Boarding schools -- England -- Juvenile fiction; Boys -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Schools -- Juvenile fiction
Never was order more beautifully carried out, Fisher minor held the
leather long enough to pass it to Brinkman. Brinkman staggered on a
yard or two and slipped it back to Denton. Denton made a yard or two
more and passed it to Corder. Corder fell back with it into the arms of
Ranger. Ranger let Corder drop, but captured the ball, and with one of
his lightning swoops carried it out of the ruck for twenty yards, when,
as he fell, Yorke came up and captured it. Yorke, alas, was cut short
in his career before he had gone ten yards, but Clapperton was there to
take it. Away he went, shaking off the nearest of his assailants and
distancing others, till he too fell gloriously, with his body in play,
and his hands in touch, thirty yards from the enemy's lines. The
serried ranks formed up on either side. Clapperton, as he stood, ball
in hand, ready to throw in, passed his eye along the line of his
friends, and stopped short of Yorke. Yorke understood. He caught the
ball, and quick as thought, returned it to Clapperton, who, swooping
round behind the line, got clear with it once more, and crossing the
field, curving in all the way, carried into the enemy's lines at their
far corner, whence with a wide sweep he brought it round right behind
their posts, a beautiful climax to a beautiful piece of co-operative
play.
As Mr Stratton said, nothing all that term had been more hopeful of the
new spirit of mutual confidence and support in the School than this
triumphant rally.
But the goal was yet to be kicked. To Yorke, of course, belonged the
honour.
But Yorke, to every one's surprise, stood out.
"No," said he. "It's Clapperton's goal; he shall kick it."
So Fellsgarth, perhaps for the first and only time in its records, stood
by and witnessed the phenomenon of its captain carrying out the ball and
placing it for the vice-captain to kick.
It needed all Clapperton's nerve to save him from flurry and failure
even over an easy task like this. But he pulled himself together and
kicked the goal.
And with that kick he sent flying into the air the last remnant of the
bad blood and jealousy which had marred the term and all but wrecked the
good old School.
Here let us say good-bye--perhaps not for good. For Yorke and Rollitt,
and Clapperton and Fisher, and all of them, are still alive and kicking.
Rollitt, to the general regret, but to his own satisfaction, left
Fellsgarth at the end of the term for the more congenial course of a
school of engineering. Before he left he invited Fisher minor to tea in
his room, and alarmed that young gentleman by sitting for a whole hour
without uttering a word. At length, when the guest had to leave, he
said--
"Thanks, Fisher minor. Thank those fellows of yours. Tell Yorke the
money that bought the boat was what I had been saving for something
else. I'll write to you. Get out, now."
That was the last of Rollitt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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