Altogether this is a fine run, and makes the School see that even with the wind they are not going to have it all their own way. However, they warm up wonderfully after this.
Steady is still the word (what grand play we should get if it were always the word at football, you schoolboys! You may kick and run and scrimmage splendidly, but you are not steady—but this is digression). Steady is still the word, and every minute Saint Dominic’s pulls better together. The forwards work like one man, and, lighter weight though they are, command the scrimmages by reason of their good “packing.”
Wren and young Forrester, the quarter-backs, are “dead on” the ball the moment it peeps out from the scrimmage; and behind them at half-back Oliver and Bullinger are not missing a chance. If they did, Wraysford is behind them, a prince of “backs.”
Oh, for a chance to put this fine machinery into motion! Time is flying, and the umpire is already fidgeting with his watch. Oh, for one chance! And while we speak here it comes. A County man has just darted up along the touch-line half the length of the field. Wren goes out to meet him, and behind Wren—too close behind—advances Oliver. The County man thinks twice before delivering himself up into the clutches of one of these heroes, and ends his run with a kick, which, Oliver being not in his place, Wraysford runs forward to take. Now Wraysford has hardly had a run this afternoon. He means to have one now! And he does have one. He takes the ball flying, gives one hurried look round, and then makes right for the thick of the fray. Who backs him up? Greenfield for one, and all the rest of Saint Dominic’s for the other.
“Stick close!” he says to Oliver, as he flies past. Oliver wants no bidding. He follows his man like a shadow. In and out among the forwards, and round about past the quarter-backs; and when at last Wraysford is borne down by a combined force of half and three-quarter-backs, Greenfield is there to take the ball on.
“Look-out there!” cries the County captain, “mark that man.” The County does mark that man, and they have the painful task of marking him pass one half-back and floor another before he is arrested.
“I’m here!” cries Wraysford’s voice at that moment; and next instant the ball is again hurrying on towards the County goal in Wraysford’s arms, Greenfield once more being in close attendance.
And now the County backs come into action, and the first of them collars Wraysford. But it is Oliver who collars the ball, and amid the shouts, and howls, and cheers of players and spectators rushes it still onward. The second “back” is the County’s only remaining hope, nor surely will he fail. He rushes at Oliver. Oliver rushes at him. Wraysford, once more on his feet, rushes on them both.
“Look-out for the ball there!” is the panic cry of the County. Ay, look indeed! Oliver is down, but Wraysford has it, and walks with it merrily over the County’s goal-line, and deposits it on the ground in the exact centre of the posts.
“There never was such a rush-up, or such a pretty piece of double play,” say the knowing ones among the onlookers; and when a minute later the ball is brought out, and Stansfield kicks it beautifully over the goal, every one says that it is one of the best-earned goals that old meadow has ever seen kicked, and that Saint Dominic’s, though beaten, has nothing in that day’s performance to be ashamed of.