He was not in the eleven; but
that he would be in before the term was over was a "moral." He was
good-looking and rather tall, and had a certain foreign air, I thought;
his dark face seemed to be hard and proud, and I had heard that his temper
was fiery.
Bourne had chosen him to play against Shannon's team, and as Acton bottled
up the forwards on his wing Bourne felt that the school's future right
back would not be far to seek.
I soon saw that the school was not quite good enough for the others:
Shannon was almost impassable, and Amber, the half, generally waltzed
round our forwards, and when he secured he passed the ball on to Aspinall,
who doubled like a hare along the touch-line. The question then was "Could
Acton stop the flying International, who spun along like Bassett
himself?" And he did, generally; or, if he could not, he forced him to
part with the ball, and either Baines, our half, lying back, nipped in and
secured, or Bourne cleared in the nick of time. Nine times out of ten,
when Acton challenged Aspinall, the International would part with the ball
to his inside partner; but twice he feinted, and before either of the
school backs could recover, the ball was shot into the net with a high and
catapultic cross shot. Again and again the game resolved itself into a
duello between Acton and Aspinall, and Bourne, when he saw the dealings
with the International and his wiles, smiled easily. He saw the school was
stronger than he thought.
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