me Gordon was rather worried about "l'affaire Hazlitt," as
Tester called it. But he soon forgot it entirely in the excitement of
the approaching match. Everyone talked about it; there was no other
topic of conversation. The night before the match Lovelace could not sit
still for a minute. He strode up and down the study murmuring to
himself: "We can't lose; we can't; we can't!" Someone looked in to ask
if he was going to prepare the Livy.

"Livy?" he gasped. "Who could do any work the night before a house
match?"

The someone retired discomforted.

"You know it's absurd," Lovelace went on, "for a master to imagine
anyone could do work when the house matches are on. The other day
Claremont had me up and asked me why my work had been so bad lately. I
told him that the house matches were so exciting that I could not
concentrate my mind on anything else. He looked at me vacantly and said:
'Well, are they really? I don't know whom they excite; they don't excite
me.'"

"Dear old poseur; he's keen enough on his own house," Gordon answered
drowsily from the depths of the hammock, in which he had almost fallen
asleep. He felt incapable of thought. For weeks he had looked forward to
the match, and now it was so close he felt strangely languorous, tired
in brain and body.

Rain fell steadily all night, and though it cleared off about break, the
ground was already under water. It was a cold, gusty day.

By lunch the whole House was unbalanced. There was much loud laughter,
then sudden silences; an atmosphere of restlessness lay over everyone.
Very slowly the minutes dragged by. Gordon sat silent in a far corner of
the pavilion. At last the whistle blew, the magenta and black jerseys
trailed out on to the field. A cheer rose from the line.

The next hour passed in a whirl of white jerseys, gradually turned black
with mud, of magenta forms dashing on to the School forwards, of wild,
inarticulate black insects bawling on the touch-line. The pervading
impression was mud. Everything was mud; he was mud, the ball was mud.
Lovelace was indistinguishable. His own voice leading the scrum seemed
strangely unreal. There was a vague feeling of disquiet when, early in
the first half, he found himself standing under the posts, while the
Buller's half placed the ball for Whitaker to convert. Nothing tangible;
then the disquiet passed, the magenta jerseys swept forward, dirty white
forms came up and went down before them. Morgan rolled ove