“How many times did I take that ball?” he thought wearily. “Was it seven or eight? If I’d only got free that last time—kept my feet!”
He remembered flashes of that last frenzy—the face of a Princeton rusher who reached for him and missed, the teeth savage as a wolf’s and the strained mouth. He saw again Regan turning around to pull him through, Regan, the brute, raging like a fury. He remembered the quick, strange white looks that Charlie De Soto had given him, wondering each time if he had the strength to go on. Why had they stopped them? They had a right to that last rally!
“Eighteen to nothing. Poor Dana—I wonder what he’ll do?”
He remembered, in a far-off way, tales he had heard of other captains, disgraced by defeat, breaking down, leaving college, disappearing. He dreaded the moment when they should break silence, when the awful thing must be talked over, there in the gymnasium, feeling acutely all the misery and ache Dana must be feeling.
“All right there, Stover? Let yourself go, if you want to.”
The voice was Tompkins’, who was looking up at him anxiously, the gymnasium at his back.
“All right,” he said gruffly, raising himself with an effort and half slipping to the ground.
“Sure? How’s Dudley?”
He realized in a curious way that others, too, had gone through the game. Then Regan’s arm was around him. He did not put it from him, grateful for any support in his weakness. Together they went through the crowd of ragamuffins staring open-mouthed at a defeated team.
“What’s the matter with Dudley?”
“Played through all the last with a couple of broken ribs.”
“Dudley?”
“Yes. Go as slow as you want, old bantam.”
“If we only could have had another minute, Tom—” He stopped, unable to go on, shaking his head.
“I know, I know.”
“It was tough.”
“Darned tough.”
“I thought we were going to do it.”
“Now, you shut up, young rooster. Don’t think of it any more. You played like a fiend. We’re proud of you.”
“Poor Dana!”
Upstairs a couple of rubbers took charge of him, stripping him and rubbing him rigorously. Two or three coaches came up to him, gripping him with silent grips, patting him on the back. The cold bite of the shower brought back some of his vitality, and he dressed mechanically with the squad, who had nothing to say to one another.
“Yale, I want to talk to you boys a moment.”
He looked up. In the center of the room was Rivers, coach of coaches, around whom the traditions of football had been formed. Stover looked at him dully, wondering how he could stand there filled with such energy.
“Now, boys, the game’s over. We’ve lost. It’s our turn; we’ve got to stand it. One thing I want you to remember when you go out of here. Yale teams take their medicine!”
His voice rose to a nervous staccato, and the sharp, cold eye seemed to look into every man, just as at school the Doctor used to awe them.
“Do you understand? Yale teams take their medicine! No talking, no reasoning, no explanations, no excuses, and no criticism! The thing’s over and done. We’ll have a dinner tonight, and we’ll start in on next year; and next year nothing under the sun’s going to stop us! Go out; take off your hats! A great Princeton team licked you—licked you well! That’s all. You deserved to score. You didn’t. Hard luck. But those who saw you try for it won’t forget it! We’re proud of that second half! No talk, now, about what might have happened; no talk about what you’re going to do. Shut up! Remember—grin and take your medicine.”
“Mr. Rivers, I’d like to say a few words.”
Stover, with almost a feeling of horror, saw Dana step forward quietly, purse his lips, look about openly, and say:
“Mr. Rivers, I understand what you mean, and what’s underneath it all, and I thank you for it. At the same time, it’s up to me to take the blame, and I’m not going to dodge it. I’ve been a poor captain. I thought I knew more than you did, and I didn’t. I’ve made one fool blunder after another. But I did it honestly. Well, that doesn’t matter—let that go. I say this because it’s right, too, I should take my medicine, and because I don’t want next year’s captain to botch the job the way I’ve done. And now, just a word to you men. You’ve done everything I asked you to do, and kept your mouths shut, no matter what you thought of it. You’ve been loyal, and you’ll be loyal, and there’ll be no excuses outside. But I want you men to know that I’ll remember it, and I want to thank you. That’s all.”
Instantly there was a buzz of voices, and one clear note dominating it—Regan’s voice, stirred beyond thought of self:
“Boys, we’re going to give that captain a cheer. Are you ready? Hip—hip!”
Somehow the cry that went up took from Dink all the sting of defeat. He went out, head erect, back to meet his college, no longer shrinking from the ordeal, proud of his captain, proud of his coach, and proud of a lesson he had learned bigger than a victory.
XI
After the drudgery of the football season he had a few short weeks of gorgeous idleness, during which he browsed through a novel a day, curled up on his window-seat, rolling tobacco clouds through the fog of smokers in the room. He had won his spurs and the right to lounge, and he looked forward eagerly to the rest of the year as a time for reading and the opening up of the friendships of which he had dreamed.
Old age settled down rapidly upon him, and at eighteen that malady appears in its most virulent form. Perhaps there was a little justification. The test he had gone through had educated him to self-control in
