The Merry Men Score Goals
In football garb the Squirms, on the whole, looked unimpressive. They
had bulk, but it was beef without brawn. Some of them had so outgrown
their togs that their arms stuck out sideways, in a grotesque
semi-circular fashion. Others had fat faces, too, which turned
unhealthily blue in the wind.
"What a mug's game it is," grumbled Grain. "We're prize idiots to
appear at all."
"Couldn't honourably do otherwise," retorted Osbody.
"Honour be hanged! We're not heroes of a sporting novel. Look at the
crowd of Foxes round the ropes. They've come to laugh at us!"
"Perhaps they'll cheer us before we've finished."
"Rubbish! We're all as soft as putty. Given football a miss whenever
possible. Hated the muddy misery of it. The Merry Men will tie us
into every kind of knot."
"Shut up, fusspot!" said Osbody, with spirit. "It's rotten bad form to
cry 'stinking fish'."
"Rather!" agreed Niblo. "Where's the sense of piling up imaginary
goals against your own side, Grain? Grouse when they're actually
scored, not before."
"You're living in a fool's paradise," retorted Grain. "Go on kidding
yourselves that you're an International side. All I can say is, that
you don't jolly well look it. More like a row of plucked turkeys
outside a poulterer's shop."
His bitter comments were interrupted by the arrival of the Merry Men,
looking fit as fiddles in their white shirts and blue knickers.
Rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, full of vim and confidence, they formed a
striking contrast to their shivering opponents. Judging by
appearances, there would only be one team in the picture that afternoon.
Osbody, as captain, met Arkness in the centre of the field. "Who's to
referee?" he inquired. "I forgot to ask about that."
"That's all right," Robin answered cheerily. "Thought we'd have a good
'un while we were about it. I've asked Forge to take the whistle."
"You never dared!" cried Osbody, evidently taken aback.
"Why not? Forge doesn't bite. What better 'ref.' could we have?
He'll see fair play to the last kick."
"Who said there was going to be any play that wasn't fair?" asked
Osbody, ungraciously.
"Not I, you thin-skinned beggar. All I meant was that Forge knows the
rules backwards way. He'll hold the scales even and favour neither
side."
"That's as may be," remarked Grain. He had come up behind them with
his customary cheek to butt into the conversation. "Some people know
how to wangle things. Even school-captains swallow butter
occasionally."
Robin looked at Grain with cold contempt. "Here comes Forge," he said.
"Time to start. If you'll ask your men to stand back, Osbody, we'll
toss for ends."
A cordial cheer greeted Forge, who concealed an amused smile with
difficulty as he saw, through the corner of his eye, the long faces the
Squirms were pulling at his appearance. Doubtless they would have
preferred a milder and shorter-sighted referee.
Dick shook hands with both captains in a manner of becoming gravity.
It might have been a First League match, so seriously did he take it.
"Good afternoon, chaps," he said. "Ideal afternoon for footer.
Winning the toss won't help either of you much. Hope we'll have a
pleasant game."
The news that Dick was refereeing quickly spread. It was a totally
unexpected honour for a junior match. Usually the captain was too busy
leather-hunting himself to take any notice of scratch games. That he
had decided to referee this contest between the Merry Men and the
Squirms excited curiosity, resulting in a rapid thickening of the ring
of spectators round the ropes.
It was all very depressing to the Squirms. They had hoped against hope
that the crowd of onlookers would be small, having a lively fear that
they were bound to make fools of themselves. The advent of the captain
as referee had turned the limelight full on them, and more than half
Foxenby would now be present to deride their floundering efforts at
football.
"Arkness did it on purpose, the crafty bounder," they told one another.
"This is his revenge for the tournament licking. Nice figures of fun
we'll look after a bit."
"Buck up, chaps, and put all in," Osbody counselled them. "We're
eleven against eleven, after all. Use your weight and knock some of
the steam out of them at the start."
With Niblo in goal, and himself at left full-back, the captain of the
Squirms really made a gallant attempt to save his side from immediate
humiliation. Doing the work of three players, he nipped in time after
time to throw the Merry Men's scoring schemes awry. His only mistake
in the first fifteen minutes was to bring Robin down somewhat roughly
when a goal seemed certain. Forge took a charitable view of the foul
and merely awarded an ordinary free kick. This Niblo, who was playing
a surprisingly good game, fisted away with convincing force.
"We're doing top-hole, chaps," Osbody told the Squirms. "Get farther
down the field, you forwards, and chance your luck more."
Grain could play decently enough at centre-forward when he liked, but
was lazy by nature and a confirmed grumbler.
"Talking's easy," he sneered. "Fat lot of attacking you'd do yourself
if you'd two sugar babies instead of players at each side of you."
"Try a gallop on your own anyhow, Grain. You're big enough."
"I see. Plenty for them to kick at, you mean. Hadn't you better get
back towards goal, 'Body, before the squibs go off?"
