raged
host had triumphed and the referee was spared.

"Served him right if they'd man-handled him!" said a spectator.

"Ay!" said another, gloomily, "ay! And th' Football Association 'ud ha'
fined us maybe a hundred quid and disqualified th' ground for the rest
o' th' season!"

"D----n th' Football Association!"

"Ay! But you canna'!"

"Now, lads! Play up, Knype! Now, lads! Give 'em hot hell!" Different
voices heartily encouraged the home team as the ball was thrown into
play.

The fouling Manchester forward immediately resumed possession of the
ball. Experience could not teach him. He parted with the ball and got it
again, twice. The devil was in him and in the ball. The devil was
driving him towards Myatt. They met. And then came a sound quite new: a
cracking sound, somewhat like the snapping of a bough, but sharper, more
decisive.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Stirling. "That's his bone!"

And instantly he was off down the staircase and I after him. But he was
not the first doctor on the field. Nothing had been unforeseen in the
wonderful organization of this enterprise. A pigeon sped away and an
official doctor and an official stretcher appeared, miraculously,
simultaneously. It was tremendous. It inspired awe in me.

"He asked for it!" I heard a man say as I hesitated on the shore of the
ocean of mud.

Then I knew that it was Manchester and not Knype that had suffered. The
confusion and hubbub were in a high degree disturbing and puzzling. But
one emotion emerged clear: pleasure. I felt it myself. I was aware of
joy in that the two sides were now levelled to ten men apiece. I was
mystically identified with the Five Towns, absorbed into their life. I
could discern on every face the conviction that a divine providence was
in this affair, that God could not be mocked. I too had this conviction.
I could discern also on every face the fear lest the referee might give
a foul against the hero Myatt, or even order him off the field, though
of course the fracture was a simple accident. I too had this fear. It
was soon dispelled by the news which swept across the entire enclosure
like a sweet smell, that the referee had adopted the theory of a simple
accident. I saw vaguely policemen, a stretcher, streaming crowds, and my
ears heard a monstrous universal babbling. And then the figure of
Stirling detached itself from the moving disorder and came to me.

"Well, Hyatt's calf was harder than the other chap's, that's all,"