His face is earnest and careful as he glances a last time over his array, but full of pluck and hope--the sort of look I hope to see in my general when I go out to fight.
The School side is not organized in the same way.

The goal-keepers are all in lumps, anyhow and nohow; you can't distinguish between the players-up and the boys in quarters, and there is divided leadership.
But with such odds in strength and weight it must take more than that to hinder them from winning; and so their leaders seem to think, for they let the players-up manage themselves.
But now look! there is a slight move forward of the School-house wings, a shout of "Are you ready ?" and loud affirmative reply.

Old Brooke takes half a dozen quick steps, and away goes the ball spinning towards the School goal, seventy yards before it touches ground, and at no point above twelve or fifteen feet high, a model kick-off; and the School-house cheer and rush on.

The ball is returned, and they meet it and drive it back amongst the masses of the School already in motion.
Then the two sides close, and you can see nothing for minutes but a swaying crowd of boys, at one point violently agitated.

That is where the ball is, and there are the keen players to be met, and the glory and the hard knocks to be got.