My small persecutors had surrounded me, but had hardly time to settle
well to their work, when one of the players came by, and stopped for an
instant to see what was going on. The match had not yet begun.
There was nothing which interested him much apparently, for he was
passing on, when my despondent answer to the everlasting question caught
his ear. He turned round then--
"Any relation to Hammond of Holt?"
I replied, meekly but rather more cheerfully, that he was my uncle.
"I know him very well," the new-comer said. "Don't bully him more than
you can help, you fellows; I'll wait for you after calling over,
Hammond. I should like to ask you about the squire."
He had no time to say more, for just then the ball was kicked off, and
the battle began. I saw him afterward often during that afternoon,
always in the front of the rush or the thick of the scrimmage, and I
saw, too, more than one player limp out of his path disconsolately,
trying vainly to dissemble the pain of a vicious "hack."
I'll try to sketch Guy Livingstone as he appeared to me then, at our
first meeting.
He was about fifteen, but looked fully a year older, not only from his
height, but from a disproportionate length of limb and development of
muscle, which ripened later into the rarest union of activity and
strength that I have ever known.
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