Truly, Osbody had been caught napping. The ball had been restarted
while he was talking, and Dave and Robin had lured the other full-back
into a booby-trap. He zigzagged in bewilderment towards Niblo, whose
toes he trod on, with the result that the hampered goalkeeper had the
mortification of seeing the ball lobbed past him for the first goal of
the match.
"You clumsy clown!" he cried to the faulty fullback. "Either keep off
my toes or get off the field. You gave them that goal!"
Bad temper is the worst opponent a goalkeeper can have. While he
remained cool Niblo had kept goal excellently well; now that he was hot
and cross he could do nothing right. Robin beat him again with quite a
simple shot; Dave bagged a couple more in as many minutes, and the
thrashing which the Squirms themselves had expected began in real
earnest. Niblo's sole occupation seemed to be that of picking the ball
from the back of the net and booting it savagely back to the centre of
the field.
Osbody wiped his forehead in miserable perplexity. "Nine goals to
nil," he said. "This is sheer slaughter, Niblo. Steady, old man,
steady!"
"Right, 'Body, old son," answered Niblo. "I lost my head, but they're
all on top of me. Can't you go to your old place and draw them off me
a bit?"
"Good idea, Niblo. I'll feel more at home at centre-half, putting a
spoke in Arkness's wheel."
Grain watched the change with cynical approval. "Time you came to give
me a hand," he said. "The Professor's no more use behind me than a
draughty keyhole."
"Have a pot at goal whenever you can, Grain. We must get a chalk or
two, or it'll be 'thirty--nil' on the hall notice-board."
Between them they managed to get a move on, juggling the ball into the
Merry Men's penalty-area by deft touches which won applause. Osbody
was then in a splendid scoring position, and ought to have shot without
hesitation. Probably wishing, however, to put Grain in a better
temper, he unselfishly gave his grumbling colleague the ball, saying to
him: "Let fly first time, Grain."
It was what is known as a gift-goal. The Merry Men's custodian had
slipped and fallen, and Grain had only to lift the ball gently into the
net. But the excitement of the moment must have unnerved him, for
instead of shooting he trod on the ball, which flew up and hit him in
the face.
The next moment, to the accompaniment of a loud roar of laughter, he
had sprawled full length in the mud.
There was mud on this particular patch of the field, too. It was
facetiously called the "Nigger Pond", because on most days a pool of
black water was present there.
If Grain had been in the habit of practising more he would have
remembered this patch and kept clear of it. But now he was wholly in
it from head to foot, sending a fountain of black drops over Osbody
also, and (what was worse still from his captain's standpoint) spoiling
all chance of a score by accidentally fisting the ball over the
goal-line.
When, at last, he managed to raise himself dolefully to his feet, who
was there on the field who could have refrained from grinning at him?
Black he was, but not in any way comely. His appearance was that of a
golliwog too tightly stuffed with sawdust--an irresistibly comical
sight.
The spectators exploded with mirth; the Squirms laughed even louder
than the Merry Men; Forge himself could not keep a straight face, and
laughed aloud with the rest. Only Grain failed to see the broad humour
of the thing.
"Keep it up, you blinking idiots!" he snorted, as he flung the mud from
his blazing eyes. "Pretty cads you all are to make game of a fellow's
misery."
"Cut off and change, Grain," Dick advised him.
"So I will, and I shan't come back," whined Grain.
"Nonsense," Dick returned. "Take it in good part, youngster. Your
side needs you. Play the game."
Grain ran off sulkily, and at half-time, when the Merry Men had a dozen
goals to their credit, he had washed off the mud and made himself
presentable in a clean costume from the emergency kit.
"That's right, kid," Dick said to him. "You're going in again. Better
luck next time."
Grain grunted something in an off-hand manner--a piece of surly cheek
which Dick tactfully ignored. But the captain of the school decided to
keep a watchful eye on this unmannerly young Squirm, whose ways were
far from being ways of pleasantness.
The bulk of the crowd had melted away at half-time, the game being too
one-sided to hold their attention. It was just target practice for the
Merry Men's forwards and halves, and runaway victories quickly pall on
unbiassed spectators.
But it gradually became evident that the play was becoming too warm for
some of the combatants. Cries of "Stop that, you dirty cad!" were
audible at intervals, and Dick had at last to push himself
unceremoniously between two sparring opponents, one of whom was
painfully hopping up and down on a bruised leg.
"That'll do, Storm--that's enough, Grain," said Dick. "This is a
football-field, not a rat-pit."
"I was nowhere near the ball when he hacked me," pleaded Dave.
"Rot!" said Grain. "You fell over my foot. I'm as much hurt as you."
"Better temper, please," said Dick, restarting the game. But this time
he paid less heed to the play in general than to the movements of Grain
in particular. Very soon he saw something which confirmed his
suspicions. Pretending to head a ball which was nowhere near him,
Grain scraped some skin off Arkness's knees with his boot, while
striking the back of his hand against Tom Jaye's nose, causing that
organ to bleed a little.
Dick promptly blew his whistle and ran to the scene. "Free kick
against you, Grain," he announced. "Don't be more like a windmill than
you can help. It's dangerous!"
