Forge of Foxenby — Story, Setting & Ideas

There was a youth behind the Foxenby posts with a muddy mark on the side of his face, and he at least knew no goal had been scored.

The first shot of the match had flashed by the upright--on the wrong side of it for St. Cuthbert's, on the right side of it for Foxenby, whose sigh of heart-felt relief was audible when their rivals' untimely cheers had died down.

"A narrow squeak, old man!" said Dick Forge, the captain of the Foxenby team, to Broome, the inside-left, selected from Holbeck's House.

"Rather!" answered Broome. "It quite turned my heart over. Their centre's got his shooting-boots on this afternoon."

"Helped by the wind, of course. It's buzzing across from goal to goal. Feel the pressure of it! Like running up against a house-side."

"We'll never get going against it, Captain. They'll be a dozen goals up at half-time."

"Fudge!" cried the captain. "They've got Lebberston and Lyon--grand old Lyon--to beat first, and Ennis after that. Throw your chest out, Broome, old man, and smile!"

Dick's laughing face was a tonic to the faint-hearted ones always. However dark the picture seemed to be, he had the happy knack of turning it to the light so that his chums could see something cheery in it.

To-day they had much need of his enthusiasm, too. By calling "heads" as the referee span a coin in the air, when it would have been much nicer had he said "tails ", he had passed the luck of the toss to the rival captain, who thankfully grabbed the chance of placing a spanking sea-breeze at the back of his team.

Hard lines indeed, you Foxenby fellows, to lose the toss in a wind like this, and on such a very important day. For you have worked your way through to the final tie of the County Schools' Cup against teams of stronger build, only to meet, in the last match, eleven sturdy youths who outweigh you almost man for man.

Forge and Lyon alone can be said to be up to the average bulk of your opponents. Ennis, your trusty goalkeeper, is certainly tall, but see how thin he looks! Almost like a third goalpost, you might say. Your forwards are fleet-footed to a man, and your halves are like terriers, ever worrying the foe.

But you can't get away from the fact that weight plays a big part in footer, and when a mass of bone and brawn has half a gale behind it to help it whenever it charges you, why, phew! you need all the pluck you can muster to pick yourselves up and start in afresh!

"St. Cuthbert's are a dandy side this season," remarked a young Cuthbertian behind the Foxenby goal. "Scored twenty-three times in the Cup-ties up to date, and never once had a goal notched against them."

"Ah, well, they'll blot their copy-books this afternoon, if never before," retorted Robin Arkness, a Foxenby Junior, who had gathered round him a little cluster of select pals, and was in a mood to blow his own side's trumpet.

"Who's going to score against them, anyhow?" asked the perky Cuthbertian youngster.

"Forge will, Broome will, perhaps even old Lyon will, from full-back, given half a chance," declared the optimistic Robin.

"Pooh! They can't even cross the half-way line," snorted the champion of St. Cuthbert's, contemptuously. "See how we're peppering your goalie all the time. Play up, Saints! Bang 'em in, boys! Oo--ooo, a goal--no, hang it, only a corner! Allow for the wind, Monty--allow for the wind!"

"You mean 'allow for the gas', don't you, kid?" asked Robin. "You're a tip-topper at scoring goals with your tongue."

Nevertheless the cocksure young Cuthbertian had every reason for his confidence. Already there were many ominous smudges of mud on the newly-whitewashed goalposts and crossbar, and a series of finely-placed corner-kicks had only been hustled away by what seemed to be desperate scrimmages of the Rugby order, with the luck on Foxenby's side.

The impartial crowd of Walsbridge townspeople, on whose ground the final tie was being played, had read wonderful accounts of the Cuthbertians' rock-like defence--it delighted them to see that these hefty youths knew also the straight route to an opponent's goal. Therefore, they began by wishing Ennis, the goalkeeper of the "Foxes", good luck, and plenty of hard work!

They flocked behind his goal, cheering him again and again as he flung himself backwards and forwards to fist away corking shots, some of which he probably knew very little about, though it just happened that his long body was always in the way. The better the goal-keeper, the more good fortune he enjoys as a rule. Forwards seem somehow magnetized into shooting where he is.