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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18036-h.zip b/18036-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..410c418 --- /dev/null +++ b/18036-h.zip diff --git a/18036-h/18036-h.htm b/18036-h/18036-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d0f3448 --- /dev/null +++ b/18036-h/18036-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3192 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Uppingham by the Sea</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Uppingham by the Sea, by John Henry Skrine</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Uppingham by the Sea, by John Henry Skrine + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Uppingham by the Sea + a Narrative of the Year at Borth + + +Author: John Henry Skrine + + + +Release Date: March 22, 2006 [eBook #18036] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UPPINGHAM BY THE SEA*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1878 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>UPPINGHAM BY THE SEA.</h1> +<p>A Narrative of the Year at Borth.</p> +<p>BY<br /> +J. H. S.</p> +<p>απολις · υψιπολις.</p> +<p>London:<br /> +MACMILLAN AND CO.</p> +<p>1878.<br /> +[<i>All Rights reserved</i>.]</p> +<p><!-- page iv--><a name="pageiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. iv</span><span class="smcap">charles +dickens and evans</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">crystal palace press</span>.</p> +<p><!-- page v--><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. v</span>EDUARDO +THRING,</p> +<p><span class="smcap"><i>scholæ uppinghamiensis conditori alteri</i></span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap"><i>ob cives servatos</i></span>:</p> +<p><span class="smcap">et</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">magistris adjutoribus</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">qui</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">salute communi in ultimum adducta discrimen</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">de re publica</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">non desperaverunt</span>.</p> +<h2><!-- page vii--><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vii</span>PREFACE.</h2> +<p>In the spring of 1876 and of 1877, letters under the heading “Uppingham +by the Sea” were published in <i>The Times</i> newspaper, and +were read with interest by friends of the school. We have thought +the following narrative would be best introduced to those readers under +a name already pleasantly familiar to them, and have borrowed, with +the writer’s permission, the title of his sketches for our own +more detailed account of the same events.</p> +<p>The readers whom we have in view will demand no apology for the attempt +to supply a circumstantial record of so memorable an <!-- page viii--><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. viii</span>episode +in the school’s history. It deserves indeed an abler historian; +but one qualification at any rate may be claimed by the present writer: +an eye-witness from first to last, but a minor actor only in the scenes +he chronicles, he enjoyed good opportunities of watching the play, and +risks no personal modesty in relating what he saw.</p> +<p>The best purpose of the narrative will have been served if any Uppingham +boy, as he reads these pages, finds in them a new reason for loyalty +to the society whose name he bears.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">June</span> 27<span class="smcap">th</span>, +1878,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Founder’s Day</span>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 1--><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>CHAPTER +I.—EXILES, OLD AND NEW.</h2> +<blockquote><p>“<i>O what have we ta’en</i>?” <i>said +the fisher-prince</i>,<br /> + “<i>What have we ta’en this morning’s +tide</i>?<br /> +<i>Get thee down to the wave</i>, <i>my carl</i>,<br /> + <i>And row me the net to the meadow’s-side</i>.”</p> +<p><i>In he waded, the fisher-carl</i>,<br /> + <i>And</i> “<i>Here</i>,” <i>quoth he</i>, +“<i>is a wondrous thing</i>!<br /> +<i>A cradle</i>, <i>prince</i>, <i>and a fair man-child</i>,<br /> + <i>Goodly to see as the son of a king</i>!”</p> +<p><i>The fisher-prince he caught the word</i>,<br /> + <i>And</i> “<i>Hail</i>,” <i>he cried</i>, +“<i>to the king to be</i>!<br /> +<i>Stranger he comes from the storm and the night</i>;<br /> +<i>But his fame shall wax, and his name be bright</i>,<br /> + <i>While the hills look down on the Cymry sea</i>.”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Finding of Taliesin</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Elphin, son of Gwyddno, the prince who ruled the coasts between the +Dovey and the Ystwith, came down on a May-day morning to his father’s +fishing-weir. All that was taken that morning <!-- page 2--><a name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>was +to be Elphin’s, had Gwyddno said. Not a fish was taken that +day; and Elphin, who was ever a luckless youth, would have gone home +empty-handed, but that one of his men found, entangled in the poles +of the weir, a coracle, and a fair child in it. This was none +other than he who was to be the father of Cymry minstrelsy, and whom +then and there his rescuers named Taliesin, which means Radiant Brow. +His mother, Ceridwen, seeking to be rid of her infant, but loath to +have the child’s blood on her head, had launched him in this sea +proof cradle, to take the chance of wind and wave. The spot where +he came to land bears at this day the name of Taliesin. On the +hill-top above it men show the grave where the bard reposes and “glories +in his namesake shore.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>There is something magnetic in a famous site: it attracts again a +like history to the old stage. Thirteen centuries and a half after +the finding of Taliesin, the same shore became once again an asylum +for other outcasts, whose fortunes we propose to chronicle.</p> +<p>But since the day when they drifted to land the cradle of the bard, +the waves have ebbed away from Gwyddno’s weir, and left a broad +stretch of <!-- page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>marsh +and meadow between it and the present coast, where stands the fishing +village of Borth. The village fringes the sea-line with half a +mile of straggling cottages; but the eye is caught at once by a massive +building of white stone, standing at the head of the long street, and +forming a landmark in the plain. This building is the Cambrian +Hotel, reared on a scale that would suggest the neighbourhood of a populous +health-resort. But the melancholy silence which haunts its doors +is rarely broken, between season and season, by the presence of guests, +unless it be some chance sportsman in quest of marsh-fowl, or a land-agent +in quest of rents.</p> +<p>When, therefore, on the 15th of March, 1876, a party of four visitors—the +Rev. Edward Thring, Headmaster of Uppingham School, one of the Trustees +of the school, and two of the masters—were seen mounting the steps +of the porch, it was a sight to make the villagers wonder by what chance +so many guests came to knock at the door in that dead season. +Had the wind blown them hither? It blew a hurricane that day on +the bleak coasts of Cardigan Bay; but it was a shrewder storm yet which +had swept this windfall to the doors of Borth.</p> +<p><!-- page 4--><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>The +story must be briefly told. On November 2nd, 1875, Uppingham School +was dispersed on account of a fever which had attacked both town and +school, not without fatal casualties. On January 28th, 1876, the +school met again. In the interval the school-houses had been put +in complete sanitary order, and though the efforts made to amend the +general drainage of the town had been only on a small and tentative +scale, it was thought that the school, if secure on its own premises, +might safely be recalled, in spite of remaining deficiencies outside +those limits. But, <i>tua res agitur</i>—the term began +with three weeks of watchful quiet, and then the blow fell again. +A boy sickened of the same fever; then, after an interval of suspense, +two or three fresh cases made it clear that this was no accident. +An inspection of the town drainage, ordered by the authorities, revealed +certain permanent sources of danger. It was clear that the interests +of school and town, in matters of hygiene as in others, were not separable; +perhaps the best fruit of the sequel has been the mutual conviction +that those interests are one.</p> +<p>Meanwhile the new illustration of this connection of interests had +a formidable significance for the Uppingham masters. Men looked +at one <!-- page 5--><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>another +as those do who do not like to give a name to their fears. For +what could be done? The school could not be dismissed again. +How many would return to a site twice declared untenable? But +neither could it be kept on the spot: for there came in unmistakable +evidence that, in that case, the school would dissolve itself, and that, +perhaps, irrevocably, through the withdrawal of its scholars by their +parents from the dreaded neighbourhood. Already the trickling +had begun; something must be done before the banks broke, and the results +and hopes of more than twenty long working years were poured out to +waste.</p> +<p>When the crisis was perceived, a project which had been already the +unspoken thought in responsible quarters, but which would have sounded +like a counsel of despair had the situation been less acute, was suddenly +started in common talk and warmly entertained. Why should we not +anticipate calamity by flight? Before the school melted away, +and left us teaching empty benches, why should we not flit, master and +scholar together, and preserve the school abroad for a securer future +afterwards at home?</p> +<p>In a space of time to be measured rather by hours than days, this +project passed through the <!-- page 6--><a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>stages +of conception, discussion, and resolve, to the first step in its execution. +On Tuesday, March 7th, a notice was issued to parents and guardians +that the school would break up that day week for a premature Easter +holiday, and at the end of the usual three weeks reassemble in some +other locality, of which nothing could as yet be specified except that +it was to be healthier than that we were leaving.</p> +<p>The proposed experiment—to transport a large public school +from its native seat and all its appliances and plant to a strange site +of which not even the name was yet known, except as one of several possible +spots, and to do this at a few days’ notice—was no doubt +a novel one. But the resolve, if rapidly formed and daring, was +none the less deliberate and sane. Its authors must not be charged +either with panic or a passion for adventure. All the data of +a judgment were in view, and delay could add no new fact, except one +which would make any decision nugatory because too late. It was +wisdom in those with whom lay the cast of the die, to take their determination +while a school remained for which they could determine anything.</p> +<p>It was a sharp remedy, however. For on the <!-- page 7--><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>morrow +of this resolve the owners of so many good houses, fields, and gardens, +all the outward and visible of Uppingham School, became, for a term +without assignable limit, landless and homeless men, and the Headmaster +almost as much disburdened of his titular realm as if he were a bishop +<i>in partibus</i> or the chief of a nomad caravan. It was a sharp +remedy; but those who submitted to it breathed the freer at having broken +prison, and felt something, not indeed of the recklessness which inspires +adventure, but of the elation which sustains it:</p> +<blockquote><p>Why now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark;<br /> +The storm is up, and all is on the hazard!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There was cited at this time a somewhat similar event in the history +of Rugby School. Dr. Arnold, in a like emergency, had removed +the school, or all who chose to go, in numerous detachments under the +care severally of himself and others of his masters to various distant +spots, among others his own house in the Lake country, where they spent +some two months, and returned to Rugby when the danger was over. +It was felt, however, that this incident furnished no real precedent +for the present venture. What we were proposing was not to arrange +a number of independent reading-parties <!-- page 8--><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>in +scattered country retreats. Such a plan would hardly have been +practicable with a system in which, as in our case, the division of +the school for teaching purposes has no reference to the division into +boarding-houses. It was proposed to pluck up the school by the +roots and transplant it bodily to strange soil; to take with us the +entire body of masters, with, probably, their families, and every boy +who was ready to follow; to provide teaching for the latter, not only +without loss in the amount, but without interruption of the existing +system in any branch; and to guarantee the supply of everything necessary +for the corporate life of three hundred boys, who had to be housed, +fed, taught, disciplined, and (not the easiest of tasks) amused, on +a single spot, and one as bare of all the wonted appliances of public +school life as that yet uncertain place was like to prove, of which +the recommendation for our residence would be that no one else cared +to reside there.</p> +<h2><!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>CHAPTER +II.—A CHARTER OF SETTLEMENT.</h2> +<blockquote><p><i>Habet populus Romanus ad quos gubernacula rei publicæ +deferat</i>: <i>qui ubicunque terrarum sunt</i>, <i>ibi omne est rei +publicæ præsidium</i>, <i>vel potius ipsa res publica</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cicero</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Hamlet</span>. <i>Is not parchment made +of sheep-skins</i>?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Horatio</span>. <i>Ay</i>, <i>my lord, +and of calf-skins too</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Hamlet</span>. <i>They are sheep and calves +which seek out assurance in that</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Shakespeare</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The Trustees of the School met at Uppingham on March 11th. +This was the earliest opportunity of consulting them collectively on +the resolution to break up the school and to migrate, which had been +taken on the 7th. They sanctioned the breaking up of the school. +On the question of its removal elsewhere they recorded no opinion.</p> +<p>Meanwhile a reconnaissance was being made by one of our body, who +was despatched to visit, as in a private capacity, Borth, and two or +three <!-- page 10--><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>other +spots on the Welsh coasts, while inquiries were also made in other directions.</p> +<p>On Monday, 13th, the Headmaster left Uppingham for a visit to the +sites which promised most favourably. A deep snow on the ground +made the departure from home seem the more cheerless, but it had melted +from the Welsh hills before we reached them. On Tuesday, the party—which +now consisted of the Headmaster, two of the staff, and one of the Trustees +(whose services on this occasion, and many others arising out of it, +we find it easier to remember than to acknowledge as they deserve)—stayed +a night at the inland watering-place of Llandrindod, one of the suggested +sites. The bleak moors round it were uninviting enough that squally +March day. But the question of settling here was dismissed at +once; there was not sufficient house-room in the place. So next +morning we bore down upon Borth.</p> +<p>The first sight of the place seemed to yield us assurance of having +reached our goal. The hotel is a long oblong building with two +slight retiring wings, beyond which extends a square walled enclosure +of what was then green turf; Cambrian Terrace overlooks the enclosure +at right angles to the hotel, the whole reminding us remotely of <!-- page 11--><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>a +college quadrangle. On entering the hotel, the eye seized on the +straight roomy corridors which traverse it, and the wide solid staircase, +as features of high strategic importance. A tour of the rooms +was made at once, and an exact estimate taken of the possible number +of beds. Besides two other members of the staff, who joined the +pioneers at Borth, the school medical officer had come down to meet +us, and reported on what lay within his province. Meanwhile two +of the party were conducted by mine host to explore a “cricket-ground” +close to the hotel, or at least a plot of ground to which adhered a +fading tradition of a match between two local elevens. The “pitch” +was conjecturally identified among some rough hillocks, over the sandy +turf of which swept a wild northwester, “shrill, chill, with flakes +of foam,” and now and then a driving hailstorm across the shelterless +plain. So little hospitable was our welcome to a home from which +we were sometime to part not without regretful memories.</p> +<p>Next day, March 16th, a contract was signed, which gave us the tenancy +of the hotel till July 21st, with power to renew the contract at will +for a further term after the summer holidays. Our landlord, Mr. +C. Mytton, was to provide board <!-- page 12--><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span>(according +to a specified dietary) and bed (at least bed-room) for all who could +be lodged in his walls, and board (with light and firing) for the whole +party; to supply the service for the kitchen, and to undertake the laundry. +Servants for attendance on the boys were to be brought by the masters. +The payment was to be £1 a head per week for all who were lodged +and boarded, or boarded only, in the hotel. For washing, and one +or two other matters, an extra charge was admitted. We have only +to add that the bargain was one with which both parties, under their +respective circumstances, had reason to be satisfied; and that the arrangement +worked not more stiffly than could be expected where the large margin +of the unforeseen left so much to subsequent interpretation. Even +Dido and Hiarbas were not agreed about the precise width of a bull’s-hide. +We do not, however, wish it to be inferred from this classical parallel, +that our settlers claim to have rivalled the adroitness of the Punic +queen in her dealings with the barbarian prince:</p> +<blockquote><p>απολεμος +οδε y’ ο πολεμος, +απορα ποριμος. +<a name="citation12"></a><a href="#footnote12">{12}</a></p> +</blockquote> +<h2><!-- page 13--><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>CHAPTER +III.—TRANSFORMATIONS.</h2> +<blockquote><p><i>Your snail is your only right house-builder</i>; <i>for +he builds his house out of the stuff of his own vitals</i>, <i>and therefore +wherever he travel he carries his own roof above him</i>. <i>But +I have known men</i>, <i>spacious in the possession of bricks and mortar</i>, +<i>who have not so much made their houses as their houses have made +them</i>. <i>Turn such an one out of his home</i>, <i>and he is +a bare</i> “<i>O without a figure</i>,” <i>counting for +nothing in the sum of things</i>. <i>He only is truly himself +who has nature in him</i>, <i>when the old shell is cracked</i>, <i>to +build up a new one about him out of the pith and substance of himself</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Ten days after the reconnaissance described in the last chapter, +the pioneers of the school were again upon the ground.</p> +<p>On Monday, March 27th, a goods train of eighteen trucks, chartered +by the Uppingham masters, was unloading three hundred bedsteads, with +their bedding, on Borth platform. These were to be distributed +among the quarters of their respective owners, in some dozen different +<!-- page 14--><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>houses, +which we had engaged in addition to the hotel. The workmen were +mostly Welshmen, anxious to be doing, but understanding imperfectly +the speech of their employers. With the eagerness of their temperament, +they went at the trucks, and Babel began. Amid a confused roar +of contradictory exhortations, with energetic gesture, and faces full +of animation and fire, they were hauling away, to any and every place, +the ton-loads of mattresses, and the fragments of unnumbered bedsteads. +It was time for the owners to interpose; and those of the school party +who were present, knowing that time was very precious, and that example +is better than precept, especially precept in a foreign language, put +their own hands to the work, the Headmaster being foremost, and earned +a labouring man’s wage at unloading the trucks and carrying the +goods to their billets. Some of our new acquaintances watched +the scene with a shocked surprise that authorities should share in the +manual labour, instead of looking on and paying for it. But their +feelings at last determined to admiration. “Why, sirs,” +they exclaimed, “you get it done as if you were used to move every +three weeks.” But, in fact, there was so much to be done, +and so few <!-- page 15--><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>days +to do it in, that the exigencies of the work spared neither age, sex, +nor degree of our party. None were exempt, and those who were +not employed in porterage and rough carpentry might be found shifting +furniture, or stitching curtains, or jointing together bedsteads.