of which the ball gravitated back to the centre of the field. Runs were attempted on either side; once or twice the ball went out into touch, and once or twice a drop-kick sent it flying over the forwards’ heads. But it came back inevitably, so that after twenty minutes’ hard play it lay in almost the identical spot from which it had first been kicked off.
The onlookers began to feel a little depressed. It was not to be a walk-over for the School, at any rate. Indeed, it seemed doubtful whether from the last and toughest of these scrimmages the ball would ever emerge again to the light of day.
Suddenly, however; it become evident that the status quo was about to give way, and that the fortunes of either side were going to take a new turn. No one in the game, still less outside, could at first tell what had happened. Then it occurred to Yorke and one or two others that Rollitt, who had hitherto been playing listlessly and sleepily, was waking up. His head, high above his fellows, was seen violently agitated in the middle of the scrimmage, and presently it struggled forward till it came to where the ball lay. A moment later, the Rendlesham side of the scrimmage showed signs of breaking, and a moment after that Rollitt, quickly picking up the ball, burst through both friend and foe.
“Back up, Dangle! back up, Ranger!” shouted Yorke.