Page:Stanwood Pier--Harding of St Timothys.djvu/148

122 room was given chiefly to the rehearsal of these plays.

"He's surely captain just the same as he always was," Frank Windsor said one day, on emerging from one of these conferences.

And when, on the day of the great game, the two elevens, St. John's in blue jerseys, St. Timothy's in red, ran out upon the field, and the cheers for both rose in mad excitement, challenging one another, gayly defiant, the enthusiasm of even that moment was less than that which burst forth an instant later. For an open carriage, in which sat Rupert Ormsby and another, swept out from the woods road, and at once the whole line of St. Timothy's spectators broke and rushed, shouting, to meet it—rushed and lined up again at the end of the field behind the goal-posts, where the carriage stopped.

"Rah, rah, rah, Ormsby!" they shouted again and again.

It was the first time since his accident that Rupert had been outdoors, and he looked on his friends now with his face flushed and his