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, workmen in and round the hotel were as busy as stage-carpenters +preparing a transformation scene. First, by the elimination of +carpets and furniture, the interior was reduced to a <i>tabula rasa</i>. +Then, in the somewhat weather-beaten top story, plastering and surface-washing +went briskly on. Our hosts assured us no hands could be found +for this work, but the Headmaster made a descent upon Aberystwith and +returned with the required number. A contractor was fitting the +large coffee-rooms, the billiard-room and others, and the ground-floor +corridor from end to end, with long narrow tables—plain deal boards +on wooden trestles—for the accommodation of three hundred diners. +Outside, the stables were converted into the school carpentery, and +the coach-house into a gymnasium. Above all, a wooden school-room, +eighty-three feet by twenty, had been designed, and its site marked +out on the north side of the enclosure behind the hotel.</p> +<p><!-- page 16--><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>Then +there was the care of providing supplementary house-room for many purposes: +rooms for music practice, and for the boys’ studies (of which +we shall have more to say), and for hospital uses. Ordinary “sick-room” +accommodation was soon obtained by paying for it, but a fever hospital +was also a requirement which, with our experiences, we were not likely +to forget, and this was less easy to secure. We had to scour the +neighbourhood, knocking at the door of many a farmhouse and country +homestead, before we were provided.</p> +<p>The house-room being secured, came the labour of furnishing; the +distribution of tables, benches, bookshelves, &c, for the class-rooms, +and of furniture (in many cases a minimum) for the needs of masters +and their families; the ticketing of the bed-room doors, the beds, the +chests of drawers, and each drawer in them, with the name of the occupant—with +many like minutiæ, which it took longer to provide than it does +to detail them. The task was not rendered easier by being shared +in part with our hosts, who had hardly taken the measure of our requirements. +It became necessary at the last moment to telegraph to the Potteries +for a large consignment <!-- page 17--><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>of +bed-room ware, which, in spite of protestations, had been laid in only +in half quantities. The world of school has marched forward since +the days when three or four basins sufficed for the toilet of a dozen +boys.</p> +<p>While the elementary needs of the colony were being attended to, +its more advanced wants were not neglected. There were those whom +the anxiety of providing for the school amusements, and in particular +its cricket, suffered not to sleep. We believe that the first +piece of school property which arrived on the scene was the big roller +from the cricket-field. Resolved to gather no moss in inglorious +ease at home, it had mounted a North-Western truck, and travelled down +to Bow Street station, where it was to disembark for action. It +cost the Company’s servants a long struggle to land it, but once +again on terra firma it worked with a will and achieved wonders, reducing +a piece of raw meadow land in a few weeks’ space to a cricket-field +which left little to be desired. This meadow lay within a few +hundred yards of Bow Street station, four miles by rail from Borth. +It is the property of Sir Pryse Pryse, of Gogerddan, who gave the school +the use of it at a peppercorn rent.</p> +<p><!-- page 18--><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>This +was but one of the many acts of unreserved generosity shown by this +gentleman to the school. It is not often that the opportunity +offers of winning so much and such hearty gratitude as our neighbour +of Gogerddan has won by his prompt liberality; still less often is the +opportunity occupied with such thoughtful and ungrudging kindness.</p> +<p>We had help in the same kind from the Bishop of St. David’s, +who put at our service a field close to the hotel; a rather wild one, +but in which little plots and patches for a practising wicket were discovered +by our experts. The firm sands to the north were reported to yield +an excellent “wicket;” with the serious deduction, however, +that the pitch was worn out and needed to be changed every half-dozen +balls.</p> +<p>Among such cares the week rolled away only too speedily, and brought +the day of the school’s arrival upon us. If we have failed, +as we have, to convey a true impression of the serious labour and anxieties +which crowded its hours, we will quote the summary of a writer who described +it at the time, and knew what he was describing: “It was like +shaking the alphabet in a bag, and bringing <!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>out +the letters into words and sentences; such was the sense of absolute +confusion turned into intelligent shape.” <a name="citation19"></a><a href="#footnote19">{19}</a></p> +<h2><!-- page 20--><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>CHAPTER +IV.</h2> +<blockquote><p><i>Gesta ducis celebro</i>, <i>Rutulis qui primus ab +oris</i><br /> +<i>Cambriæ</i>, <i>odoratu profugus</i>, <i>Borthonia venit</i><br /> +<i>Litora</i>; <i>multum ille et sanis vexatus et ægris</i>,<br /> +<i>Vi Superûm</i>, <i>quibus haud curæ gravis aura mephitis</i>:<br /> +<i>Multa quoque et loculo passus</i>, <i>dum conderet urbem</i><br /> +<i>Inferretque deos Cymris</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">An Epic Fragment</span>.</p> +<p>μα τους Μαραθωνι +προκινδυνευσαντας.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The careful general who has completed his disposition without one +discoverable flaw, who has foreseen all emergencies, and anticipated +every possible combination, may await the action with a certain moral +confidence of success. But he would be a man of no human fibre, +were he not to feel some disquiet in his inmost soul when he gets upon +horseback with his enemy in sight, and listens for the boom of the first +gun. Not very different, except for the absence of a like confidence +<!-- page 21--><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>in +the completeness of their dispositions, were the emotions of the masters +who manned the platform of Borth Station, when the gray afternoon of +Tuesday, April 4th, drew sombrely towards its close. The station +was crowded with spectators from Aberystwith and Borth itself, curious +to watch the entry of the boys. Expectation was stimulated by +the arrival of a train, which set all the crowd on tip-toe, and then +swept through the station—a mere goods train. Half an hour’s +longer waiting, and the right train drew up, and discharged Uppingham +School on the remote Welsh platform. It struck a spark of home +feeling in the midst of the lonely landscape, and the chill of strange +surroundings, to see well-known faces at the windows, and to meet the +grasp of familiar hands. But there was no time for sentiment that +stirring evening. The station was cleared with all speed of boys +and spectators, the former turning in to tea at those endless tables, +the latter strolling away to carry home their first impressions of their +invaders. Then one group of masters and servants set to work to +sort the luggage which cumbered the platform, while others received +it at the hotel door, and distributed it to the various billets. +Light was scant, hands were not too numerous, <!-- page 22--><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>and +the work was not done without some confusion. But it was done; +and the tired workers went to their beds, thankful for what was finished, +and full of good hopes for the work which was yet to be begun.</p> +<p>And the boys—how did they feel? As they stepped out from +the railway carriage into those bare, vasty corridors and curtainless +dormitories, did some little sense of desolateness in the new prospect +temper its excitement? Did some homesickness arise in the exile +as he pondered on the retirement and comfort of the “house” +at Uppingham, and his individual ownership of the separate cubicle, +and the study which was “his castle?” He was a unit +now, not of a household, but of a camp. Small blame to him if +life seemed to have lost its landmarks, and things round him to be “all +nohow,” as he sat down in some bare hall upon a schoolfellow’s +book-box (wondering whether he should ever see his own), to while away +with a story-book the listless interval before bed-time, under the niggard +light of a smoking lamp, or a candle flickering in the draught. +What exactly he felt or thought, however, we do not pretend to know. +We only know that there was not one of them but felt proud to be out +campaigning with <!-- page 23--><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>his +school, and would have counted “ten years of peaceful life” +not more than worth his share in that honourable venture.</p> +<p>There was no work for them next morning (their masters were busy +enough providing for the physical needs of the colony), and they were +free to explore their new country, to ramble up the headlands or along +the margin of the marsh. The arrivals of last night were but the +first instalment of the school, about half the number. The same +train brought in a new freight this evening, and the scene on the platform +was similar, but more tranquil. By a special train after midnight +came in a few more from the most distant homes, and the muster was complete. +The number, two hundred and ninety, fell but slightly below the full +complement of the school. Putting out of account the names of +those who would in any case have left the school that Easter, no more +than three, we believe, failed to follow us down to Borth. So +unanimous an adhesion of the school to its leaders no one had been sanguine +enough to reckon on. It increased no doubt at the moment the difficulties +of making provision, but withal it made the task better worth the effort.</p> +<p>Next morning the school was called together, <!-- page 24--><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>and +the Headmaster addressed them, feeling, perhaps, somewhat like a general +publishing a manifesto to his troops before a campaign. It was +a great experiment, he said, in which they were sharing; let them do +their best to make the result a happy one for themselves, and for the +people among whom they had come. They were “making history,” +for this experience was a wholly new one, which might not impossibly +prove helpful some day to others in like circumstances.</p> +<p>It is pleasant to record that the appeal was not wasted.</p> +<p>At the dinner-hour to-day, the full numbers being now on the spot, +the resources of the commissariat were put to the test. Some anxiety +was relieved when the supply proved sufficient; it would have been small +cause for reproach if the caterers had failed in their estimate on the +first experiment. But of the commissariat we shall say more presently.</p> +<p>The secondary necessities of life, fire and light, were not forthcoming +with quite the same promptness. There was a twilight period in +many houses before lamps were furnished in sufficient abundance. +The place of fuel was supplied by the genial weather of the first week; +and perhaps few were aware of <!-- page 25--><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>what +we were doing without. Next week the east winds and the coal arrived +together.</p> +<p>The hotel laundry found the task it had undertaken beyond its strength. +No wonder. Three hundred sets of <i>articles de linge</i> reach +a figure of which our hosts had hardly grasped the significance. +We are sometimes told that Gaels and Cymry cannot count. At any +rate, when the bales of linen came pouring in upon them, heaping every +table and piling all the floor, and still flowing in faster than room +could be found, the laundresses, brave workers though they were, felt +that the game was lost:</p> +<blockquote><p>They stand in pause where they should first begin,<br /> +And all neglect.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One poor nymph was discovered by a compassionate visitor dissolved +in tears over her wash-tub. Such misery could not be permitted; +and we transferred half the task at once to the laundries of Aberystwith.</p> +<p>On the afternoon of this day took place the distribution of “studies.” +That is to say, some sixty or eighty boys (a number more than doubled +afterwards), in order to relieve the pressure on our sitting-rooms, +were billeted upon some of the <!-- page 26--><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>village +people, who let their rooms for the purpose. From two to six boys +were assigned to each room according to its capacity. We shall +speak again of these studies. Here we will only pause to thank +our good landladies for the intrepidity with which they threw their +doors open to the invasion, the more so as they mostly claimed to belong +to the category of “poor widows”—a qualification upon +which they were disposed to set a price in arranging their charges. +Their daring proved no indiscretion. The writer, who has the honour +of knowing them all, was the depositary of many and emphatic testimonies +on their part to the cordial relations between them and “the children.” +This endearing term was exchanged for another by one good old lady, +who appealed to him against the “very wicked boys,” whom +she charged with having “foolished” her. The complication +traced to ignorance of one another’s speech (the boys spoke no +Welsh, and she would have done more wisely to speak no English), and +a <i>modus vivendi</i> was easily restored. Poor soul! she took +a pathetic farewell of them when their sojourn ended: “They must +forgive her for having a quick temper; she had had much trouble; her +husband and four sons had gone down at sea.”</p> +<p>On Friday came a piece of cheering news. <!-- page 27--><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>Some +sympathisers were intending to appeal to parents of boys in the school +for subscriptions to a fund, which should help to defray the expense +incurred by the masters in moving and resettling the school. The +appeal met with a liberal response in many quarters; a large sum was +raised, though from a number of subscribers smaller than the promoters +of the fund expected. Men, who were feeling the double pressure +at once of keen and novel cares, and of an outlay already large, which +no one could see to the end of, will not forget that well-timed succour. +Not least will it be remembered as a “material guarantee” +that the subscribers believed the cause they aided to be worth a costly +effort to save.</p> +<p>The week closed with an old scene on a new stage—a football +match on Sir Pryse’s field at Bow Street. It was the last +of the house-matches, which had been interrupted at Uppingham to be +played out here. The sight of the school swarming into the railway +carriages, which carried us to the four-mile-distant ground, and then +the mimic war of the red and white jerseys contrasting the gray Gogerddan +woodlands which overhang the meadow, and the shouts of the English boys +blending with the excited but unintelligible cries of the Welsh <!-- page 28--><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>rustic +children, who were rapt spectators of the game, brought home to us the +piquant contrast between our unchanged school habits and the novelty +of their framework.</p> +<p>The weather of this first week was dry and genial; and it had no +pleasanter moments than those spent on the beach at sunset, whither +the school flocked down after tea for half an hour’s leisure in +the after-glow. There is plenty of amusement for them on this +broad reach of sand and shingle. Some are groping for shells or +for pebbles, which the lapidary will transform for a trifle into dazzling +jewels; others are playing ducks and drakes on the waves, or entertaining +themselves like Prospero’s elves,</p> +<blockquote><p>That on the sands, with printless feet,<br /> +Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him<br /> +When he comes back again.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>More pensive spirits saunter up and down the grassy terrace which +overlooks the beach, and watch the shifting line of dark figures seen +against the white wall of the breaker, or note the fugitive tints on +the dimpling surface of the water, or the wet margin of the tide. +A group of villagers is clustered round the water-fountain a few yards +<!-- page 29--><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>away; +the children chatter about us as they fill their pitchers; and the old +women, creeping homewards, cast a glance under their bonnets at the +boys, and exchange muttered comments with their gossips. Soon +the cliffs of the southern headland grow duskier and more remote; the +sea fades to a cold uniform gray; the colours of the brown twilight +marsh and the violet hills are lost in one another; and so, with a refreshing +breath of idyllic peacefulness, the stirring week came to an end. +“Its evening closed on a quiet scene of school routine, as if +doubt and risk, turmoil and confusion and fear, weary head and weary +hand, had not been known in the place. The wrestling-match against +time was over, and happy dreams came down on Uppingham by the Sea.”</p> +<h2><!-- page 30--><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>CHAPTER +V.—THE NEW COUNTRY.</h2> +<blockquote><p><i>All places that the eye of Heaven visits</i>,<br /> +<i>Are to a wise man ports and happy havens</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Richard II</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The primitive man, after he has satisfied the claims of appetite, +stitched his skin-mantle, and thatched a hut, may begin to spare time +for reflection on the quality and flavour of the prey he has eaten, +or the picturesqueness of his cabin. Till then his estimate of +things is quantitative. He asks not of what sort his food is, +but whether there is enough of it, and regards less the cut of his coat +than its thickness.</p> +<p>The analogy of our circumstances must be our excuse for postponing +so long a description of our new settlement, its physical surroundings, +and the complexion of our domestic and social life. Not in truth +that we had returned to barbarism: but <!-- page 31--><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>who +could dilate on the beauty of mountain scenery, in sight of which he +was perhaps to starve; who would criticise the pattern of his dinner-service, +or be fastidious in carpets and wall-paper, before he could reckon upon +dinner, or call shelter his own?</p> +<p>But a week is over, and we have all settled into our berths. +The boys have found that there will be dinner every day; the masters +that no one will have to pitch his tent on a sand-dune, or spread a +straw litter in a bathing-machine. The level of comfort was, of +course, not uniform. How should it be? Probably there is +a choice of corners in a workhouse or casual-ward. Some of our +party tasted the painful pleasures of the poor in the scant accommodation +and naked simplicity of cottage lodgings. It was long after our +arrival that we discovered a valued friend still sitting on the corner +of his packing-case, and brewing his coffee on a washhand-stand. +The fire smoked all day; but this vice in the apartment was neutralised +by a broken window. Yet he should be quite happy, he said, if +he could get a glazier <i>and</i> a sweep (like smoke and draught, one +would not do without the other), a bolster, an occasional clean towel, +and a little warm water in the morning.</p> +<p><!-- page 32--><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>Those +who had brought a family with them into camp were more seriously troubled +with the cares of providing quarters, and pondered regretfully on the +peace and roominess of home. Still as we are leaving no one houseless +or dinnerless, we may turn aside to describe at more leisure the place +we lived in and the manner of our life.</p> +<p>The stage on which our little history was enacted is a maritime plain +of irregular semicircular shape, with a sea-front of five miles, and +a depth inland of from two to three miles. This plain, a dead +level stretch of peat, of which part is coming under cultivation, while +part is still marsh, is surrounded by a ring of hills, which rise in +successive well-defined ranges of increasing height, till they culminate +in the summits of Cader Idris on one side and Plinlimmon on the other.</p> +<p>The River Dovey, which cleaves the circle of mountains, flows in +a broad estuary along the base of the northward hills, under which, +at the mouths of the estuary, lies the little port of Aberdovey. +At the other end of the arc formed by the coastline, close under the +slopes of the promontory which closes the plain at its north-west corner, +stands the village of Borth, three-quarters of a mile of straggling +dwellings, which vary in scale and <!-- page 33--><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>character +from the primitive mud-cabin of the squatter to the stately hotel which +formed the headquarters of the school. The little town is irregular +even to quaintness, without being picturesque. Its houses are +not grouped according to size and character, but dropped as it were +anyhow, in chance collocations, tall and low, thatched and slated together. +Two or three gigantesque meeting-houses, featureless and sombre, domineer +over the roofs around them. One or two others of a less puritan +design, and not out of character with the church on a knoll a furlong +off, compensate their severer rivals. The shape of the village +is determined by the narrow ridge of terra firma, the mere heaping of +the tides, between the quaking marsh and the encroaching sea. +The nidus of the present settlement is the tiny hamlet of Old Borth, +perched on a spur of the promontory, and well out of reach of flood +tides. We are not sure that the mother may not outlive her colony, +unless substantial measures are taken to guard against another 30th +of January. Near Old Borth, through a gap in the hills, comes +the River Lery, a trout-stream known to our anglers, thanks again to +Sir Pryse who owns it. It races bubbling round the furze-clad +knoll, whose Welsh name is <!