The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's Part 49

"What!" exclaimed Stansfield, starting up as if he had been shot.

"Wraysford not going to play!"

"So he said," replied Wren.

"Oh, this is a drop too much! Why ever not?"

"I don't know. He's been awfully down in the mouth lately; whether it is about the Nightingale, or--"

The captain gave a howl of rage.

"I wish that miserable brute of a Nightingale had been scragged, that I do! Everything's stopped for the Nightingale! Who cares a b.u.t.ton about the thing, I'd like to know? Wraysford can get dozens more of them after the football season's over. Why, the Doctor gave out another scholarship to be gone in for directly after Christmas, only to-day.

Can't he go in for that?"

"So he will, I expect," said Wren; "but I don't fancy he'll play, all the same, on Sat.u.r.day."

Stansfield groaned. "There go my two best men," he said; "we may as well shut up shop and go in for croquet."

A powerful deputation waited on Wraysford that same evening to try to prevail upon him to play in the fifteen. They had hard work to do it.

He said he was out of form, and didn't feel in the humour, and was certain they could get on well enough without him.

"Oh, no, we can't," said Stansfield. "I say, Wraysford," he added, bluntly, "I expect it's this Nightingale affair's at the bottom of all this nonsense. Can't you possibly patch it up, at any rate till after Sat.u.r.day? I'd give my head to get you and Greenfield in the team."

"Do play, Wraysford," put in Callonby. "Don't let the school be beaten just because you've got a row on with another fellow."

"It's not that at all," said Wraysford, feeling and looking very uncomfortable. "It's nothing to do with that. It's just that I'm not in the humour. I'd really rather not."

"Oh, look here," cried Stansfield; "that won't wash. Come to oblige me, there's a good fellow."

In the end Wraysford gave in, and the captain went off half consoled to complete his preparations, and inveigh in his odd moments against all Nightingales and Coventrys, and examinations, and all such enemies and stumbling-blocks to the glorious old English sport of football.

Loman looked forward to the coming match with quite good spirits.

Indeed, it was a long time since he had felt or appeared so light-hearted.

That very day he had received a most unexpected present in the shape of a five-pound note from an aunt, which sum he had promptly and virtuously put into an envelope and sent down to Mr Cripps in further liquidation of his "little bill." Was ever such luck? And next week the usual remittance from home would be due; there would be another three or four pounds paid off. Loman felt quite touched at the thought of his own honesty and solvency. If only everybody in the world paid their debts as he did, what a happy state of things it would be for the country!

So, as I said, Loman looked forward to the football match in quite good spirits, just as a man who has been working hard and anxiously for eleven long months looks forward to his well-earned summer holiday.

Things were looking up with him, and no mistake.

And then, just like his luck, the Doctor had that same day made the announcement, already referred to, of another scholarship to be competed for directly after Christmas. It was for Sixth form boys under seventeen, and he meant to go in for it! True, this scholarship was only for twenty pounds for a single year, but that was something. As far as he could see, Wraysford, who would get his move up at Christmas, would be the only man in against him, if he did go in, and he fancied he could beat Wraysford. For in the Nightingale exam he had not really tried his best, but this time he would and astonish everybody.

Greenfield would scarcely go in for this exam, even if he got his move up; it was safe to conclude his recent exploit would suffice him in the way of exams, for some time to come.

And then, what could be more opportune than its coming off just after Christmas, at the precise time when Cripps would be looking for a final settlement of his account, or whatever little of it remained still to pay! Oh, dear! oh, dear! What a thing it is to be straight and honest!

Everything prospers with a man when he goes in for being honest! Why, Loman was positively being bathed in luck at the present time!

The Sat.u.r.day came at last. Stansfield had drilled his men as well as he could during the interval, and devoutly hoped that he had got a respectable team to cope with the Landfield fellows. If he could only have been sure of his half-back he would have been quite happy; and never a practice pa.s.sed without his growling louder than ever at the disgraceful custom of sending useful behind-scrimmage men to Coventry.

