“What a jackass I was to put the fellow there!” said Stansfield to himself.
And yet Loman, as a rule, was a good player, with plenty of dash and not a little courage. It was odd that to-day he should be showing such specially bad form.
There goes the ball again, clean over the forwards’ heads, straight for him! He is going to catch it and run! No; he is not! He is going to take a flying kick! No, he is not; he is going to make his mark! No, he is not; he is going to dribble it through! Now if there is one thing fatal to football it is indecision. If you wobble about, so to speak, between half a dozen opinions, you may just as well sit down on the ground where you are and let the ball go to Jericho. Loman gets flurried completely, and ends by giving the ball a miserable side-kick into touch—to the extreme horror of everybody and the unmitigated disgust of the peppery Stansfield.
Yet had the captain and his men known the cause of all this—had they been aware that that flash, half-tipsy cad of a fellow who, with half a dozen of his “pals,” was watching the match with a critical air, there at the ropes was the landlord of the Cockchafer himself, the holder of Loman’s “little bill” for 30 pounds, they would perhaps have understood and forgiven their comrade’s clumsiness. But they did not.
Whatever had brought Cripps there? A thousand possibilities flashed through Loman’s mind as he caught sight of his unwelcome acquaintance in the middle of the match. Was he come to make a row about his money before all the school? or had anything fresh turned up, or what? And why on earth did he bring those other cads with him, all of whom Loman recognised as pot-house celebrities of his own acquaintance? No wonder if the boy lost his head and became flurried!
He felt miserable every time the ball flew over to Cripps’s side of the ground. There was a possibility the landlord of the Cockchafer had only come up out of curiosity, and, if so, might not have recognised his young friend among the players. But this delusion was soon dispelled.
The ball went again into touch—this time close to the spot occupied by the unwelcome group, and was about to be thrown out.
Stansfield signalled to Loman. “Go up nearer the line: close up.”
Loman obeyed, and as he did so there fell on his ears, in familiar tones, the noisy greeting, “What cheer, Nightingale? What cheer, my hearty? Stick to your man; eh, let him have it, Mr Loman! Two to one in half-sovereigns on Mr Loman.”
A laugh greeted this encouraging appeal, in the midst of which Loman, knowing full well every one had heard every word, became completely disconcerted, and let the ball go through his fingers as if it had been quicksilver.