-- page 34--><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>translated +Otter’s Island, on which stands the church, and then is silenced +in a blank straight-cut channel, which conveys it through the marsh +into the estuary at Ynyslas. Up the gorge of the Lery runs the +railway, which carried us so often past the massive church and steep +pine-grown graveyard of Langfihangel-geneur-glyn, and across the broad +meadows of Bow Street, to the civilisation of Aberystwith. For +Aberystwith was our Capua, and used to draw large parties on many a +blank afternoon for marketing or amusement.</p> +<p>Then there was the beach, four miles of it, from the rocks of Borth +Head, where the waves could be watched breaking on the seaweed-covered +reef, and sending up columns of white spray against the black face of +the cliffs, away to the yellow sand dunes near the Dovey’s mouth, +and the reaches of wet sands where we noted on summer days “the +landscape winking through the heat,” almost with the effect of +a mirage. These sands, firm and sound under foot, were a famous +walking-ground at all times; but they changed their character very much +with the seasons; at one time retreating and laying bare a beach of +shingle under the pebble ridge; at another, swinging back to cover them +up again. In the former <!-- page 35--><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>state +of the shore a suggestive phenomenon might be observed. At low-water +mark there appeared certain dark shapeless lumps, which might be taken +for rocks at a distance, but were in fact the roots and stumps of a +submerged pine-forest. Remains of the same forest are found in +the marsh. Wood can be cut from the buried trunks, looking as +fresh in fibre as if the tree still grew. Here is the verification +of the legend (or is it, perhaps, the suggestion of it?) which records +the fate of the Lost Lowland Hundred. Once on a time (the Cymric +bards answer for it), a flourishing tract of country stretched at the +foot of the hills which are now washed by the tides of Cardigan Bay. +The fishermen of Borth, as they creep past the headlands in their fishing-smacks, +have seen deep down in the clear waters, the firmly-cemented stones +of a causeway, which must once have traversed the plain, and the line +of which may be not indistinctly descried stretching far out to seaward +from the mouth of a little combe. It is true that geologists whom +we have consulted ridicule the fancy of masonry offering such resistance +to the tides, and explain it away as a pebble-ridge built up by the +action of currents. And perhaps we might mention in this connection, +<!-- page 36--><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>that +one of our party, on the first view, was half persuaded he had seen +a sea-serpent. Well, this prosperous country, defended against +the sea by embankments, was during the heroic age of Wales laid under +water by the opening of the sluices in a drunken frolic. A fragment +of it, the marsh between the pebble-ridge of Borth and the hills, would +seem to have been recovered; but it enjoys a precarious safety, and +even within our experience the sea gave a meaning threat of claiming +his own again. But that is a story which must be told in its own +place.</p> +<p>Such then were the geographical details of the spot in which we had +settled, and they made up a landscape, which, if it can be more than +rivalled in other parts of the Principality, has yet a characteristic +and impressive beauty. The following extract may serve, for lack +of a better rendering, to describe how the scene looked to the eyes +of someone who watched it on a June afternoon from the grassy slopes +of Borth Head:</p> +<blockquote><p>My eyes run on with the tide which drifts inland up the +estuary, and, farther than vision can really follow, track the march +of its glancing ripples, as they swim on past shoal and sand-dune and +morass up to the dewy gates of the Spring, in among green-clad river +meadows and crisp close-skirted woodlands which the salt breath of sea-winds +restrains from <!-- page 37--><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>a +richer luxuriance, on past springing knolls plumed with dark firs, and +dimpling valleys mellow with the contrasted gold of the oak’s +young leafage. Above these, hills moulded on a grander scale heave +up their broad shoulders to the sunlight, which is reflected in pale +but tender hues of blue or violet or rose from their bare rock masses, +or the slopes hardly less bare, which are swept by great winds, and +browsed yet closer by climbing mountain sheep. At this and the +other point the bosses of the hills are lighted with the sparkle of +gorse-thickets, or dusky with heather not yet kindled into bloom. +Lower down there are belts of woodland, fencing off the pastures which +strew the lowest terraces of the mountains from the barren wastes above +them, and these pastures are brightly flecked with patches of white-walled +homesteads down to the brown edge of the marsh. And so, ridge +after ridge, the hills enclose the scene in a half-circle, of which +this breezy headland, our “specular mount,” is an extreme +horn. But what the eye reposes on at last is the broad floor of +marsh-land between mountain and sea. A broad smooth floor, which +would be vacant and dull enough had not Nature taken thought to drape +its formlessness the more lovingly and richly. She has unrolled +on it a carpet of various and solemn-tinted stuffs, where pale breadths +of rusted bents sometimes mellow into strips of verdurous pasture, sometimes +deepen into belts of embrowned peat-beds, sometimes take a yellower +barrenness in parched flats, still briny and unreclaimed, and shaggy +with bristling reeds. It is a wilderness, but not unrelieved with +here and there an oasis, where, like islands left high and dry in a +deserted ocean bed, one and another rocky knoll lift up above the waste +flats around them some acres of sweet grass, or a broad field of flowering +mustard, shining with a splendour as of cloth of gold, and fringed with +a loop or two of silver braid by the river winding at the base. +There is animate life, too, sprinkled not stintedly over its surface, +not only of visitant sea-fowl from the shore, or solitude-loving creatures +native to the place—plover and duck and long-winged herons, but +also of cattle <!-- page 38--><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>and +horses grazing on the cultivated edges of the marsh, which make us look +for the homes of their human masters at no great distance. Why +there they are, lying overlooked at our feet all the while, a straggle +of lowly white-roofed dwellings clinging to the long pebble ridge like +barnacles on a rock, breathing a thin smoke from their scattered chimneys, +whence the blessed smell of peat-fires is wafted through the dry air +to our nostrils. But one great house I notice with a crowd about +its door-steps, and a flag waving over them a device I have somewhere +seen before, where the kitchen chimney smokes with a most hospitable +volume; guests must be plenty there. Yes; and if further signs +of life be needed, you may listen to the puff of a farmer’s steam-engine +planted in the swamp, and see the glitter of the steel ropes, with which +it draws its ploughshares, resistless as fate, through the oozy fallows. +Well, if it is come to this, the farmers and their engines will soon +civilise away the beauty of this romantic wild. But shall we complain? +If they have begun to drain these intractable marshes, then there is +a chance for other places, where the interest on the cost of drainage +will be less problematical than here.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><!-- page 39--><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>CHAPTER +VI.—MAKESHIFTS.</h2> +<blockquote><p>Ανδρες yαρ +πολις, και ου +τειχη.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>From our chapter on the geographical features of our settlement we +pass on to describe how the settlers were housed and organised.</p> +<p>If a school be an institution for teaching purposes, its school-room +and class-rooms should be the most essential portion of its plant. +Without discussing the adequacy of the definition, we will begin with +these. We were not ill provided; with an exception or two, the +rooms appropriated for class-rooms answered the purpose well. +Some of them were spacious; the rest were large enough for the wants +of the classes, limited to an average of twenty. Nor would a Government +Inspector have justly measured this adequacy by the “cubic capacity,” +if he failed to take into account the exhilarating five minutes’ +<!-- page 40--><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>breathing +time upon the beach, at eleven o’clock. There was a rare +pleasure in those moments of escape from Greek verbs to the sparkle +of the tide and the scent of the sea breeze.</p> +<p>What Germans call the “real” subjects, were also provided +for. The modern languages were taught mostly in the class-rooms +of the classical masters. Music took up her quarters in several +scattered dwellings. Wales is the home of song, and our musicians +were very welcome to make the cottage walls resound to violin or key-board. +We remember well the affectionate reverence with which one aged custodian +spoke of the “pianass” she was proud to house; she cherished +them as if they had been tame elephants. Several concerts were +given during our stay—but in the Assembly Rooms of Aberystwith; +our wooden school-room was found, on the first experiment, unfit for +the purpose, from the want of resonance. The makeshift gymnasium +and carpentery, in the stables and coach-house, have been mentioned +before. If among “real studies” we may include the +cricket, this was, as we saw, well cared for; while the instructor in +swimming had nothing to complain of, with <!-- page 41--><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>four +miles of good beach, and the Irish Channel before him.</p> +<p>If the accommodation during school hours was adequate, it was less +easy to find elbow-room for the boys at other times. It was well +enough from May to August under the ample roof of blue summer weather; +but in the rainy season (and at Borth, as elsewhere, that winter was +a wet one) we should have been sorely cramped but for relief afforded +by the “studies” noticed in a previous chapter. It +is time we should describe them. Studies they were not, in the +sense in which the word is understood at Uppingham, where a school law +declares that “a boy’s study is his castle,” and confers +upon him what Aristotle calls the “unspeakable” delight +of the “sense of private property.” At Borth this +could not be. In very rare cases was a room the one and indivisible +belonging of a single owner; often as many as six shared the table and +fireplace. Some of these tenements had at least the less solid +merit of looking picturesque. Peeping into a Welsh interior, with +its stone kitchen-floor, polished wainscoting, and oak furniture, its +walls hung with German prints of imaginative battle-pieces and Nonconforming +<!-- page 42--><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>worthies, +and its kitchen-dresser with ranks of ancestral crockery, vivid in light +and colour, which catches the eyes first of all things through the open +door, “This,” one was tempted to cry, “were the study +for me! Here would I sit in the shelter of the wooden screen which +keeps away draughts and noisy company, and turn the pages of my Livy +for the tale of Cincinnatus, and deeds of rustic heroes; or hear old +Horace descant on the gracious simplicity of life among the Sabines.”</p> +<p>The boys thought quite otherwise. The kitchen was generally +the last room to be chosen. Perhaps the idyllic attractions did +not balance the drawback of living in the thoroughfare of the house. +Nor could one fail to sympathise with those who preferred the garret, +a poor thing but their own, in which two studious souls could hob-nob, +or even the austere whitewash, narrow skylight, and niggard dimensions +of some monastic cell, which held just the one student, his table, and +his books. The editor of the School Magazine, writing a month +after our arrival, finds it “a queer new feeling to do the old +work in a strange place, to miss the accustomed pictures on the walls, +the accustomed column of books rising on either hand—<!-- page 43--><a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>even +the familiar table-cloth and carpet, and to sit instead inside the framework +of a six-foot bed, with roof and walls forming the queerest possible +combinations of lines and angles, and hung with three different patterns +of paper.” To woo the muses in a garret is the common fate +of genius; but most of the “students” (for so their landladies, +misled by a name, called the occupants of a study) were better off than +this literary gentleman. When fires came to be lighted in the +winter, there was a cheerful domesticity in the sight of the red coals, +which is unknown to the solitude of Uppingham studies, with their hot-water +pipe that warms but not exhilarates. In particular, one cheery +well-furnished parlour, where a blazing hearth threw its light over +the well-worn bindings of a select library brought with us from the +Sixth-Form-room, and on the well-contented faces of its two custodians, +burns as a bright spot in our memory of those winter days.</p> +<p>Thus we managed things even better than if we had listened to another +ingenious writer, with whose proposal we will close this topic. +It was this: “Let two hundred bathing-machines be brought together +from Llandudno and other watering-places within reach, and ranged along +the beach. Let <!-- page 44--><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>one +machine be assigned to each boy, and let them be filled up with book-shelves, +table, chairs, &c. Thus the whole difficulty will be solved +in a moment. And the plan has this further advantage, that when +the time comes for returning to Uppingham, the bathing-machines would +be simply formed in line, and driven across the country to Rutlandshire, +and all further trouble in the way of furniture-vans and families-removing +be cut away at one stroke.”</p> +<h2><!-- page 45--><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>CHAPTER +VII.—THE COMMISSARIAT.</h2> +<blockquote><p><i>To feed were best at home</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Macbeth</span>.</p> +<p>Αυταρ ο yε κρειον +μεyα καββαλεν +εν πυρος αυyη<br /> +Εν δ’ αρα νωτον +εθηκ’ οιος +και πιονος αιyος,<br /> +Εν δε συος σιαλοιο +ραχιν τεθαλυιαν +αλοιφη.<br /> +Τω δ’ εχεν Αυτομεδων, +ταμνεν δ’ αρα +διος Αχιλλευς.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Iliad IX</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span>. <i>Doth it not show +vilely in me to desire small beer</i>?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Poins</span>. <i>Why</i>, <i>a prince should +not be so loosely studied as to remember so weak a composition</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Prince Henry</span>. <i>Belike then my +appetite was not princely got</i>; <i>for</i>, <i>by my troth</i>, <i>I +do now remember the poor creature</i>, <i>small beer</i>. <i>But</i>, +<i>indeed</i>, <i>these humble considerations make me out of love with +my greatness</i><span class="smcap">.</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">2 Henry IV</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Who ought to take the command, in the event of anything happening +to your lordship?” asked Wellington’s officers on an occasion +in the <!-- page 46--><a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>Peninsular +War. “Beresford,” the great strategist answered, after +reflection. And then, in answer to their surprised looks: “If +it were a question of handling troops, some of you fellows might do +as well, perhaps better than he; but what we now want is someone to +<i>feed</i> our men.” <a name="citation46"></a><a href="#footnote46">{46}</a></p> +<p>This story, and the countenance of the epic and royal personages +of our mottoes, is our excuse for passing on to treat of the ignoble +topic of knives and forks, and to describe how three times a day our +colony was fed. It is a topic which could not be left outside +a narrative which seeks to “show how fields were won.”</p> +<p>If our readers will follow the master of the week as he makes his +round of the tea-tables at a quarter to seven on a winter evening, he +will witness a cheerful scene not wanting in picturesqueness. +The vista of the corridor is filled with three very long and very narrow +tables, and the boys of as many houses seated at them. The subdued +light, which streams from numerous but feeble oil-lamps through the +atmosphere of fragrant vapour steamed up by the tea-urns, falls with +Rembrandtesque contrast of light and shadow on the <!-- page 47--><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>long +ranks of faces. There is that hum of quiet animation which seems +always to exhale along with the aroma of the Chinese leaf. From +the urn, where the house matron mounts guard up to the Sixth Form end +of the table, where the head of the house is jotting down the list of +absentees from the roll-call, the cloth is thickly studded with the +viands in tins and jars, rich and various in colour, with which the +schoolboy adds succulence to his meal. We open a door out of the +dim corridor, and enter a room with three more houses seated round its +walls. The sense of animation rises with the warmth and brightness +of the fire which roars in the grate. We collect the lists, and +move on to another and another room, till we have seen the last of the +eleven houses in a severely simple servants’-hall on the basement +floor. Thence we return to the wind and rain outside.</p> +<p>If we came here at dinner-time, we should see the housemaster at +the head of his table, and his wife or members of his family at the +other end. The scene would be quite wanting in the picturesque, +but no sense of comfort would make amends for it. For it is dark, +especially in the centre of the corridor, and the carver of <!-- page 48--><a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>those +vast joints never knows when he will strike his elbow against the walls +or passers-by; while the incidence of draughts is clearly enough defined +by here and there a coat-collar turned up in self-defence; for neither +the glass front door, nor the wooden porch, nor our massive porter can +effectually keep out the weather. Dinner here is a stern bit of +the day’s work, to be discharged with a serious fortitude.</p> +<p>We have described how we eat, but said nothing yet of what was eaten. +Yet our practical narrative cannot ignore the matter. Certain +delicate subjects, however, are best treated dialectically, and perhaps +we could not here do better than record a dialogue which we think we +must have overheard between Grumbler and Cheerful, two dramatic characters +not unknown to readers of the School Magazine some year ago:</p> +<blockquote><p><i>Cheer</i>. Have you read that jolly letter in +<i>The Times</i>, on “Uppingham by the Sea?”</p> +<p><i>Grumb</i>. Yes, I have; and the writer says, “The +commissariat was on the whole good.” I must say that surprises +me.</p> +<p><i>Cheer</i>. Why where was it at fault, then?</p> +<p><i>Grumb</i>. Where? It was at fault all round. +Look at the puddings—everlastingly smoked!</p> +<p><i>Cheer</i>. Yes; but the commissariat is not puddings.</p> +<p><i>Grumb</i>. Well then, the coals—all chips and small +dust; at least, when there <i>were</i> any.</p> +<p><!-- page 49--><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span><i>Cheer</i>. +But the commissariat is not coals.</p> +<p><i>Grumb</i>. Then the cold plates your gravy froze on!</p> +<p><i>Cheer</i>. My good fellow, who ever heard of hot plates +on a picnic?</p> +<p><i>Grumb</i>. How about the vegetables then, that never came +to table except to make believe there was something in the Irish stew? +or what do you call the thing they sometimes served out for butter?</p> +<p><i>Cheer</i>. Ah! well! “a rose by any other name”—you +know the rest. But still, the commissariat isn’t bad because +the butter was so sometimes.</p> +<p><i>Grumb</i>. Oh! of course, you can say the Commissariat (if +you spell it with a big C) doesn’t mean the meat, or the soup, +or the puddings, or the greens, or the butter, or the coals, or the +rest of it—but if it isn’t these, I should like to know +what it is.</p> +<p><i>Cheer</i>. (<i>loftily</i>). My good friend, it is easy +for you to say this thing or the other was not to your fancy, but it +was not quite so easy a matter for our landlord to provide a daily supply +of meat, bread, and dairy stuff for some four hundred people; especially +as it had to be organised for the occasion, without previous experience. +I take it if you knew how the farmers had to be coaxed to sell us their +butter, how green things couldn’t be had in the markets for love +or money, and if you knew how many miles of railway those beeves travelled +to and fro between pasture, slaughter-house, and kitchen, before their +weary joints rested on our table, I say you would thank the commissariat +that you hadn’t something worth grumbling about. I am glad +we never were on famine rations. I asked to live, not to live +well.</p> +<p><i>Grumb</i>. (<i>a trifle ashamed, but dogged</i>). Why, of +course, I don’t mean to say things might not have been worse. +Still I stick to it, they were not nice.