The King of the School, or, Who will Win? — page 98: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

92 THE KING OF THE SCHOOL; OR, WHO WILL WIN? eee aE A A Lee The all-important hour arrived. “To the goals! To the goals!” shouted Egerton. Small fry and non-players were un- ceremoniously bundled out of the way, and the two bodies of players took up their positions at their respective posts. - Foot-ball is a game so well-known and practised, that it would be un- necessary to here enter into a learned disquisition on the merits of the game, and its rules; so having separated the bodies of antagonists, let us commence playing. Egerton, with his usual good-luck, had won the choice of goals and the kick off. | Having arranged his little army, some to keep the goals, and some to play up, he shouted out. “ Are you ready?” “Yes,” was the reply from the opposite side. Without more ado, he took a short run of half-a-dozen steps, and sent the ball whizzing away towards the oppo- site goal,a fair flight of at least fifty yards before it touched the ground. A loud cheer, and the opposite side rushed forward to drive it back; the two sides closed, and— . “When Greek joined Greek then was the tug of war.” | There was a furious struggle, a dense mass of human beings struggling to- wards a central point, where hard kicks were plentiful, and where Frank Eger- ton might have been seen exerting all his strength to drive the ball towards the adversary’s goal. “ Donner and bitzen! you haf break my legs!” exclaimed a gutteral voice. And Professor Moeritz, who played. with Egerton’s side, limped out of the crowd, but in a few seconds returned, again to receive something more than a share of the hard knocks of the battle. At length the crowd suddenly separated. The ball was driven back to Eger-— ton’s side, and a determined rush of Baynes’s party carried it nearly up to the goal, “Took out there,” shouts Frank; but the warning was unnecessary. His players were all on the watch. Back comes the ball, and with a well-directed drop-kick the King of the School sends it flying about two feet over the cross-bar between the goal posts. * . Loud cheers from Frank’s side, from the non-players, and from two young ladies, who had been very anxiously watching the game from the roadway near the gate. | Baynes and Crawley, who had not done much of the hard fighting, by- the-bye, bullied their men awfully, and an immense amount of grumbling ensued during the ten minutes that were devoted to changing goals, and preparing for the next kick off. Glenny, one of Baynes’s best players, roundly declared that he would not be ruled by an ass, who shirked his own share of the work; and being loudly applauded by the others, proceeded to make his own preparations for continu- ing the game. He sent his leaders to keep goal, an arrangement they sulkily acquiesced in. _ It was his kick off, and being rather an artful customer, he sent it into the air as high as possible, so that his own side might rush forward and catch it. Frank saw the dodge, and led his own fighting brigade on to the charge. Professor Moeritz, valuable for his weight rather than for scientific play, was in the front, and luckily for his own side, got tripped up in the thick of the scrimmage, just in time to prevent Glenny from giving a kick which must have sent the ball flying well into Frank’s goal, if it had not fallen upon the professor’s shoulder instead. The King of the School, whose keen eye saw everything, at once noted his opportunity, “ Hurrah! The game is ours!” he shouted, and with a splendid drop- kick the ball was sent again flying between Baynes’s goal posts. _ Iwo goals had been gained in a very little over an hour, a thing not done Go NOC (CO mn