So the line moved forward; but just as it was on point to strike, it stumbled apparently, the whole line together, and went down. The Normal yell rose again. But it rose too soon; the line was not down, but crouching there, a barricade across the Normal path. The stroke of strategy was too sudden to be met. Driven on by its very mass and the blind momentum of the men in the rear, the Normal formation struck our crouching line, toppled momentarily, as a wave topples over a wall of rock; then, self-destroying, its van tumbling over the Academic line, its rear plunging on over its broken front, it crumbled, broke, and stopped.
Then, while the Academics along the side-line went mad with exultation, the fallen chaos struggled to its feet, a wilder chaos than ever, a score of boots slamming for the ball at once, which bounded back and forth like a big leathern shuttlecock in the midst.
So, for a long-drawn moment, then it leaped out clear and free, and a player after it like a cannon-flash, down the field toward the Normal goal. Well may the Academics yell! It is Rob Mackenzie,—fastest man on the ground, and away now with a free field! Hard after him John Hicks, with every sinew at the stretch, and teeth grim-set, and the whole Normal team streaming in a wild tail of pursuit behind. The side-line, which, until now, had held the surge of spectators, burst like a dam in flood, and poured a yelling torrent toward the Normal goal.
There stood big Van Lone, sole guardian bulldog at that gate; an honest bulldog, but terribly bewildered, all pandemonium storming in on him at once. He started forward, but what could he do against Rob Mackenzie? The ball rises over his head, hovers an instant at top flight, or seems to; then shoots forward between the goal posts. The game was won!
And who that was there will ever forget the celebration that followed? Rob Mackenzie tossed skyward on a hundred shoulders, with mighty shouts, till the old pasture rocked and swam; the great, ruddy face of John Hicks, shining through the press, undimmed by defeat, as he came to greet his victorious foe; the meeting and hand-grasp of the two heroes, amid tremendous tumult, all lesser yells upborne on the oceanic roar of Nic; the wild processional through the town, tramping tumultuous to the roar of John Brown's Body, with Rob in triumphal chariot, rolling on down Main Street toward the west, where the clouds of sunset flamed into bonfires and the firey sun itself seemed a huge cannon's mouth hurling a thunder salute in honor of the event.
Well, all that happened years ago. Those old days can never come back. Even the old pasture I cannot see as I saw it then. It was only the other day, drawn by old thoughts revived, that I walked out to see it, through the still summer afternoon, down the old familiar road, so well known but so strangely quiet now, with its few scattered old white oaks and maples, that seem to nod sleepily in a kind of old friendliness, till you come to the turn by the burr oak grove where the pasture opens.
There they lay,—the long, tranquil slope, the green level that had been one field, the ditch along the fence,—under the quiet sunshine, in sleep and silence. Great, peaceful-looking white clouds, like great white cattle asleep, lay along the blue heaven overhead. The old oak where we were used to choose up stood motionless, as if it dreamed over the old days. Could this be indeed the old pasture, scene of our stormy uproar, this field asleep? I turned away with a half lonely feeling.
The old boys are gone, too, most of them, scattered I don't know where. Do they ever, I wonder, after the day's work is done, sit in the evening by the warm firelight, while the soft pipe-smoke wraps them in its tranquil cloud, and dream foolishly, as I do, over those old days? I like to think they do.