</p> +<p><i>Cheer</i>. But you’ll admit the commissariat did its +work: the army was fed. After all, the proof of a pudding is <i>not</i> +the eating of it, it is how you feel after it. Now, people <!-- page 50--><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>are +not starved who look the strong healthy fellows ours did when they went +home after the first term of it. No ‘famine marks’ +in those firm, brown faces, eh? And then, tell me, did the Rutland +pastures ever yield such juicy mutton, or flow so abundantly with milk?</p> +<p><i>Grumb</i>. Enough, enough; you have it. Only I won’t +be told I was revelling in comfort when I was doing nothing of the kind. +I’ll bear it, but I won’t grin and say I like it; I’ll +say nothing against it if it’s better not, but I shan’t +say what is untrue in favour of it. [<i>Exeunt arm-in-arm</i>.]</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Our two interlocutors fairly exhaust the facts of the case between +them, and the historian, who can serve no purpose by trying to think +things better or worse than they were, will silence neither. We +give our honest praise to the organisers of the food supply for their +effectual performance of a very heavy, vexatious, and precarious task, +the scale of which we have been brought by inquiry to estimate at its +true magnitude. At the same time we will spare such sympathy as +the dignity of the matter demands for the sufferers from tough beef, +tub butter, smoked puddings, cold potatoes, and congealed gravy, and +not mislead any refugee schoolmaster of the future into the belief that +he can dine in the wilderness as comfortably as in Pall Mall.</p> +<h2><!-- page 51--><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>CHAPTER +VIII.—DIVERSIONS AT BORTH: NEW SOIL, NEW FLOWERS.</h2> +<blockquote><p><i>There be delights</i>, <i>there be recreations and +jolly pastimes that will fetch the day about from sun to sun</i>, <i>and +rock the tedious year as in a delightful dream</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Milton</span>, “<span class="smcap">Areopagitica</span>.”</p> +<p><i>O summer day</i>, <i>beside the joyous sea</i>!<br /> + <i>O summer day</i>, <i>so wonderful and white</i>,<br /> + <i>So full of gladness and so full of pain</i>!<br /> +<i>For ever and for ever shalt thou be</i><br /> + <i>To some the gravestone of a dead delight</i>,<br /> + <i>To some the landmark of a new domain</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Longfellow</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Housed, fed, and taught; what more does the school need done for +it? “Is that all?” some of the English public will +exclaim. “Then you have done nothing. What about the +boys’ sports?” We foresaw the question, and when we +left home some people felt uneasy as to what would happen to a school +separated from its fives-courts and <!-- page 52--><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>playing-fields. +True, there was to be a beach, and the boys could amuse themselves by +throwing stones into the sea: but when there were no more stones to +throw—what then? The prospect was a blank one.</p> +<p>Well, as we have seen, things came right enough as regarded the cricket. +Players had to content themselves with fewer games, for the ground could +only be reached on half-holidays. On the other hand, the season +of 1876 gained a character of its own from the novelty of its matches +against Welsh teams. One of these was the eleven of Shrewsbury +School. With this ancient seat of learning our troubles brought +us into genial intercourse, and a few months later we met them again +on the football-field. Both matches were played at Shrewsbury; +in the former we gained a victory over our kind hosts, the latter was +a drawn game.</p> +<p>The athletics were held on the straight reach of road beyond Old +Borth; the steeple-chases in the fields which border it. At the +prize-giving, the “champion” was hoisted as usual, and carried +round the hotel, instead of along the <i>via sacra</i> of the Uppingham +triumph, with the proper tumultuary rites. For the make-believe +of paper-chases we had the realities of hare-hunting, of <!-- page 53--><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>which +we will speak again in its season. Grounds for football were found +when the autumn came; the best was a meadow just below Old Borth, of +excellent turf, which dries quickly after rain; though the peaty soil, +lately reclaimed from the marsh, would quake under the outset of the +players.</p> +<p>The village boys, fired by a novel example, began to hold their own +athletics. One might see the corduroyed urchins scrambling down +the street in a footrace, or jerking their awkward little limbs over +a roadside ditch. Our boys looked on as men look at a monkey, +half amused, half indignant at the antics “which imitated humanity +so abominably.”</p> +<p>If we were little worse off than at home in the appliances for games, +there were other recreations which were proper to the place, and clear +gain to the immigrants. For example, the fishing in the Lery, +along whose banks groups of anglers might be seen strolling, whipping +the water to the full entertainment of themselves and the fish, or now +and then blessing Sir Pryse, as the angler landed his first trout from +our good friend’s waters. Yet we had our old sportsmen too, +who could kill trout as well as amuse themselves, and bring home a delicate +dish for a half-holiday tea. For masters, <!-- page 54--><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>there +was a little shooting to be had on the land of some friendly neighbours; +and on the no-man’s-land of the coast, a variety of sea-fowl fell +to our guns, and were stuffed to enrich our museum with a “Borth +Collection.” We must not forget the Rink at Aberystwith, +for which parties used to be formed on half-holidays; nor the Golf, +which the long strip of rough ground along the shore tempted us to introduce. +The “links” were famous in extent and variety of ground, +but the game, in spite of patronage in high quarters, did not become +popular. There were also recreations of a more intellectual kind: +archæological visits to “British camps,” or others +of those Cymric monuments, which were just then provoking Lord F. Hervey’s +incomprehensible spleen; scientific rambles in quest of rare shells, +seaweeds, or the varieties of a new flora; and rambles, half-scientific, +half-predatory, along the woody cliffs of the Lery, whence adventurers +would return with news of a hawk’s nest discovered, but not reached, +or the more substantial result of snakes, and such venomous “beasties,” +captured and brought home in a bag. The rocks under Borth Head +were good hunting-grounds, and supplied sea-monsters for an aquarium, +which the Headmaster <!-- page 55--><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>built +and presented to the school. One of the first prizes was a small +octopus, which his captor, having no other vessel handy, brought home +floating in his cap. In the aquarium, however, spite of this good +beginning, we have to record a failure. “The masters could +not, and the boys would not, attend to it; and our best octopus, after +coming to the top of the water, and spitting a last farewell at sundry +lookers-on, died; and with him died the attempt.”</p> +<p>We are quoting from a letter of a correspondent to <i>The Times</i>, +and we cannot better conclude this part of the subject than by a graphic +paragraph from the same hand:</p> +<blockquote><p>Again, there were the birds, many always on shore and +marsh; but when the herring-fry passed up the bay the birds positively +possessed it. There was a wilderness of glistening wings in the +air, a restless bank of floating feathers on the sea—a mile of +wings and glancing foam of life, with many a strange wild cry, giving +the high notes to the deep bass of the waves. How often from the +marsh, or somewhere, dreamland or ghostland, came the plaintive wail +of the curlews; then the dotterels would run and flit about the sands; +and, not least, the herons, measuring out their dominions with their +lordly arch of wings in leisurely pride of sovereignty, passed grandly +on their way; or, ever and anon, a thousand plover, as with one soul, +would turn and glance in the sun far away. All this was a new +revelation to many boys, whose sole ideas of birds had been sparrows, +thrushes, perhaps, and ducks at so much a couple, and a duck-pond.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 56--><a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>In +our enumeration, however, of fish and fowl we had almost forgotten “a +portent of the wave,” which was a nine hours’ wonder with +us. A stray seal, revisiting the familiar shore, and unaware of +the change which had transformed his quiet haunts was encountered by +one of our party as he cruised round Borth Head in his fishing-boat. +We are glad to record that the <i>rencontre</i> ended without bloodshed. +It was a sportsman and a naturalist who had crossed the poor seal’s +path; but he remembered that he, too, was a stranger in the land, and +he could not lift rifle against the</p> +<blockquote><p>Sea-worn face, sad as mortality,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>which leaned from the ledge of rock to look at him. So the +monster passed on his way unharmed.</p> +<p>We have detailed at length enough of the diversions and interests +which lay close at our own doors. But these delights pale by the +side of those red-letter days when we went far afield to keep a holiday +among the mountains. We shall not see the like of those days again! +On such mornings, the hotel steps and the esplanade would be dotted +with anxious groups waiting for breakfast, and observing the omens of +the sky. If these are favourable, a little before eight a broad +stream <!-- page 57--><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>sets +towards the station, and fills the sunny platform with a vivacious crowd. +Masters, who organise the several expeditions, use the interval to count +heads and sort their parties. The benevolent Cambrian railway +supplies spare carriages and return tickets at single fares. Presently +the train is sighted sliding down the winding incline from Langfihangel; +it picks us all up—near two hundred souls, it may be—moves +out into the open plain, still glittering with the morning dew, and +reaching Glandovey, drops half its passengers at the junction to explore +the northward coast, while it carries the rest to Machynlleth and Cemmes +Road. Here and there it sows little companies of explorers at +some mountain’s foot or river’s mouth. One band assails +Cader Idris from the rich vale of Dolgelley, and meets on the summit +another which has scaled it from Tal-y-llyn. Each party is convinced +that their ascent was the more creditable in point of speed, and that +they enjoyed the more magnificent views. One, however, claims +an advantage which can be more easily gauged; they have haled a hamper +of luncheon with them to the peak, with infinite pains. During +the descent this hamper (but that was after luncheon) slipped from its +carrier’s hand, and plunged beyond recovery down <!-- page 58--><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>the +Fox’ Walk. Meanwhile, others are befogged on the broad top +of Aran Mowddy, but will be anxious to explain this evening, that if +the view from the summit was lost in mist, that was more than made amends +for by “the enchanting glimpses caught through the cloudrifts +in the descent.” The day wears on, and signs of fatigue +appear. Some are wondering what Miss Roberts of the famous “Lion” +at Dolgelley has got for their dinner. Small boys begin to declare +that they could go on at this pace for any time you like; this is nothing +to what they did last year in the Highlands; something like mountains +<i>there</i>, you know! The sun is far in the west when the knot +of adventurous reconnoitrers who have gone farthest afield mount the +train at Portmadoc. Nearer home they thrust heads out of window +to rally their friends who join them on the poverty of their exploits. +These, taciturn with weariness or hunger, find they haven’t their +best repartees at command. But they are all smiles and good humour +again at the news that young So-and-so, with two or three more, who +had strayed from their party, were sighted rushing along, all dust up +to their eyes, to catch the train as it moved out of the station. +There is no other to-night; but our good hostess, we know, will give +<!-- page 59--><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>the +youngsters tea, put them to bed, and forward them prepaid next morning. +At length the last station has poured in its tributary to the volume +of the returning multitude, and the train glides softly on between the +brimming estuary and the marsh golden with sunset. The full stream +is peaceably disgorged again through the narrow station-door, and distributes +itself along the tea-tables. Sleep comes down upon tired limbs +and easy consciences, and the day’s glory throws the rich shadows +of some Midsummer Night’s Dream far into the bright dawn of another +working day.</p> +<p>It was never professed that on these occasions we were doing other +than taking a holiday. If, together with mountain air and the +scent of heather, a boy drank in a love and understanding of Nature, +and felt, possibly for the first time, the inspiration of beauty, then +probably hours were never spent in a class-room to more profit than +were these on the slopes of Cader or Plinlimmon, or along the banks +of Mowddy.</p> +<h2><!-- page 60--><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>CHAPTER +IX.—THE FIRST TERM: MAKING HISTORY.</h2> +<blockquote><p>“<i>Happy is the people which has no history</i>.” +<i>Stands this too among the beatitudes</i>? <i>Surely this were +a fit evangel only for sheep and oxen</i>, <i>or for such human kine +as covet the fat pastures rather than the high places of existence</i>. +<i>For whoso is ill-content to live long and see good days</i>, <i>save +he may also live much and see great days</i>, <i>will not be so tamely +gospelled</i>, <i>seeing that every past is mother of a future</i>, +<i>and that there is no history but is a prophecy as well</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In our late digression on the conditions and circumstances of our +life at Borth, we have somewhat anticipated the narrative of events. +But it was a plan agreeable to the facts of the case, that narrative +should pass into description at the point where the stream of our little +history, after descending the rapid of alarms and difficulties, abrupt +resolves and swift action, fell quietly again into the smooth channel +of a new routine. Not that the story of the succeeding months +was really uneventful. If our readers suppose that from this point +onward <!-- page 61--><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>we +led a prosperous untroubled existence, it will be due to the illusion, +which, in fiction, makes us cheerful over the woes of the struggling +hero, because we have glanced at the end of the book, and view the present +trouble in the light of the successful issue: what the end would be +we did not know, nor when it would come. And if, to resume our +metaphor, the current of the enterprise flowed for the most part smoothly, +there were rocks underneath which those who saw them could not forget, +though they seldom raised an eddy on the surface. Here, however, +we must ask the reader to believe us that it was so, without demanding +explanations, which at this date would be inconvenient. We will +go on then to notice the chief incidents of the term.</p> +<p>The wooden school-room, the slow completion of which had been watched +with some impatience, was ready for use on April 29th. On the +next day, being Sunday, we inaugurated it by reuniting under its shelter +our scattered congregations, hitherto distributed over the three largest +rooms at our disposal. It was not a noble building, being, architecturally, +a long shed of rough planks against the bowling-green wall, which was +whitewashed for the better lighting of the room. But it was apt +to <!-- page 62--><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span>the +conditions of a colony, looking as it did like a log-house in a backwoods-clearing. +Internally it was well lighted and ventilated, and just sufficient for +our numbers. <i>Heureusement il n’y on a pas beaucoup</i>. +This was not the only occasion on which we were thankful for the school’s +self-imposed limit of numbers. The completion of this poor structure +was a fact of which those who have but little knowledge of school affairs +will appreciate the value. It was a new burden on an embarrassed +exchequer, but not a gratuitous one. It is not too much to say +that the social life of the school would have been of a different and +lower stamp, and its organisation crude and ineffective, if there had +been no place of assembly where we could meet for common occasions, +for roll-call, prayers, addresses, lectures, entertainments—no +place to furnish the visible unity, which is so large an influence in +a healthy social life. And did the school ever feel surer of its +oneness, or more proud of its name, than when it sat on those rude benches +within the ruder walls of their makeshift great school-room?</p> +<p>The next day, May 1st, is the Uppingham Encœnia, the commemoration +of the Chapel opening. It forced one to contrast the wooden walls +in <!-- page 63--><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>which +the Saint’s-day’s service was held, with the high rooftree +and the deep buttresses, which this year would not echo the chanting +procession. The anniversary rites lapsed of necessity. An +accidental piece of ceremony marked this day; for that morning a flagstaff +was erected on the terrace in front of the hotel, and a flag run up, +by the lowering of which the hour of dinner or roll-call could be signalled +to ramblers on the shore or the hill. On the 19th of the month +we hoisted with much cheering our own colours: a banner, on which some +of the ladies had worked the Founder’s device, the antique schoolmaster +and his ring of scholars. The flags (there were three in all) +were carried home with us, and the faded and tattered folds which had +fought with the sou’-wester, now droop in a graceful canopy at +one end of the great school-room.</p> +<p>By the middle of June the new church of Borth, so opportunely built +in time for our settlement, was declared ready. It was courteously +placed at our disposal for two services on Sunday before the hours of +the parish services. The building exactly held us, with a little +pinching. The first occasion of our using it was a confirmation +held by the Bishop of St. David’s. The <!-- page 64--><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>Bishop, +whose early connections are with this neighbourhood, and who had already +in his capacity of landowner given us proof of his goodwill, seemed +to rejoice in the occasion of expressing his sympathy with the immigrants +into his quiet home. The kindness of the visit was not slight; +for the journey, to and fro, from difficulties of transport, demanded +two days. We have the more reason to be grateful for his willing +sacrifice of time, because, in view of the interval since the last confirmation +and of the long sojourn in Wales before us, we should otherwise have +suffered a kind of mitigated excommunication.</p> +<p>June 29th and 30th were the days of the “Old Boys’ Match,” +the annual reunion of the Past and Present School. There seemed +no reason why absence from our native soil should sever our ties with +the Past. Quite the contrary. <i>Ubi Cæsar ibi patria</i>, +thought our Old Boys, who, indeed, never before felt so glad to claim +their heritage in the fortunes of Uppingham. The game, which was +like other games of cricket, and need not be described, was played on +the Gogerddan field, where the Headmaster, in lieu of his customary +supper, not practicable at Borth, gave a luncheon each day. On +the first day, as the company rose from <!-- page 65--><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>table, +a signal was given to the school to draw up to the tent, outside which +the guests were standing. They formed a kind of hollow square +to see what would happen, and an old Uppinghamian (Mr. R. L. Nettleship, +Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford) came forward and presented an “Address +from the Old Boys at Oxford, to the Headmaster and Masters of Uppingham +School.” He noticed briefly the circumstances under which +it had been drawn up, explaining why (through lack of time to concert +matters with the sister university) it had come from Oxford only, and +added that they hoped shortly to give something more substantial than +parchment. “What they could offer was a slight thing, it +was true, yet one which their old Headmaster and his coadjutors would +not think valueless.” He proceeded to read the address, +which ran thus:</p> +<blockquote><p>“We, the undersigned old members of Uppingham School, +now resident at Oxford, write to express our deep sympathy with the +Headmaster and Masters of Uppingham School in the great difficulties +with which they have lately had to contend. Feeling as we do, +that though we have left the school, we still, in the truest sense, +belong to it, we can but testify our gratitude <!-- page 66--><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>to +those whose courage and skill have carried it safely through such a +crisis, and converted a great misfortune into a proof that it is strong +enough to defy accidents. Our confidence in the Headmaster is, +as always, entire and unabated, and we are sure that the school which +he has so successfully led to Borth will come back under the same leadership, +with its vigour undiminished, to its home at Uppingham.” <a name="citation66"></a><a href="#footnote66">{66}</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>In reply the Headmaster said, addressing himself to the memorialists +and the school, “the past and future (for what we are doing has +a past and future), I thank you for this with all my heart, for this +which you call ‘a slight thing.’ It is a slight thing; +but yet, like a flag which armies have rallied round and have died for, +it can give spirit and endurance and confidence. Yes, it is true, +as you say, that these have been hard times, as those know who have +had day by day to watch ruin coming closer <!-- page 67--><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>and +closer, with no hope, no room for escape. Like men in the story +tied to the stake in front of the advancing tide, we had to see wave +on wave coming up to bring a slow but sure destruction.” +Then, after speaking of the incidents which ended in our coming to this +spot, he continued: “We have been brought by our troubles much +before the eyes of the public. They speak of ‘the fierce +light that beats upon a throne,’ but that is hardly so intolerable +as the fierce light that beats upon a great calamity. Yet I trust +that fierce light may prove to the school a refining fire. Certainly +the present school has behaved worthily under their novel circumstances; +they have shown themselves true sons of Uppingham. You of the +past school see round you your successors, and you may be proud of them; +at least we have suffered no trouble through those you see before you +here.</p> +<p>“The end of all this which of us knows? But we have faith +that it shall be good. Though all seems to fail and perish, all +our work to die, yet I am sure there shall be no real death of the life +of the school, but that it shall have its resurrection.”</p> +<p>The words were meant for the ears to which <!-- page 68--><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>they +were addressed. If to readers remote from the facts and the feeling +of the hour they perhaps strike a note of scarcely intelligible emotion +yet our story cannot spare them. To us who heard them they were +an expressive summary of many thoughts, and fears, and hopes of that +time, which our narrative cannot give expression to otherwise than in +this indirect fashion. Had those thoughts and hopes been other, +we should not, perhaps, have had this story to tell.</p> +<p>The choir gave an <i>al fresco</i> concert on the night of the second +day of the match in the grass close. The resonance from the surrounding +buildings made the songs very effective for an outdoor entertainment.</p> +<p><i>Surgit amari aliquid</i>. Just at this time came news of +a new fever case at Uppingham. We knew what might be the significance +of the news, and began to make up our minds for another term at Borth.</p> +<p>On July 5th a public concert was given by the choir, and attended +by the rest of the school, at Aberystwith. It was the second of +two given in support of the new church at Borth, to the debt on which +the proceeds were devoted. The first was held in the Assembly +<!-- page 69--><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 69</span>Room +of the Queen’s Hotel, a beautiful room, with fine acoustic properties. +We cannot say as much for the Temperance Hall, in which the second was +given. It is a structure of the very severest Georgian architecture. +“Why,” asks a reporter, “should water-drinkers allow +it to be supposed that the graces of art are all in the hands of Bacchus?” +The journey to and fro by rail was, in the popular estimate, an integral +part of the entertainment; its charm lay in the uncertainty as to whether +the laden train would be able to climb the abrupt incline to Langfihangel, +or would keep on the rickety rails as it spun down the same curve in +returning. Otherwise, that the school should make a railway journey +<i>en masse</i> to hold an evening concert seemed, under our nomad conditions, +to be only in the common course of things.</p> +<p>One concert we held in the wooden school-room on the 22nd of May; +on that occasion (we quote the magazine’s reporter) “All +the members of the choir might be seen flocking to the school-room, +with candle and candlestick in hand, to furnish light for the performance. +The candles were arranged in sevens on wooden shelves all down the sides +of the room, and though the <!-- page 70--><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>whole +spectacle had its laughable side, as most things have, the general effect +was far from bad. It was cheerful enough; in fact, only a Christmas-tree +and some more disorder was needed to turn the entertainment into as +good an imitation of a happy school-treat as you would get at a day’s +notice.” But the music sounded dully in the timber walls, +and the experiment was not repeated.</p> +<p>Meanwhile a new inroad of care had for the last fortnight, since +the late news from Uppingham, disquieted the colony. Major Tulloch, +a Government Inspector, who, on behalf of the Local Sanitary Board, +had reported on the state of the town of Uppingham, had expressed a +strong opinion that the school ought not to return thither before Christmas. +In consequence of this a memorial was sent from the masters to the Trustees, +requesting them to reverse their decision of June 17th, which recalled +the school in September. At a meeting of the Trustees, on July +14th, the following resolution was passed:</p> +<blockquote><p>Resolved—“That, while in the opinion of the +Trustees there is nothing in the present condition of the town of Uppingham +which calls upon them to rescind their resolution of the 17th ult, yet, +<!-- page 71--><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>having +regard to a memorial addressed to them by the whole body of the assistant-masters, +they are willing, in compliance with the same, that the school shall +remain at Borth during the autumn term.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Arrangements were at once begun for returning to camp after the holidays. +The responsibility for this step, which was thus devolved upon the masters, +though it was accepted without hesitation, was felt to be no light one. +Our engagement with the lessee of the hotel had provided for a renewal +of the contract at will; but there remained the owners of some thirty +houses, large and small, with whom we should have to reckon. They +would have us in their hands, and might, if so minded, “turn our +necessity to glorious gain.” Then, too, many of the lodging-houses, +excellent as airy summer pavilions, did not promise much comfort in +winter time, to those who remembered how in the spring weeks the curtains +and everything movable within doors</p> +<blockquote><p>Fluttered in the besieging wind’s uproar,<br /> +And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Moreover, natives who knew, threatened us with rain all day and every +day, from the beginning <!-- page 72--><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>of +September till the end of October, after which it would be dry. +Others, who also knew, promised us fine weather till the latter date, +and then wet till Christmas. Putting the two assurances together, +one inferred that weather at Borth would be like weather in general. +However, in prospect of winds and wet, the open porch of the hotel was +walled up with planks so as to put another door between the sou’-wester +and the diners in the corridor. Also a long lean-to shed, like +a cloister without windows, was run along two sides of the bowling-green +wall. The outlay on the latter yielded no adequate return. +It afforded some shelter for chapel roll-call, and for the few minutes’ +lounge before evening prayers, except when it rained hard enough, and +then the water poured through the contractor’s felt roof. +It was too narrow to be used, as was hoped, for games; unless, indeed, +we had turned it into a skittle-alley. But then skittles is a +game of low connections. Finally, well-wishers were solemn in +their warnings that the drainage of the spot was defective (which, indeed, +was no otherwise than true, till we brought about a reform), and that +our settlement by the sea was nothing if it was not healthy.</p> +<p>The outlook then was not unclouded. But one <!-- page 73--><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>bright +day we had before we said good-bye to the past, and fronted the future +cares. Sir Pryse had invited the school to spend a day with him +at Gogerddan, Thursday, July 20th, the last day of term. Room +was found for all his guests to dine together in a large barn near the +house, where, from the high and narrow windows, the light fell in picturesque +mellowness on the close-packed ranks. A match was played in the +grounds between the school and an Aberystwith eleven; the rest whiled +away the afternoon right pleasantly among the flowers and grass-slopes. +At a pause in the game there was a gathering on the lawn to watch the +execution of a little surprise which the cricketers had prepared for +our host. From a box which had been perilously smuggled in, was +produced a memorial gift (it consisted of a study-clock and inkstand), +which “the cricketers of Uppingham begged Sir Pryse to accept, +as a slight acknowledgment of his special liberality to themselves;” +for so it was set forth in an address which the captain of the eleven +proceeded to read to him. Our host, as much startled as if the +present and the address had been shot at him out of a cannon, answered +in a brief but not the less effective speech. Then, as if to relieve +the warmth <!-- page 74--><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>of +feeling generated between us, a piano was run into the bow of an open +window, and the choir outside delivered themselves of some hearty music. +Soon the evening train was carrying us home for the reading of the class-list +and the prize-giving. In the customary address, the Headmaster +could congratulate the school on having borne themselves well during +the great time in the school’s history which this day brought +to a close: he called on them to “come back with the soldier spirit” +to face whatever remained.</p> +<p>There was dark work going on in the street that night. When +dawn broke, it disclosed an array of flags, streamers, and devices, +along the approach to the station, where “the special” was +waiting. Prominent among the devices was the motto, <i>Au revoir</i>. +For the feeling it spoke, all were grateful; but not all rejoiced in +the occasion of it. The train moved out of the station with the +school, to a boy, on board of it, to the sound of a farewell cheer, +and so the curtain fell on the first act of the play.</p> +<h2><!-- page 75--><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>CHAPTER +X.—A WINTER CAMPAIGN.</h2> +<blockquote><p><i>Sanitas sanitation, omnia sanitas</i>.</p> +<p><i>The farmer vext packed up his beds and chairs</i>,<br /> +<i>And all his household stuff</i>, <i>and with his boy</i><br /> +<i>Betwixt his knees</i>, <i>his wife upon the tilt</i>,<br /> +<i>Sets forth</i>, <i>and meets a friend</i>, <i>who hails him</i>, +“<i>What</i>!<br /> +<i>You’re flitting</i>!” “<i>Yes</i>, <i>we’re +flitting</i>,” <i>says the ghost</i><br /> +(<i>For they had packed the thing among the beds</i>).<br /> +“<i>Oh</i>, <i>well</i>,” <i>says he</i>, “<i>you +flitting with us too</i>—<br /> +<i>Jack</i>, <i>turn the horses’ heads and home again</i>.”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Tennyson</span>, “<span class="smcap">Walking +to the Mail</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>September 15th and 16th were the days of the school’s return +to Borth. We slipped at once and easily into the groove of last +term’s routine, filling our old quarters and several additional +houses. Some building operations needed for the winter’s +sojourn have been mentioned by anticipation. Our medical officer, +also, and the ready pickaxe of “Sanitary Tom” (as the boys +called the navvy <!-- page 76--><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>who +was his stout ally), had been at work laying bare the subterranean geography +of our premises and making all right. At his instance, the proprietor +ran out an extended culvert into the sea beyond low-water mark, a grand +engineering work, which remains the one permanent monument of our settlement. +Having in mind some ancient aspersions on the wholesomeness of Borth +we are glad to bear testimony to the present adequate sanitation of +the place.</p> +<p>We do not write for the scientific, and yet we must notice (we hope +without wounding an unprofessional ear) the beautiful economy of natural +forces by which that sanitation is effected. The channel of the +Lery, between which and the sea the hotel is built, runs parallel to +the coastline, till it meets at right angles the estuary of the Dovey. +The same tide which washes the beach also fills the Lery channel and +the adjoining ditches. When the ebb has set in the water in the +latter stands for a time at a higher level than on the beach. +Reflecting on this, our engineers cut a duct between the Lery and the +sea, so as to draw the water from the river down the main drainage artery, +performing twice daily a most effective flushing.</p> +<p><!-- page 77--><a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>Some +of us would have preferred to leave a more dignified memorial of ourselves, +forgetting, perhaps, that it is a Cloaca which is the most impressive +witness to the civilised resources of an ancient king. So an offer +was made to the proprietors that, if they would find the tools and directors +of the work, the school would provide the labourers for the making of +a road between the village and the church, an interval of a furlong +of marshy land, bridged at that time by a makeshift causeway. +They did not, however, see their way to accept our amateur industry, +and the project fell through.</p> +<p>With the arrival of the boys came also news, that on the day before, +September 14th, the engineers had broken ground at Uppingham:</p> +<blockquote><p> <i>Ea vox audita laborum</i><br /> +<i>Prima tulit finem</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We had waited not without some impatience for the first sound of +the pickaxe; and its echoes were welcomed as promising an end to our +exile.</p> +<p>The new term opened smilingly. The smooth working order into +which everything fell at once contrasted pleasantly with the anxious +bustle of the entry in April. A glorious autumn was settling <!-- page 78--><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>on +the hills, draping them from head to foot with a red mantle of the withering +bracken, which slowly burnt itself out along their slopes. There +was sun and daylight enough for many rambles along old paths or new +ones before the year was fairly dead.</p> +<p>Our prosperity was suddenly staggered. Just five weeks after +the return a case of scarlet fever occurred, followed in the course +of the week by half-a-dozen more. An outbreak of this kind is +too common an incident in a large school to merit much surprise or great +alarm. But then our circumstances were exceptional. If the +infection spread, it might be difficult to find hospital room; to communicate +it to the villagers, as might easily befall, would be an unhappy return +for their own ready hospitality; and then how miserable to have fled +from sickness at Uppingham, and find it had followed us to Borth, as +if, like the haunted family of the poem, “we had packed the thing +among the beds.” Already there came news which raised unspoken +doubts of our returning home after Christmas. How, then, if we +could not stay here? The question was hard to answer.</p> +<p>It is, however, a well-recognised fact that epidemics of this kind +are very much under the <!-- page 79--><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>control +of scientific precautions, and as we had good advice on the spot, no +time was lost in stamping out the plague. War is not made with +rose-water (it certainly was not rose-water which reeked along our passages), +and fever germs can be exterminated, it seems, by nothing less exasperatingly +unsavoury than carbolic acid, an agency which was laid on without any +ruth. Grumblers were offered the alternative of being smoked with +sulphur. Some complained of sore throats, contracted, they said, +from the fumes of the disinfectant, and declared that the remedy, like +vaccination, was only a mitigated form of the disorder. The landlords +of our studies looked on with irresolute wonder, when some of us sprinkled +their floors with a potent decoction poured from watering-pots. +Most of them regarded it as a kind of magical rite into which it would +not be seemly to inquire. In one house a practical seaman, late +home from a cruise, took a less reverent view of the lustration, and +uttered hints of what he would do to the perpetrators’ heads if +their acid touched his carpets again. Probably the best disinfectant +applied was the clear strong wind, which ten days after the first case +succeeded the previous relaxing weather. All windows and <!-- page 80--><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>doors +were ordered wide open for the free passage of the blast; and the boys +were directed to bring down their rugs, great-coats, and dressing-gowns, +and anything of the kind which might be supposed to harbour mischief, +and spread them for purification on the pebbles of the beach. +It will be believed the scene was a quaint one, however it might remind +the scholar of the idyllic laundry scene by the Phæacian shore, +where Nausicaa and her maidens:</p> +<blockquote><p>επει πλυναν +τε καθηραν τε +ρυπα παντα<br /> +‘Εξειης πετασαν +παρα θιν’ αλος, +ηχι μαλιστα<br /> +Λαιyyας ποτι χερσον +αποπλυνεσκε +θαλασσα.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Whether it was these purgations, or the fumes of the carbolic which +exorcised the infection, or whether the pest was starved out by the +immediate and careful isolation of the cases that occurred, we must +leave doctors to determine. It is certain that the epidemic came +to an end in less than ten days after the first case. That we +were able to apply the most necessary of measures, that of isolating +at once all cases declared or suspected, we owe to the readiness of +the villagers to put house-room at our service, a readiness on which +we certainly had no right to calculate. The rent we might pay +<!-- page 81--><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>them +was no measure of the service rendered. If a panic had closed +their doors, our situation would have been worse than critical.</p> +<p>The cause of the outbreak could not be confidently assigned, but +since the most probable theory traced it to a recent railway excursion +made by some school parties, these expeditions were discontinued for +a time. This was no great privation, for the year was closing +in.</p> +<p>About this time, October 16th, the appointment of new “Præpostors” +was made, to fill up vacancies in the body. In speaking as usual +on the occasion, the Headmaster called attention to the experiment in +self-government which our special circumstances were affording. +There would be little reason for our recording the occasion, were it +not that since that date the monitorial system in public schools has +been canvassed in the Press, on occasion of an untoward incident of +recent notoriety, and has been described by some as the parent of the +“grossest tyranny,” ruinous to the future of any school +from which the institution is inseparable. We had thought this +view of the system obsolete, or correct only of schools subject to obsolete +conditions. If we were mistaken, it may be <!-- page 82--><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>worth +while to record an experience which tends to a less pessimistic conclusion.</p> +<p>It will easily be understood that the mechanical organisation of +the school was greatly deranged by the removal from home. The +boys of the several houses were no longer locally separated, nor in +the same immediate contact with their housemasters; they were restrained +by few bolt-and-bar securities, “lock-up” being for the +most part impracticable, and were allowed a larger liberty in many less +definable ways. At the same time they were exposed to no little +discomfort, and during the rainy months to much monotony, the very conditions +which promote bullying and other mischief. Further, the same causes +which reduced the control of masters, also embarrassed the upper boys +in their monitorial duties. Thus the school was left in a quite +unusual degree to its self-government, and that government had to act +at a disadvantage.</p> +<p>Yet the result was that all went well. The boys did not bully +one another, and they gave their masters no sort of trouble. Old +rules had to be relaxed, because they could not be enforced, but no +licence came of it; new rules <!-- page 83--><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>had +to be made, which might seem vexatious and not very intelligible restrictions, +but there was no tendency to break them. Of course wrong things +were done at Borth as elsewhere; but if we were to record the few misdeeds +which occur to us, their insignificance would provoke a smile; while +we have good evidence for the belief that the rate of undetected offences +was not increased.</p> +<p>These are the facts we have to record. Different explanations +will suggest themselves to others, but among observers on the spot there +was but one opinion—that the prosperous result was due to the +system of self-government, “monitorial system,” or whatever +we name the institution, which rests on the assumption that English +boys are capable of responsibility and authority, and will prove trustworthy +if their masters are willing to trust them. We do not forget that +other factors entered into the cause; one which cannot be ignored was +the consciousness of the boys that the school was on its trial, and +that a public one. But people cannot acquire self-control merely +by the removal of restraints, or behave well, for a long time together +and in spite of tedium, simply because <!