He seizes it an instant before his adversary, and with the same motion
writhes himself free from the man's grasp. Now is the time for the
crack Cambridge quarter-back to show what he is made of. The crowd yell
with excitement. To right and left run the great Scotch forwards,
grasping, slipping, pursuing, and right in the midst of them, as quick
and as erratic as a trout in a pool, runs the calm-faced little man,
dodging one, avoiding another, slipping between the fingers of two
others. Surely he is caught now. No, he has passed all the forwards
and emerges from the ruck of men, pelting along at a tremendous pace.
He has dodged one of the Scotch quarters, and outstripped the other.
"Well played, England!" shout the crowd. "Well run, Buller!"
"Now, Tookey!" "Now, Dimsdale!" "Well collared, Dimsdale; well
collared, indeed!" The little quarter-back had come to an end of his
career, for Tom had been as quick as he and had caught him round the
waist as he attempted to pass, and brought him to the ground.
The cheers were hearty, for the two half-backs were the only University
men in the team, and there were hundreds of students among the
spectators. The good doctor coloured up with pleasure to hear his boy's
name bellowed forth approvingly by a thousand excited lungs.

The play is, as all good judges said it would be, very equal. For the
first forty minutes every advantage gained by either side had been
promptly neutralized by a desperate effort on the part of the other.
The mass of struggling players has swayed backwards and forwards, but
never more than twenty or thirty yards from the centre of the ground.
Neither goal had been seriously threatened as yet. The spectators fail
to see how the odds laid on England are justified, but the "fancy" abide
by their choice. In the second forty it is thought that the superior
speed and staying power of the Southerners will tell over the heavier
Scots. There seems little the matter with the latter as yet, as they