There was a heavy thud, and the earth seemed to jump up and strike me.

The next moment I was sprawling on my back on the grass.

I don't pretend to know how it all happened, but somehow or other I had succeeded in checking the onward career of the victorious Slider; for though I had fallen half stunned before the force of his charge, he had recoiled for an instant from the same shock, and that instant gave time for Wright to get hold of him, and so put an end for the time to his progress.
"Well played!" said some one, as I picked myself up.

So I was comforted, and began to think that, after all, football was rather a fine game.
Time would fail me to tell of all the events of that afternoon--how Wright carried the ball within a dozen yards of our opponents' goal; how their forwards passed the ball one to another, and got a "touch-down" behind our line, but missed the kick; how Naylor ran twenty yards with one of our men hanging on his back; how our quarter-back sent the ball nearly over their goal with as neat a drop-kick as ever it has been my lot to witness.
The afternoon was wearing.

I heard the time-keeper call out, "Five minutes more!" The partisans of either side were getting frantic with excitement.