At the last moment he decided to give the responsible post to Loman, rather than move forward Wraysford from his position at "back"; and Loman's usual place at quarter-back was filled up by young Forrester of the Fourth, greatly to that young gentleman's trepidation and to the exultation of the Fourth Senior as a body, who felt terrifically puffed up to have one of their men actually in the first fifteen.

Some of my readers may perhaps know from actual experience what are the numerous and serious anxieties which always beset the captain of the football fifteen. If the fellow is worth his salt he knows to a nicety where he is strong and where he is weak; he knows, if the wind blows one way, which is the best quarter-back to put on the left and which on the right. He knows which of his "bulldogs" he can safely put into the middle of the scrimmage, and which are most useful in the second tier.

He knows when to call "Kick!" to a man and when to call "Run!" and no man knows better when to throw the ball far out from touch, or when to nurse it along close to the line. It is all very well for outsiders to talk of football everlastingly as a _game_. My dear, good people, football is a science if ever there was a science; the more you know of it the more you will find that out.

This piece of lecturing is thrown in here for the purpose of observing that Stansfield was a model football captain. However worried and worrying and crabby he was in his ordinary clothes, in his football togs and on the field of battle he was the coolest, quickest, readiest, and cunningest general you could desire. He said no more than he could help, and never scolded his men while play was going on, and, best of all, worked like a horse himself in the thick of the fight, and looked to every one else to do the same.

Yet on this Sat.u.r.day all the captain's prowess and generalship could not win the match for Saint Dominic's against Landfield.

The match began evenly, and for the first half of the time the game was one long succession of scrimmages in the middle of the ground, from which the ball hardly ever escaped, and when it did, escaped only to be driven back next moment into the "mush."

"It'll do at this rate!" thinks Stansfield to himself. "As long as they keep it among the forwards we shan't hurt."

Alas! one might almost have declared some tell-tale evil spirit had heard the boast and carried it to the ear of the enemy, for next moment half-time was called, the sides changed over, and with them the Landfielders completely reversed their tactics.

The game was no longer locked up in a scrimmage in the middle of the ground. It became looser all along the line; the ball began to slip through the struggling feet into the hands of those behind, who sent it shooting over the heads of the forwards into more open ground. The quarter-backs and half-backs on either side ran and got round the scrimmages; and when at last they were collared, took to ending up with an expiring drop-kick, which sent the ball far in the direction of the coveted goals.

Nothing could have happened worse for Saint Dominic's, for the strain fell upon them just at their weakest point. Stansfield groaned as he saw chance after chance missed behind his scrimmages. Young Forrester played pluckily and hard at quarter-back, and shirked nothing; but he could not kick, and his short runs were consequently of little use.

Callonby, of course, did good work, but Loman, the half-back, was woefully unsteady.

"What a jacka.s.s 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 c.o.c.kchafer 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 c.o.c.kchafer 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.

This was too much for Stansfield's patience.

"Go up forward, for goodness' sake," he exclaimed, "if you must play the fool! I'll go half-back myself."

Loman obeyed like a lamb, only too glad to lose himself in the scrimmages and escape observation.

The match went on--worse and worse for Saint Dominic's. Despite Stansfield's gallant efforts at half-back (where he had never played before), despite Wraysford's steady play in goal, the ball worked up nearer and nearer the Dominican lines.

The Landfield men were quick enough to see the weak point of their enemies, and make use of the discovery. They played fast and loose, giving the ball not a moment's peace, and above all avoiding scrimmages.

The Saint Dominic's forwards were thus made practically useless, and the brunt of the encounter fell on the four or five players behind, and they were not equal to it.

The calamity comes at last. One of the Landfield men gets hold of the ball, and runs down hard along the touch-line. Forrester is the quarter-back that side, and gallant as the Fourth Form boy is, his big opponent runs over him as a mastiff runs over a terrier.