-- page 84--><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>they +would like to do so. The truth is, that in a time which might +have been anarchical, we lived on the fruits of a long-established order; +and it is fair to add that at the end of thirteen months there were +no visible symptoms that discipline was wearing threadbare.</p> +<p>Shall we, for writing this, be taxed with the vain-glory for which +public schools are at times reproached? We must brave the charge, +then; for the facts seem to furnish evidence of a kind so rarely obtainable, +that to omit them from this chapter in school life would be hardly excusable. +An experiment so crucial as that to which we were submitted does not +occur once in fifty years.</p> +<p>But enough of serious matters. Let us go out and forget them +in a run with Sir Pryse’s harriers, along the breezy gorse-covered +downs of the Gogerddan estate. We take the train which arrives +just after we have risen from dinner, and land at the upland village +of Langfihangel. It is a Saturday afternoon, the 21st of October, +the day is clear and sunny, and several ladies are of the party. +A few hundred yards from the station we met the hounds, and Sir Pryse’s +man who hunts them. The owner is not with them, but (by his <!-- page 85--><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>good +leave) yonder tall, lithe fellow, the best runner in the school, acts +as Master of Hounds. He promises us good sport, having heard from +the huntsman of a hare which is “waiting for us.” +As they prepare to cast off, the non-effectives separate from the runners, +and climb a round-topped hill which commands the country. The +fields are spread like a map under us; nothing on the face of the country +escapes our eyes. The hare that was “waiting for us” +has grown tired of it, and left the rendezvous, but another is soon +started, and a stout one. She is of the mountain breed, as are +many in this country; they could not otherwise have held out so long +before the pursuit of such runners, to say nothing of the hounds. +The “tally-ho” comes cheerly up to us from the valley through +the crisp October air, and we see puss scudding along up the hedgerow, +the hounds and the foremost runners in the next field, the rest thinning +out and straggling behind them. Among these we recognise with +glee a friend or two, who years ago were in the first flight of every +Uppingham paper-chase (<i>si nunc foret illa uventus</i>), labouring +across a turnip-field, or held by the leg in a gorse-cover. A +check gives them a chance of coming up again with huntsman and <!-- page 86--><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>master. +We won’t spoil the chance by halloing where the hare went, though, +from our vantage-ground, we can view her throughout. Our friends +have just got in line with the leaders, and are finding their breath +again for a second burst, when the scent is recovered; the chase sweeps +up the ridge, and over it out of our sight, away, perhaps, towards the +moorland spurs of Plinlimmon. We descend the hill homewards, leaving +puss to her doom, whatever it may be. For these runs sometimes +had a fatal termination. In the school serial is told the story +of a magnificent day, of which, however, the runners did not witness +the end, for “time was drawing late, and we were far from the +station, so had to leave the hounds under the charge of the huntsman +alone, and as the hare was now exhausted, they soon killed her. +We were on the scent for over two hours, and ran about twelve miles.” +These days took place two or three times a week; for good practical +reasons the “field” was restricted in numbers.</p> +<p>After the short and sharp battle with the scarlet fever narrated +above, the term went on very peacefully, but with a growing expectation +that this would not be the last one in Wales. <!-- page 87--><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>News +from Uppingham of the unpreparedness of the place to receive us left +little room for doubt, but the question was not decided (at least, officially) +even at the date of the break-up. The prospect of a fresh period +of makeshift life was not a welcome one; but the worst had been faced +by this time, and found, after all, not hard to deal with. The +long dark evenings of November proved a less difficulty than was anticipated. +With afternoon school shifted to the hour of sunset, and with meetings +of the Debating and other societies on half-holiday evenings, the dark +hours did not hang heavily, and the expected tedium of an Arctic winter +was not experienced. The term closed with a concert given in the +Assembly Room at Aberystwith, December 13th, and another on the next +night in the Temperance Hall at popular prices. On the 14th, a +team of Old Boys played the usual football match against the Present +School, and were beaten by two goals to one. That evening the +class-list was read and the prizes given. If the boys hoped to +gather from the Headmaster’s speech an intimation of where they +would meet him after Christmas they were disappointed. The government +had as yet no <!-- page 88--><a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>communication +to make. Next morning, in the darkness before dawn, the special +train carried them to their homes, to await with curiosity their next +marching orders.</p> +<h2><!-- page 89--><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>CHAPTER +XI.—LUDIBRIA MARIS.</h2> +<blockquote><p><i>Sit down</i>, <i>and hear the last of our sea-sorrow</i>.</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">The Tempest</span>.”</p> +<p><i>They said</i>, “<i>and why should this thing be</i>?<br /> +<i>What danger lowers by land or sea</i>?<br /> +<i>They ring the tune of Enderby</i>.”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Jean Ingelow</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“England, when she goes to war,” said a Prime Minister +not long ago, “has not to consider whether she will be able to +fight a second or a third campaign.” We remembered that +we were Englishmen; and on January 19th, 1877, went down again with +a good courage for our third campaign on the Welsh coast. A furious +gale was howling that day among the hills of Cardiganshire, recalling +to the memory of some of us the stormy Ides of March, when the pioneers +of our little army first set foot in Borth. <i>Omina principiis</i> +<!-- page 90--><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span><i>inesse +solent</i>. This gale was sounding the key-note of the term’s +adventures.</p> +<p>The cause of our return to Borth for a third term is briefly told. +We had gone home at Christmas, uncertain whether we should meet again +there or at Uppingham. Dr. Acland, of Oxford, to whose active +sympathy with the school in its perplexities we must at least gratefully +allude, had undertaken on our behalf to inspect the sanitary condition +of Uppingham, and give us his judgment on the expediency of reassembling +there. His judgment was submitted to the attention of the Trustees +at their meeting, on December 22nd, when it was resolved that, “In +the face of Dr. Acland’s report, the Trustees deeply regret they +cannot at present recall the school to Uppingham.” So we +went back to the sea.</p> +<p>Our numbers this term just missed by one the normal total of three +hundred. In the two preceding terms they had been smaller by some +five or six. The camp at Borth, therefore, had not suffered from +want of recruits. Indeed, it was now foreseen that the return +to Uppingham would be for about one-third of the school a first arrival +there.</p> +<p><!-- page 91--><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>The +beginning of the end of our exile seemed to be marked by the reduced +number of masters’ families in camp. Some had gone into +winter quarters at Aberystwith; some had already resettled at Uppingham. +Our connection with home began to be retightened also by parochial and +other common transactions, in which we took our share from a distance. +Not, indeed, that the connection had ever been discontinued. We +had left too precious pledges behind us. The deserted gardens +did not waste all their sweetness on the air which we had exchanged +for a “fresher clime.” A thin intermittent stream +of their products found its way along the nine hours of railway through +most of the year. Flowers, fruit, and vegetables might raise tantalising +memories of the pleasant places where they grew, but were not the less +welcome to dwellers in this somewhat austere tract where they did not +grow or grew very niggardly. The traffic in these delicacies drew +the attention of the London and North-Western Railway Company, whose +officials called to account one of our servants for travelling with +an excess of personal luggage. The artless contrabandist, besides +his own modest pack, had fourteen several hampers and boxes under his +charge. This <!-- page 92--><a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>was +checked. But who was the miscreant who systematically staved in +and pounded into such odd shapes the little tin boxes in which our rose-fanciers +had their choice blooms sent them by post? Post Office authorities +thought the damage was caused by “the pressure of the letters.” +We did not, and remonstrated, till the practice, whoever was the criminal, +was stopped. Besides these gracious souvenirs of home, there were +from time to time business matters which we had to transact as parishioners +and ratepayers. One was sensible of an almost humorous contrast, +when we discussed our interests in the Midlands in a room overlooking +the coast and hills of Cardiganshire, where one turned from watching +the waves breaking crisply on the beach, to study a map of some property +in Rutland pastures. It has been accounted a signal proof of Roman +self-confidence, that bidders could be found for a piece of land on +which Hannibal was encamped at the moment of sale. The situations +are not quite parallel. But people who could seriously debate, +as we did, on the purchase of a freehold at a time when not even their +Rome was their own, clearly had not despaired of their country.</p> +<p><!-- page 93--><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>With +the exception of the moving incidents to be immediately narrated, the +tale of this term’s life differs little from that of the preceding. +The round of work and play was much the same; the harriers were out +again, football went on as before, till superseded by the “athletics,” +and a match was played on March 7th against Shrewsbury School on their +ground, of which the result was a drawn battle.</p> +<p>Our difficulties this term were with the elements. In novels +of school life, where the scene is laid on the coast, the hero always +imperils his bones in an escapade upon the cliffs. The heroes +of our romance knew what was expected of them. Accordingly, two +new boys of a week’s standing start one afternoon for a ramble +on Borth Head and are missing at tea-time. Search parties are +organised at once (it was not the first occasion, for the writer remembers +sharing in a wild-goose chase which lasted four hours of the night, +along and under the same cliffs); while one skirted the marsh to Taliesin, +another explored the coast. The latter party at nine o’clock +in the evening discovered the involuntary tenants perched upon a rock +a little way up the cliff. They had climbed to it to escape <!-- page 94--><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>the +tide which had cut them off, and here they sat, telling stones in turn, +they said, to while away the time till the tide should retire. +Before the waters went, however, darkness came; and either from fear +of breaking bones in the descent or suspicion of some fresh treachery +in the mysterious sea, they clung to their perch, blessing the mildness +of a January night without wind or frost, but blessing with still more +fervency the lanterns of their rescuers. They had passed five +hours in this anxious situation.</p> +<p>This was the sportive prelude of more serious trouble. <i>Nunquam +imprudentibus imber incidit</i>: as the servant perhaps reflected, who, +on Monday, January 29th, was conveying the dinner of his master’s +family from the Hotel kitchen to Cambrian Terrace. As he crossed +the gusty street between them, the harpies of the storm swept the dinner +from dish, and rolled a prime joint over and over in the dust. +A leg of mutton was following, but he caught it dexterously by the knuckle-end +as it fell, and rescued so much from the wreck. Such incidents +are significant: trifles light as air, no doubt, but at least they showed +which way the wind blew. And did it not blow? <!-- page 95--><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>for +three days the sou’-wester had been heaping up the sea-water against +the shores of Cardigan Bay. People remembered with misgivings +that an expected high tide coincided in time with the gale, and shook +their heads significantly as they went to bed on the eve of January +30th.</p> +<p>In the half light before sunrise, the classes, emerging from the +school-room after morning prayers, found the street between them and +the Terrace threaded by a stream of salt water, which was pouring over +the sea-wall in momently increasing volume. Skirting or jumping +the obstruction they reached the class-rooms, and work began. +But before morning school was over the stream had become a river, and +thrifty housewives were keeping out the flood from their ground-floors +by impromptu dams. Those who were well placed saw a memorable +sight that morn, as the terrible white rollers came remorselessly in, +sheeting the black cliff sides in the distance with columns of spouted +foam, then thundering on the low sea-wall, licking up or battening down +the stakes of its palisades, and scattering apart and volleying before +it the pebbles built in between them, till the village <!-- page 96--><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 96</span>street +was heaped with the ruins of the barrier over which the waters swept +victoriously into the level plain beyond:</p> +<blockquote><p>The feet had hardly time to flee<br /> +Before it brake against the knee,<br /> +And all the world was in the sea.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Those who were looking inland saw how</p> +<blockquote><p> Along the river’s +bed<br /> +A mighty eygre reared its head<br /> +And up the Lery raging sped.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And though they could not see how the tenants of the low-lying hamlet +of Ynislas fled to their upper storey as the tide plunged them into +twelve feet of water; how it breached the railway beyond, sapping four +miles of embankment, and sweeping the bodies of a drowned flock of sheep +far inland to the very foot of the hills; yet they saw enough to make +them recall the grim memories of the historic shore, and doubt if our +fortunes were not about to add a chapter to the legend of the Lost Lowland +Hundred.</p> +<p>For an hour the narrow ridge on which the village stands was swept +by a storm of foam, while, from moment to moment, a wave exploding against +the crest of the ridge, would leap in through the <!-- page 97--><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>intervals +between the houses, and carrying along a drift of sea-weed and shingle, +splintered timber, and wrecked peat-stacks, go eddying down into the +drowned pastures beyond. Yet when the ebb came, and men began +to count their losses, there were but few to record. The embankment +at the south end of the village had been beaten flat, and the road behind +it buried under a silt of shingle; the nearest houses to it had been +flooded and threatened with collapse, so that the owners were offering +them next day on easy terms; from our hospital, which stood in this +quarter, the one patient and his nurse were rescued on the backs of +waders; the foundations of a chapel, which was building on lower ground, +were reported sapped, and a staunch Churchman of our Welsh acquaintance +stood rapturously contrasting the fate of the conventicle with the security +of his own place of worship on the neighbouring knoll. “If +Borth goes, the church won’t, anyhow!” he cried, in self-forgetting +fervour. No lives were lost, though several were barely saved. +One of our party rescued his dog, already straining at his chain to +escape a watery grave; another saved (dearer than life itself) his favourite +violin. A fisherman, surprised in his kitchen, was flung down +and nearly <!-- page 98--><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>strangled +between door and doorpost by the rush of a wave through the window. +A neighbour was drifted out of his house on the top of one wave, and +scrambled back to find the door slammed and held against him by another. +Rueful groups of women stood in the street, sobbing over armfuls of +what one feared might be drowned infants, but were, in fact, the little +pigs which they had plucked alive and remonstrant from the flooded styes. +In short, if many were frightened, few could plead to being hurt.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, the boys had found their way from the class-rooms upon +bridges of railway-sleepers requisitioned from the station-yard. +We could not but enjoy that “something not altogether unpleasing +to us in the calamities of our neighbours,” but the “humorous +ruth,” with which we contemplated the comical incidents of the +disaster was exchanged in good time for practical pity. There +was to be another high tide that evening, and how would the village +stand this second storm of its broken defences? So the order was +given to assemble in the street after dinner, and work at the repair +of the breaches. The street looked like an ant-hill, as the workers, +divided into gangs by houses, with the housemaster at the head of his +gang, swarmed <!-- page 99--><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>on +the roadway, clearing it from the <i>débris</i> with pickaxe, +spade, and a multitude of hands; re-stacking the cottagers’ store +of peat-sods, which the waves had sown broadcast; forming chains across +the beach to pass up from hand to hand the large pebbles at low-water +mark, to build in between the palisades; or cutting down the old stakes +and driving in new ones. This last was the most attractive branch +of the service. How enviable was he whom a reputation as a woodman +secured the enjoyment of an axe, and the genial employ of hewing and +hammering! This was much to be preferred to cutting your hands +in moving rubbish or standing still to hand wet stones in a freezing +wind. However, the pleasure of helping other people was common +to all; and many of the young hearts, which tasted that pleasure in +this rough day’s labour, will have gained an impulse of prompt +helpfulness that may serve them in other and ruder storms than that +which shook the frail homes of these friendly villagers.</p> +<p>We do not know how our defences would have stood the test of battle. +They were not put to the proof, for the wind, veering to the north that +morning, and blowing strongly all day, reduced again the volume of the +water in the bay, and the following <!-- page 100--><a name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>tides +came and went harmlessly. But had the morrow repeated the terrors +of this day, we should hardly have been up to witness them, for (<i>proh +pudor</i>!) we rewarded ourselves for our exertions by a lie-a-bed next +morning in place of early school.</p> +<p>Elsewhere the storm-wave had worked more havoc. At Ynyslas, +a flock of one hundred and fifteen sheep were caught in their pastures, +and drowned, the farmer rescuing only eleven. The cottagers were +driven to their lofts, while the tide snatched away their furniture, +doors, window-frames, and tables, and strewed them along the railway +banks. There was flotsam and jetsam on what was now once more +the coast-line at the village of Taliesin, where in old days the bard’s +cradle had been washed ashore; here one poor woman recovered her parlour-table +of heavy oak; her chairs had travelled farther yet to the door of a +farmhouse in the extreme corner of the marsh. These people were +greater sufferers than our villagers, but we could only help them by +a subscription to replace their losses.</p> +<p>For ourselves, we suffered nothing except a temporary scarcity of +coals and oil from the interruption of the railway traffic. It +was a <!-- page 101--><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 101</span>fortnight +before the next train ran on the stretch between us and Machynlleth, +and in the meanwhile the gap was bridged by a coach service. From +four miles of embankment the ballast had been sapped away, and the sleepers +and rails collapsing into the void presented a dismal picture of wreck.</p> +<p>Yes, we suffered one other privation. It was long before our +football-field rose again from the deeps, and was dry enough for play. +Its goalposts pricking up mournfully through the floods were a landmark +which the boys recognised with rueful eyes in the midst of the drowned +and deformed landscape.</p> +<p>More substantial measures than the patching up of the barricades +in which we assisted must be taken if Borth is to remain permanently +in the roll of Welsh villages. Our storm-wave was but part of +a system of aggression which the sea is carrying out upon these coasts. +Older residents remember a coach-road under the promontory, where now +there is nothing but rock and seaweed, and look forward gloomily to +a day when Borth will be “disturbed;” for so they euphemistically +describe the catastrophe which is finally to wash it away. But +an acquaintance of ours, who claims one of the longest memories in the +place, is more <!