Grain smiled in a supercilious sort of way, and, folding his arms like
a gladiator, contemptuously watched Dave take the free kick. To show
how utterly a word in season was lost on him, the next minute he
literally jumped, knees up, into Allan a Dale's back, sending that
lightly-built and altogether harmless Merry Man somersaulting over the
ropes.
"Here, stop rotting, you lout!" cried Robin, his blood boiling.
Grain's immediate answer was an uplifted fist and a vicious blow at
Robin's face.
Robin saved his beauty, not to mention a considerable amount of
sticking-plaster, by ducking swiftly and taking the hard smack on his
shoulder. There were cries of indignant disgust from players and
spectators alike.
"How's that for dirty play, referee?" somebody shouted.
Dick needed no such reminder of his duty. Like an avenging force he
fell upon Grain and gripped the Squirm's arm.
"Clear off the field, Grain!" he commanded. "Out of it. March!"
"Ridiculous," protested Grain. "I only charged a man off the ball."
"You might have snapped his backbone like a carrot. Make yourself
scarce and don't argue."
But Grain _did_ argue. To the awed amazement of both Squirms and Merry
Men, he fired a lot of audacious back-talk at the grimly-silent captain.
"You can't send me off, Forge," he declared. "Haven't power to. This
isn't a league match or a cup-tie. You weren't asked to referee--at
least, not by our side. I've done no harm; why should I go?"
"Never mind the why and the wherefore," snapped the captain. "Take
yourself off."
Grain looked round at the frightened faces watching him, and had a mind
to show them what a devil-may-care fellow he was.
"Shan't!" he answered, with a stupidly defiant laugh.
He was asking for trouble there, and did not seek in vain. Round the
back of his neck Forge's fingers fastened like a vice. He next felt
himself lifted over the ropes as though he were no more than a bag of
shavings, and at a furious and undignified speed he was hustled to the
gate of the football-field and pitched into the lane.
[Illustration: HE NEXT FELT HIMSELF LIFTED OVER THE ROPES]
"Stay there till the dust-cart picks you up, you vermin," said Dick,
with withering scorn.
After that the game was better and brighter. Nobody said anything, but
everybody felt that a spirit of mischief had been erased from the
match. Osbody fell back to defend again, and he and Niblo put up so
stout a defence that the Merry Men could only score twice more before
Dick's whistle blew for time.
Still, twenty-three goals to none represented a terrible drubbing for
the Squirms, and one that made their tournament victory seem a very
feeble triumph indeed.
Yet nobody seemed the least inclined to rub the licking in. The
Squirms, with one conspicuous exception, had played a clean game, and
kept their tempers in humiliating circumstances. Just, then, as they
were trooping dejectedly from the field, they were electrified by
hearing Robin's familiar treble calling out:
"Three cheers for Osbody's team, you fellows--hip, hip, hooray!"
Forge turned to listen in smiling approval as the Merry Men
whole-heartedly gave three cheers. Osbody blushed like a girl and
gazed apprehensively round at the Squirms, wondering how they would
take this totally unexpected outburst. Then, swinging his arm round
his head, he cried to them:
"Three cheers for the winners, you chaps."
What matter that the Squirms' cheers were but throaty croaks compared
with the full-voiced hurrahs of the Merry Men? They did their best in
an unaccustomed part, plainly realizing that their honourable foes had
treated them in a thoroughly sporting spirit. Not to have responded in
a similar vein would have disgraced them in Foxenby's eyes.
Glancing at one another sheepishly, they made haste to leave the field,
but were overtaken by Dick Forge, who accommodated his pace to theirs.
"You chaps look down in the mouth," the captain said, briskly. "Don't
be. You've no need. There's quite decent footer in some of you. All
you require is practice. You've played particularly well, Osbody.
Ditto you, Niblo."
The two leading Squirms flushed with unconcealed delight at this
compliment from Foxenby's greatest footballer.
"But--but they made all sorts of rings round us, Forge," Osbody
stammered.
"True. Served you right. You loafed about indoors, getting flabbier
than jellyfish, while Arkness and Co. hardened themselves outside. I
am pretty keen on footer, as you know, boys. When a Fox has legs to
stand on I like to see him chasing a ball with them, even if he never
catches up with it. Now, tell me, are you chaps game to stick together
and practise footer every week, for the honour of Foxenby?"
A quick little catching of breath was audible here and there. What
could the Squirms do when the great captain of Foxenby was pleading
with them thus? His whole heart was in his voice--his deadly
earnestness could not be mistaken. The meanest boy amongst them knew
how passionately Forge loved Foxenby, and his pure devotion to its
interests was infectious.
"Why, of course, Forge, we'll practise like the very dickens--won't we,
you chaps?" said Osbody, turning on them a pair of eyes that shone with
new resolution.
"Rather!" they answered, in somewhat tremulous chorus.
"Good biz," commented Forge, as he turned aside into Rooke's House.
"It bucks me up no end to hear you say so."