e great Goddess Thirst, like the English and
French by the streams in the Pyrenees.[51] The leaders are past
oranges and apples, but some of them visit their coats, and apply
innocent-looking ginger-beer bottles to their mouths. It is no
ginger-beer though, I fear, and will do you no good. One short, mad
rush, and then a stitch in the side, and no more honest play; that's
what comes of those bottles.

[50] #Itinerant#: wandering.

[51] #Pyrenees#: an allusion to the French and English wars in
Spain.

But now Griffith's baskets are empty, the ball is placed again midway,
and the School are going to kick-off. Their leaders have sent their
lumber into goal, and rated the rest soundly, and one hundred and
twenty picked players-up are there, bent on retrieving the game. They
are to keep the ball in front of the School-house goal, and then to
drive it in by sheer strength and weight. They mean heavy play and no
mistake, and so old Brooke sees; and places Crab Jones in quarters
just before the goal, with four or five picked players, who are to
keep the ball away to the sides, where a try at goal, if obtained,
will be less dangerous than in front. He, himself, and Warner and
Hedge, who have saved themselves until now, will lead the charges.

"ARE YOU READY?"

"Are you ready?" "Yes." And away comes the ball kicked high in the
air, to give the School time to rush on and catch it as it falls. And
here they are amongst us. Meet them like Englishmen, you School-house
boys, and charge them home. Now is the time to show what mettle is in
you--and there shall be a warm seat by the hall fire, and honor
to-night for him who does his duty in the next half-hour. And they are
well met. Again and again the cloud of their players-up gathers before
our goal, and comes threatening on, and Warner or Hedge, with young
Brooke and the relics of the bull-dogs, break through and carry the
ball back; and old Brooke ranges the field like Job's war-horse; the
thickest scrummage parts asunder before his rush, like the waves
before a clipper's bows; his cheery voice rings over the field, and
his eye is everywhere. And if these miss the ball, and it rolls
dangerously in front of our goal, Crab Jones and his men have seized
it, and sent it away towards the sides with the unerring drop-kick.
This is worth living for; the whole sum of school-boy existence
gathered up into one straining, struggling half-hour, a half-hour
worth a year of co