-- page 102--><a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>confident. +He has known Borth seventy years and as he has never seen it destroyed +during all that time, does not think it will be now. His own house +is safe on the hill of Old Borth, so he judges with all the calm of +conscious security. His conviction, however, is not shared by +his townsfolk, who were soon busy holding meetings, and considering +schemes for the provision of something better than these moral guarantees. +Heartily do we hope that funds and measures will be found to save our +friends from another and more calamitous “disturbance.” +But a letter from Borth, a year later, speaks of the sea as again threatening +their security. “We are not afraid of him, though,” +the correspondent, one of our landladies, devoutly adds, “for +he is under a Master.” All the same, we should like to hear +of a stout sea-wall as well.</p> +<p>Once again the elements caused us alarm. A heavy gale got up +in the evening of February 19th, and roared all night upon the roof +of the hotel, tearing up the fluttering tiles in patches, and sending +them adrift through the air, till the master who slept under the leads, +in charge of the top storey, began to doubt whether the straining roof +would last overhead till morning. It was small <!-- page 103--><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>consolation +that this time he and his neighbours should at least “die a dry +death,” so the inmates of the floor were summoned from their beds +in the small hours to spend the rest of the night in a bivouack on the +ground-floor. One or another of those luckless youngsters will, +in after days, remember, as a cheerful incident, the arrival on the +scene of the Headmaster, with a store of biscuits and such supplies +as could be requisitioned at the moment, to provision the watch. +Your schoolboy, he reflected, is hungry at all times; what must he be +at night when dragged from bed to save his life, and forced to sit up, +rather cold and very empty, for several hours before daybreak. +Solaced, however, by these beguilements, the hours passed cheerfully +away.</p> +<h2><!-- page 104--><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>CHAPTER +XII.—FAREWELL.</h2> +<blockquote><p> <i>The primal sympathy</i>,<br /> +<i>Which</i>, <i>having been</i>, <i>must ever be</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Wordsworth</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Thenceforward the weeks rolled smoothly on, unmarked by moving incident, +till they gladdened us with the growing light of spring, and brought +us within near sight of our home. Must the truth be told? +We are all of us loyal sons of Uppingham, but not all of us were glad +to find our return to the mother-country was at last arriving. +So far away from the offence, we need not fear attainder if we confess, +some few of us, that our hearts were not whole in their welcome of the +long-deferred event. It belonged to the irony that waits on all +lives which are not too dull a material for fortune’s jests, that +<!-- page 105--><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 105</span>we +should cease to desire our home just when long patience and often-thwarted +efforts, and</p> +<blockquote><p>The slow, sad hours which bring us all things ill,<br /> +And all good things from evil,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>had brought its coveted security at last within our reach. +For so it was with some of us. Perhaps the air of sea and mountain +had got into the blood, and infected it with a certain disrelish for +the restraints, the even decorum, and the tamer surroundings of our +life in the Midlands. Well, we are not the only emigrants who +have preferred their backwoods to the streets of the mother city, nor +the first campaigners who have come back to home-quarters a trifle spoiled +by adventure. And, moreover, while everything about us was a reminder +of what we must forego, there was nothing to tell us of what a greeting +our townsmen were preparing for us, or of the solid mutual good which +filled the vista beyond that auspicious welcome.</p> +<p>However, alike for those who were impatient and those who were half +reluctant to attain it, the equal-handed hours brought the end of our +exile. On one of our last evenings, April 6th, <!-- page 106--><a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 106</span>a +reading was given in the school-room, “A Midsummer Night’s +Dream” with Mendelssohn’s music; no unfit close, we said, +to our <i>annns mirabilis</i>. For, indeed, its incidents had +been “such stuff as dreams are made of,” as whimsical if +not quite as harmless, as if their plot had been directed by the blithe +goblin of Shakespeare’s fantasy. The chorus of readers and +of singers were so far encouraged by their success, as to offer a second +recital as a farewell entertainment to the good people of Borth. +They enjoyed it hugely. Doubtless some of the simpler members +of that audience would follow the drift of the Sassenach poet only at +a certain distance; but Bottom’s “transformed scalp,” +a pasteboard ass’s-head, come all the way from Nathan’s, +was eloquent without help of an interpreter. “Oh! that donkey, +he was beautiful,” was the dramatic criticism of an esteemed friend, +a fisher’s wife. The criticism was at least sincere; from +the moment of the monster’s entry she had been in one rapture +of laughter, till her “face was like a wet cloak ill laid up.” +Well, the kind soul had reason good enough for her merriment. +But had the reason been less, our neighbours would not have lost the +occasion of dropping the <!-- page 107--><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>shyness +of intercourse in a frank outburst of good fellowship.</p> +<p>But we took a more solemn farewell on the morrow, the 10th of April. +The parts were reversed now, and we were the spectators. Just +at sundown of a day of clear spring weather, the school was gathered +at their doors watching a long procession of villagers advancing up +the street towards them. We had heard whispers in the morning +of a “demonstration,” and now it was come. Through +the dust we caught sight of banners flying at the head of the column; +under them marched the choir of children singing, and behind them the +whole village was a-foot. The people of Borth, of every age and +degree, from the first householders and yeomen of the place to the fishermen’s +boys and girls, had come to wish us God speed. Reaching the school +quarters they halted, the boys lining the roadway on each side of them, +and filling the broad flight of steps before the hotel doors. +When the cheers for “Uppingham” and our answering cheers +for “Borth” had rung out across the sands to seaward, there +was an interval, filled up with songs by the children, while they waited +the arrival of the spokesmen, whom <!-- page 108--><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>they +had charged with their valediction. When these arrived, a deputation +of the villagers moved into the school-room shed, and there presented +a brief address, which ran thus: “We, the inhabitants of Borth, +beg to tender our most sincere thanks to Dr. Thring, and all the masters +and scholars of the celebrated Uppingham School, for the very many generous +acts and kindly feelings exhibited to us during their sojourn here.” +The address was introduced and explained by speeches marked by refined +feeling, and delivered with a noticeable grace of manner. We will +here cite, though for another reason, a few words of the speaker who +moved the address; he commented on the discipline which (from the evidence +of their conduct when at large) seemed to rule the school; naïvely +but pointedly he noted that no offence had ever been given; “No +boy had laughed at the villagers, if they were old and queer-looking +or queerly dressed; there had been no disorder, no shabby act, nothing +<i>un</i>decent” (so he put it in his unpractised English) “during +the whole twelve months we had spent among them.” We give +his testimony without note or comment, sure that the facts would not +be better told in words less simple. They were little things he +witnessed to; <!-- page 109--><a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>was +it a little thing that the witness could be truly borne?</p> +<p>The boys were not present to hear the speeches, but they will like +well to remember the scene without doors at that unlooked-for reunion +of school and village. It was a scene made up of homely elements +enough, but somehow, in our own memory at least, few pictures will remain +printed in such fast colours. Clearly, as on that evening, we +shall always see, distinct in the quiet light of the afterglow, the +ranks of serious faces, touched and stilled by the surprise of a contagious +sympathy, as English boys and Welsh cottagers looked each other in the +face, and felt, if for the space of a few heartbeats only, an outflash +of that ancient kinship which binds man and man together more than race +and circumstance divide.</p> +<p>It pleases the smaller kind of criticism to cheapen the meaning of +such incidents as this, and explain them by the easy reference to interested +and conventional motives. Wiser men will take occasion to rejoice +that human nature is after all so kind; and if this be error, we would +rather err with the wise. Take once again our thanks, kind people +of Borth, if our thanks are worth your taking. You showed us no +little kindness in a <!-- page 110--><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>strange +land, and the day is far off when we shall forget the friendly, gentle +people whose name is the memorial of a great ill escaped, of much good +enjoyed, in the days that are over, and the landmark of who knows what +greater good in the days that are to be.</p> +<h2><!-- page 111--><a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 111</span>CONCLUSION.</h2> +<blockquote><p><i>Perhaps poetry and romance are as plentiful as ever +in the world</i>, <i>except for those phlegmatic natures</i>, <i>who</i>, +<i>I suspect</i>, <i>would in any age have regarded them as a dull form +of erroneous thinking</i>. <i>They exist very easily in the same +room with the microscope</i>, <i>and even in railway carriages</i>: +<i>what banishes them is the vacuum in gentleman and lady passengers</i>. +<i>How should all the apparatus of heaven and earth</i>, <i>from the +farthest firmament to the tender bosom of the mother who nourished us</i>, +<i>make poetry for a mind that has no movements of awe and tenderness</i>, +<i>no sense of fellowship which thrills from the near to the distant, +and back again from the distant to the near</i>?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">George Eliot</span>.</p> +<p>αλλα θεος +τοι και θεοyεννης,<br /> +ημεις δε βροτοι +και θνητοyενεις.<br /> +καιτοι φθιμενω +τοις ισοθεοις<br /> +εyκληρα λαχειν +yεy’ ακουσαι.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Antigone</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>All is over now; April was just a twelfth-night old when the school +departed. Some of our company have lingered on for business, a +few from reluctance to have done with it. But to-day <!-- page 112--><a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>the +last group has taken wing for the Midlands. Old “Borth,” +the colley dog, followed them to the station, and poked his nose into +the carriage to take his leave. Old Borth—we had almost +forgotten him, and that had been deep ingratitude for he was not the +least warm-hearted of our friends in Wales. His master lived two +miles away; but soon after our arrival, Borth had come down from the +hills to attach himself to our fortunes, and henceforth became, as it +were, our familiar, the pet of the regiment, like the goat of the “23rd.” +He knew his position, and was a stickler for formalities; he had a wag +of the tail for every boy who wore the image of the venerable schoolmaster +upon his cap; but if he met him bare-headed, or, by any chance, in an +indistinctive head-gear, he would cut that boy dead, were he never so +much the same urchin from whose hand he had yesterday eaten a cheese-cake. +That was his official rebuke for the irregularity. By day, Borth +would bask in some sunny corner of our quarters; at night, he has been +known to venture on a nearer intimacy where doors were left open. +We found you once ourselves, Borth, curled up and asleep upon our own +bed. You woke up, shook yourself with a modest, but not startled +<!-- page 113--><a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 113</span>manner, +and walked quietly away, like a gentleman.</p> +<p>Ah! kind friend, you showed us the sincerest of flatteries, that +of imitation. You left a comfortable home for chance quarters +and uncertain fare, that you might be one of us, an outcast among outcasts. +Now we must part, for our home will spare us no longer, as neither will +yours spare you. And so the last good-bye is said, and you are +limping away to your hills again, with dejection expressed in every +fibre of your frame, from the drooping ears to the last hair on your +tail.</p> +<p>All is over, and the place is very silent, except for the clink of +hammers where they are breaking down our wooden walls, and, seaward, +the cry and splash of gull and tern dipping for their prey in the shoal +of herring-fry which is wandering about the bay. Close inshore +a porpoise is wallowing, like the jolly sea-pig that he is, in his berth +of glistening water. The wild creatures seem to have grown tamer +since there are no strollers to keep them aloof. This morning, +as we passed his pool, the stately heron let us come within twenty yards +of him before he got leisurely upon the wing. The village seems +even quieter; the people at their doors betray, to our fancy, a certain +lassitude <!-- page 114--><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span>as +if, like merrymakers on the morrow of a revel, they felt somewhat sleepy +and sorry, now that the stirring social year is over, and the little +fishing town has returned to its “old solitary nothingness.”</p> +<p>Yes, the silence has come down again; but it is a silence full of +voices. For, as it often happens that, when things without are +stillest, men hear most audibly the tumult of their own brains, so is +it now with us. Action is ended, and memory begins to work. +Into the vacuum which the silence makes, the stream of our little history +pours in a long backwater. Our thoughts go back to the beginning +of it, the hour when, as we were sailing prosperously under press of +canvas, the blast struck us suddenly out of a sunny sky. We live +again the slow months of enforced vacation, and the brief spell of apparent +security, broken by the second stroke. We recall the slow and +painful sickening of hope, amid the frustration of attempted remedies; +the watchings and communings by late firesides; the morning questionings +and bulletins; the deepening of fears, until the moment when the sharp +pressure of calamity became the liberating touch, and made a hazardous +adventure seem a welcome alternative. Not less <!-- page 115--><a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 115</span>distinctly +we remember the zest with which the wretched waiting for evil tidings +was exchanged for hopeful activity; the rush of preparations; the anxiety +which watched their passage through the ordeal of practice; the growing +sense of security; the mellowing down of novelty and privation into +routine and ease; the contrast, all the while, between the outward peace +of the colony, and the secret difficulties of finance and commissariat; +the long intermittent crisis which gave the administrative no rest; +the hopes and efforts for our return home, and the reversal of them; +all this, and—and—very much else as well, which was of acutest +interest at the time, and which it will become convenient to describe +only when it will be of interest to no one. All this passes before +us in the series of a long dissolving view, full of bright lights, and +only less full of unlovely shadows.</p> +<p>And, somehow, as we review the past this evening, pacing the beach +in the twilight, the fact accomplished seems to us not smaller, but +greater than when we lived in it. There are moments some would +say of illusion, some of vision—when the things most familiar +to our eyes and thoughts, whether in nature or human society, surprise +us <!-- page 116--><a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>with +a dignity and beauty not discovered in them before. That glamour +is in the air this evening. Perhaps the night-wind, which creeps +to us from over the grassy tomb of Taliesin, warrior and bard has touched +the fancy with a breath out of his heroic days. What wonder if +it were so? Thirteen centuries ago the hero became the guardian +of the shore; but the story which ends to-day is, perhaps, as worthy +note as any he has watched from his hill-side. Those who rate +the dignity of human action by other standards than the breadth and +conspicuousness of its stage, will not mock us because we find some +stuff of romance in the homely circumstance and not always epic passages +of this modern episode of school.</p> +<p>But if the stranger who may read the tale will spare his scorn—those +for whom we shall tell it would forgive even a bolder word; for some +of them were themselves a part of it, and others will make it a part +of their heritage in the past. English schools have always honoured +their traditions, counting them the better part of their wealth. +Some have majestic memories of royal benefactors, or can point to a +muster-roll of splendid names, whose greatness was cradled in their +walls. Such traditions <!-- page 117--><a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 117</span>are +not ours. A past, not brief, but not memorable, has denied us +these. But a tradition we have henceforward which is all our own +and wholly single in its kind. We persuade ourselves that in far-off +years those who bear our name will say that, in the memory of a great +disaster overcome, no mean heirloom has been left them. They will +not be ashamed of a generation which, in an hour of extreme peril, did +not despair of the commonwealth, but dared to trust their faith in a +further destiny, and saved for those who should come after them a cause +which must else have perished in the dark. <i>Stet fortuna domus</i>. +And stand it will if there is assurance in augury. For the fairy +legend has a truth in fact, and the luck of a house, grasped daringly +and held fast in an act of venturous hardihood, will not break or be +lost again until the sons forget to guard it.</p> +<p>Here and there, at any rate, among the posterity which will sometime +fill our ranks, there will not be wanting generous and gifted spirits, +<i>illustres animæ nostrumque in nomen iturae</i>, who will rejoice +in making good the forecast that the venture was not made in vain. +They will possess more worthily the good which an elder <!-- page 118--><a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>race +foresaw and laboured not all unworthily to preserve. To their +safe keeping we commend as under a seal, the legacy of hopes which are +better left unspoken now.</p> +<h2><!-- page 119--><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>APPENDIX.</h2> +<h3>HOW WE LEFT BORTH.</h3> +<p>(<i>From</i> “<i>The Cambrian News</i>.”)</p> +<p>On Tuesday evening, April 10, the inhabitants of Borth, almost to +a man, turned out to take part in a farewell demonstration to the masters +and scholars of Uppingham School, after their twelve months’ residence +in Wales. Shortly after seven o’clock a procession of the +inhabitants was formed, and, headed by a flag-bearer, made its way to +the square in front of the Cambrian Hotel, where several songs were +sung by the assembly under the schoolmaster’s (Mr. Jones’s) +direction; and at the conclusion a hearty round of cheers was given +for the Uppingham School, who immediately responded by making the place +ring again with three enthusiastic cheers for Borth. The assembly +then adjourned to the wooden building in the hotel-yard, when Mr. Jones, +Brynowen, was voted to the chair on the proposition of Mr. Lewis, Post +Office, seconded by Mr. Jones, Neptune Baths.</p> +<p>The <span class="smcap">Chairman</span> said, as the meeting was +aware, the object of the demonstration—and he was exceedingly +glad to see such a popular demonstration—was, that the Borth people +might have a chance of giving public expression to the kind feeling +of respect they entertained for Mr. Thring, the masters, and scholars +of Uppingham <!-- page 120--><a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 120</span>School +before they left Borth, after a twelve months’ sojourn there. +(Cheers.) When some twelve months ago a rumour came to Borth respecting +the advent of Uppingham School, a few old women and nervous people, +in the innocence of their hearts, were afraid they would be swamped +by an inundation of Goths and Vandals. (Laughter.) The meeting +would, however, agree with him that kinder-hearted gentlemen than the +masters, and better-behaved boys than the scholars, could not be found. +(Hear, hear.) There had been no town-and-gown feeling existing +similar to what prevailed in places of greater pretensions. The +people of the village and the School had pulled together in a friendly +manner, and everything had gone on quite smoothly. (Hear.) +After referring to the progress of the School under the headmastership +of Mr. Thring, and remarking that the older schools would have to look +to their laurels, as Uppingham was treading close upon their heels, +the Chairman said that in some fifteen or twenty years to come many +of the boys would be in Parliament, some of them officers in the army +or navy, fighting the battles of the nation, some of them would be barristers, +seeing that the people got fair play in the courts of law, others would +no doubt be eminent merchants, importing the produce of foreign countries, +whilst others would be surgeons, like Dr. Childs—(loud cheering)—and +physicians. They would therefore exercise an influence over the +destinies of the nation. (Cheers.) The people of Borth were +exceedingly sorry that the school was going away. Its members +would be missed very much indeed. He owed the Uppingham people +no ill-feeling, but if a case of smallpox, the cholera, or some other +virulent disease broke out in that place and prevented the return of +the school, he was sure that <!