And as the Rainhurst man came at him and brought him down on his side, he saw the flying figure of Terence darting over the line and grounding the ball between the posts. At that moment he would have given his kingdom to have stayed where he fell upon the grass, and to have lain in peace until the aching in his weary limbs had passed. Yet he scrambled up. The air was thick with waving hats. He shouted to Smythe, but in the din no one could hear his voice. So he signalled the order, and Smythe went slowly to the mark and took the kick. In a deadly hush the ball rose into the air and dropped truly and gracefully over the bar. In the turmoil that followed the referee’s no-side whistle was scarcely heard. Rouse looked round hopelessly. There was no way out. Wave upon wave of shouting Harley maniacs were bearing down on him from every side. He was seized and shaken, found himself lifted up by the legs. He tried to break free. It was utterly useless. So at last he looked at them wearily in turn. And then he smiled. For this one day he had been their captain. Nothing mattered now. CHAPTER XVII SALVE Alone upon the wide deserted expanse of the playing fields at Harley there stood, a picture of misery, the only fellow in the school who had not dared to go to Rainhurst. There were, it is true, somewhere in the school, other boys, but they had mostly remained behind under compulsion. Some were in detention and some in the infirmary. A round dozen or so were of a type who never did watch football even when it was taking place under their noses, and they had played no part in that clandestine excursion simply because it had had no attraction for them. But there was only this one boy who had been afraid to go. It was Christopher Woolf Roe. He was by no means happy, and he was obsessed with a melancholy interest as to what his father would have to say when he knew what the school had done. He gazed out mournfully over the forsaken football ground. No sound of any boyish voice reached his ear. It might have been holiday time. So when a step sounded unexpectedly behind him on the gravel path he turned in surprise. The school porter was crossing from the neighbourhood of the Head’s room, and something in his manner suggested that he was conveying a message. Roe, starving for company, looked at him as a pig looks at some farm hand carrying a pan of swill. “Do you want me?” he asked hopefully enough. The porter answered with dignity. As a man of discrimination he had been on the school’s side throughout this strife, and he was not disposed to make conversation with one whom he considered something of a traitor. “The Headmaster wishes to speak to you, sir,” said he, and withdrew. Without a word Roe moved away dejectedly towards the stained-glass windows of his father’s room, and passed through the old oak door beside the steps. He had not even the heart to whistle as he went.