-- page 121--><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 121</span>Borth +people would not feel at all sorry. (Laughter and cheers.) +There was the name of a gentleman whom he might mention. That +gentleman had earned the gratitude of the Borth people perhaps more +than anyone else. He referred to Dr. Childs. (Applause.) +He had acted the part of the Good Samaritan thoroughly, responding as +readily to the call of the sick and suffering at midnight as at noon. +(Cheers.) He would detain them no longer, but ask Mr. Lewis to +submit a proposition to the meeting.</p> +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Lewis</span>, Post Office, said he had very +great pleasure in reading the resolution, because he knew it would be +heartily responded to by everyone present. It was as follows:—“We, +the inhabitants of Borth, beg to tender our most sincere thanks to Dr. +Thring, and all the masters and scholars of the celebrated Uppingham +School, for the very many generous acts and kindly feelings exhibited +towards us during their sojourn here.” Mr. Lewis followed +by commenting upon the excellent discipline which evidently ruled the +school, judging from their exemplary conduct out of school. He +was not aware of any shabby, mean, or ungenerous act committed by the +young gentlemen during the whole twelve months they had been at Borth. +(Applause.) The meeting would remember the assistance rendered +in the terrific storm in February. Even the ladies came out and +helped the people in their distress—(loud applause)—thereby +setting an excellent example to the women of Borth. (Cheers.) +They had not only worked as hard as they could, but subscribed money +among themselves which they distributed to the most needy of those who +had sustained loss by the storm. (Applause.) The money then +distributed would pass into other hands in a short time, but the kind +feelings the act engendered would last <!-- page 122--><a name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 122</span>for +ever. (Applause.) He only hoped that each and all connected +with Uppingham School would enjoy long, prosperous, and useful lives. +(Loud applause.)</p> +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Jones</span>, The Baths, expressed the fears +he once entertained, in common with others, that the Uppingham School +would take Borth by storm, an opinion he had to change entirely after +the boys had been there a week, for instead of laughing at the quaintness +of some of the Welsh costumes or the peculiarities of the nation, they +had obtained the goodwill of the inhabitants by their gentleness of +demeanour, and completely won their hearts on that memorable day when +masters and scholars, young and old, turned out to assist in reducing, +as much as possible, the ill-effects of the storm. (Cheers.) +He did not exactly wish that some contagious disease would break out +at Uppingham, but he hoped that when the School got back it would repent, +and so return to Borth. (Laughter and cheers.)</p> +<p>Speeches were also made by Mr. Thomas G. Thomas and Mr. R. Pritchard +Roberts, Garibaldi House.</p> +<p>The Rev. E. <span class="smcap">Thring</span>, M.A., then rose amid +cheers and said: Mr. Chairman and our friends at Borth, I have made +many speeches in my life since I have been master of this school. +Two-and-twenty years of school-mastering gives a good deal of exercise +for the tongue from time to time; but never in my life have I stood +up to make any speech which I feel so little capable of making as I +do to-night; not from want of practice, but because the feelings you +have aroused in us are such—and our sojourn here has been such +a boon to us (cheers)—that it is impossible for me to tell you +the value we set on living here, and the welcome we have received. +(Applause.) I never heard anything sweeter to my ear <!-- page 123--><a name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 123</span>than +your singing to-night. The time it must have taken, the goodwill +manifested in the songs, and altogether the circumstances under which +they were delivered, and we on our last day here, made them go down +into my heart, and into all our hearts with peculiar power. (Cheers.) +Never in my life have I had such testimony to the school which I cared +so much for, as the testimony you have given to-night. We get +our reputation in the English world, but what is that compared to the +inner life to which you have borne witness. What signifies it +whether we know much or little in comparison with the fact that we have +a character of life which you like. It is life answering unto +life across all those ties, both of nationality—for I grieve I +cannot speak in your native tongue—and also of distance which +set gulfs between man and man, but cannot separate life when it is true. +(Hear, hear.) If your life is true, and our lives are true, then +it flows across and we meet as to-night one united body of living men. +(Cheers.) And this is what gives a peculiar value to our being +here. You know as none can know what this school is. We +came among you as strangers, and you looked upon us with the eyes of +strangers; we stayed among you as friends, and we part from you as friends. +(Cheers.) Everybody knows that the one thing on earth which makes +life pleasant is the friendly atmosphere in which men live—the +one thing that makes it hateful is to be surrounded by thoroughly bitter +hearts. There is an old saying that “stone walls do not +a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.” No, the life within +can make any place enjoyable—nay, happy. Yet, I think it +is better to be in happy surroundings too. Of this, however, you +may be sure: those glorious hills of yours, this sea, and <!-- page 124--><a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>all +the happy hours we have spent wandering about, will not easily pass +out of our minds. The jewel of a friendly spirit has also been +set in very bright surroundings. We do rejoice in the life we +have had here, and all that we have found. (Cheers.) You +have spoken to-night of the good conduct of the school, and have said +that we have caused no trouble since our stay here. That like +many other questions, has two sides. Is it not a great credit +to this place that when between a hundred and seventy and a hundred +and eighty strange boys have been put into your cottages and homes, +there has not arisen a single difficulty for the whole year? I +say it is quite as much a feather in your caps as in ours. I am +proud of it—very proud of it. (Applause.) I would +also refer to the extensive power which lies in a great school. +It is quite true that some few years hence, these boys whom you have +looked on with interest will be schoolmasters, barristers, and leaders +in every part of the world. (Applause.) There is not a quarter +of the globe where we have not our representative. It is now, +and not in the future only, that I may venture to say that there is +no part of this globe where men are to be found, where, here and there, +Borth has not been heard of this year. (Cheers.) I will +mention two facts only which may interest you. This very week, +quite unconscious of this meeting to-night, I sent a letter to North +Canada, with, I may say, a very glowing account of Borth in it—(cheers)—and +the day before yesterday, having a little leisure, I wrote to the Lieutenant-Governor +of the North-West Provinces of India, when I mentioned Borth in equally +warm terms. (Applause.) That, I need not say, is going on +all around us. These three hundred pens of our school are busy +day <!-- page 125--><a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 125</span>by +day giving to their friends their own views of our life here, and I +may no doubt say that on the whole they are pleasant views. (Cheers.) +It is not only a pleasant fact to mention, but I hold that where life +is working well with life it is a real power for good that goes out +into all lands, a sort of missionary force traversing this earth, speaking +of us as capable of coming here, and of the welcome you have given us. +(Hear, hear.) That, however, would be a slight thing if we did +not leave behind us, as I am sure we do, that feeling of happy life +which we take away with us. (Cheers.) For my own part, at +all events, if I leave, it is not the last time I hope to spend in Borth. +(Applause.) I know no place that has been more attractive to me, +no place where, if I can, I shall more readily come back to—not, +I hope, next time as an exile, but coming from home to happy holiday +to spend it pleasantly among my friends here. (Applause.)</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Lewis</span> proposed a hearty vote of thanks +to Dr. Childs for his gratuitous attendance on the sick in his professional +capacity. (Loud cheers.)</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Childs</span> referred to the pleasure experienced +in doing a kindly action, and afterwards humorously added that at one +time he thought of setting up in practice at Borth, but finding the +place so healthy he had given up the idea. (Laughter and cheers.) +He should, however, know where to send his convalescent patients in +future. He should recommend them to take the first train, and +spend a week on the sands at Borth, with an occasional dip in the Neptune +Baths. (Loud laughter and cheers.) Three cheers were given +for the ladies of Uppingham School, and the assembly separated after +singing the National Anthem.</p> +<h3><!-- page 126--><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 126</span>HOW +WE CAME BACK TO UPPINGHAM.</h3> +<p>(<i>From the</i> <span class="smcap">School Magazine</span>.)</p> +<p>(<i>Signifer, statue signum, hic manebimus optime</i>.)</p> +<p>Who has not known the moment when, as he looked on some familiar +landscape, its homely features and sober colouring have suddenly, under +some chance inspiration of the changing sky, become alive with an unexpected +beauty: its unambitious hills take on them the dignity of mountains, +its woods and streams swell and broaden with a majesty not their own. +Though, perhaps, it is their own, if Nature, like Man, is most herself +when seen in her best self; if her brightest moments are her truest.</p> +<p>Shall we be thought fanciful if we confess that we felt something +of this same kind when, returning from a year-long exile, in the last +gleams of a bright May evening we turned the corner of the High Street +of Uppingham, and came face to face with our welcome. The old +street, seen again at last after so many months of banishment, the same +and not the same; the old, homely street—forgive us, walls and +roofs of Uppingham, and forgive us, you who tenant them, if sometimes +perhaps to some of us, as our eyes swept the grand range of Welsh mountain-tops, +or travelled out over limitless sea distances, there would rise forbidden +feelings of reluctance to exchange these fair things for the bounded +views and less unstinted beauties of our midland home: forgive us, as +you may the more readily because these thoughts, if any such lingered, +were charmed away on the instant by the sight of the real Uppingham. +There lay the path to our home, an avenue of triumphal arches soaring +on pillars of greenery, plumed with sheaves of banners, and enscrolled +with such words as those to whom they spoke <!-- page 127--><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 127</span>will +know how to read and remember. Our eyes could follow through arch +after arch the reaches of the gently-winding street, alive from end +to end with waving flags, green boughs, and fanciful devices, till the +quiet golden light in the western sky closed the vista, and glorified +with such a touch of its own mellow splendour the ranges of brown gables +and their floating banners, that for a moment we half dreamed ourselves +spectators of an historic pageant in some “dim, rich city” +of old-world renown. Only for a moment, though; for when we drop +our eyes to the street below us, those are our own townsfolk, well-remembered +faces, that throng every doorstep and fill the overflowing pavements +and swarming roadway. Yes, they are our own townsfolk, and they +are taking care to let us know it—such a welcome they have made +ready for us.</p> +<p>We hardly know how to describe with the epic dignity which it merits +the act by which they testified their joy at our return. We who +saw the sight were reminded of an incident in the Æneid—</p> +<blockquote><p>Instar montis equum divina Palladis arte<br /> +Aedificant, sectaque intexunt abiete costas;<br /> +Votum pro reditu simulant.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p> Pueri circum innuptaeque puellae<br /> +Sacra canuut, funemque manu contingere gaudent.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But the ill-starred folk of Troy could not have shown more enthusiasm +in haling within their walls the fatal wooden horse, than did the men +and boys of Uppingham, who harnessed themselves, some four-score of +them, to that guileless structure, which, though indeed it has some +other name, we will call at present our triumphal car. They harnessed +themselves to it at the <!-- page 128--><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>east-end +of the town, and drew it with the pomp of a swarming multitude all the +length of the long street to its western mouth and half the way back +again. On went that unwieldy car of triumph, bearing a freight +of eager faces behind its windows, and carrying a crowd of sitters, +precariously clustered wherever a perch could be found on its swaying +roof, under the verdant span of the arches and the flow of the streamers:</p> +<blockquote><p>Ilia subit mediæque minans inlabitur urbi.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>On it went, with the hum of applauding voices increasing round it, +till the popular fervour found articulate utterance in a burst of jubilant +music. There swept past our ears, first, the moving strains of +“Auld lang syne,” and then, as if in answer to the appeal +to “Auld acquaintance,” came the jocund chorus “There +is nae luck about the house”—most eloquent assurance that +we were welcome home. And then in turn the music died down, and +the crowd round the now halted procession cheered with a will for “the +school,” “the Headmaster and the masters,” and the +school taking up with zest the genial challenge, returned the blessing +with such a shout as if they meant the echoes of that merry evening +to make amends in full to street and houses for their fourteen months +of silence.</p> +<p>It was “all over but the shouting:” but that was not +over till some hours of dusk had gathered over school and town. +For first the multitude besieged the well-known mighty gates, behind +which lies the studious quiet of the Schoolhouse Quad. When they +were admitted they came in like a flood, and filled the space within; +but for all they were so many, there was an orderliness and quietude +in the strange assemblage which made their <!-- page 129--><a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 129</span>presence +there seem not strange at all, and they listened like one man to the +words in which the Headmaster, who came out to meet them, framed his +thanks for this unequivocal welcome. This done, they flowed out +again, and streamed across the valley and up the hill to carry the same +message of goodwill to the distant houses, and so with more cheering +and more speeches came to an end a day of happiest omen for the joint +fortunes of Uppingham School and Town.</p> +<p>A few additional details are needed to complete our account. +A friend, remarkable for his plain common-sense, reminds us that the +epic vehicle we so indistinctly describe, was the Seaton ’bus, +and that the music was due to “the splendid band connected with +Mrs. Edmonds’ menagerie, which happened to be in the town.” +We are not in a position to deny either statement, or another to the +effect that “the conveyances which accompanied the ’bus +formed a procession of considerable length,” having been halted +by arrangement outside the town, and formed into file for the entry. +When the same friend hazards some further criticism on a confusion of +dates and incidents in our narrative, in which he finds the events of +two days, a Friday and a Saturday, presented as in a single scene, we +feel it time to silence him by an appeal, which he does not follow, +to the “truer historic sense” and the “massive grouping” +of imaginative history.</p> +<h3>THE ADDRESS.</h3> +<p>On Tuesday of the next week, May 8, an address was presented by a +deputation of the townspeople to the Headmaster and assistant masters. +The ceremony took place in the school-room, the body of which was almost +<!-- page 130--><a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 130</span>filled +by those who had assembled to support their deputation, while the masters, +their families, and the Sixth Form were seated on the tiers of the orchestra. +The deputation coming forward, Mr. Bell said that Mr. Hawthorn and himself +had been requested by their fellow townsmen to undertake the presentation +of an address, in explanation of which he would make a few remarks. +In an appreciative speech he reviewed the circumstances which had given +rise to the present occasion, gave some explanation of the form and +terms of the address, and took occasion to add that although the ladies +were not mentioned in the address, the townspeople were not unmindful +of the energetic way in which they had seconded the efforts of the masters.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Hawthorn</span> said he had been asked to +read the Address, but that he was unwilling to do so without some slight +expression of the feelings with which he and others took part in the +presentation of it. Though they were met to congratulate the school, +they felt, he said, that there were good grounds to congratulate themselves +as townsmen. The absence of the school had pressed with greater +or less severity on many tradesmen, being felt more especially by a +large number of the poorer inhabitants, and had made it evident to many +how poor a place Uppingham would be without a school upon its present +important scale. But they valued the School on other grounds too; +they recognize the advantage of the presence among them of so many representatives +of liberal education and its broader views on matters of public interest. +To the Headmaster it must be a cause for rejoicing and thankfulness +that the labour of his life had been saved from a sudden and unfortunate +conclusion. To him and his assistant masters, the parents, and +the <!-- page 131--><a name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>boys, +by whose loyal adherence the time of trial had been happily passed through, +their congratulations were offered. He proceeded to read the address, +which was received with much applause by the townspeople. It is +a handsomely illuminated document, to which between sixty and seventy +names are attached; the terms of it are as follows:</p> +<p>“<i>To the Rev. Edward Thring, M.A., Headmaster, and to the +Assistant Masters of Uppingham School</i>.</p> +<p>“Gentlemen,—We, the undersigned residents in Uppingham, +have great pleasure in meeting you with a hearty welcome on the re-assembling +of the school in full numbers in its native home, and gladly avail ourselves +of this opportunity of conveying to you our congratulations that the +period of anxiety and trial through which you have so successfully passed +has clearly demonstrated the sound principles upon which the school +has been conducted, and which have raised it to its present eminence +as one of the great schools of the country, and have won for it the +confidence of parents in all parts of the kingdom, many of whom have +entrusted their sons to your care at Borth, and are continuing that +trust now that you are returning to your homes.</p> +<p>“We desire also to express our sense of the courage and enterprise +manifested in removing the school from Uppingham at the time of the +anxious crisis in February, 1876.</p> +<p>“And we pray Almighty God that it may please Him to bless the +school, and that under His guidance those who from time to time leave +the school may as scholars and Christian gentlemen uphold its fame in +whatever sphere they may be placed.</p> +<p>“<i>Uppingham</i>, <i>May</i>, 1877.”</p> +<p><!-- page 132--><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 132</span>The +<span class="smcap">Headmaster</span> then rose and said: “Mr. +Bell, Mr. Hawthorn, and friends in Uppingham,—Home is home, and +you may be quite sure that we, at all events, who went through exile +felt it indeed to be home when we came back again. (Applause.) +It does not signify what the circumstances may be, but it is not possible +to live long in a place and to have your home there without taking root +in it, and having fibres sent deep which cannot be torn up without pain. +(Applause.) We are very grateful, therefore, for the hearty, the +enthusiastic welcome you gave us on our return. (Cheers.) +Assuredly as our eyes looked on this pleasant hill and the familiar +fields, we felt a deep thankfulness for the great peril passed, the +page of life turned, and a year such as never can come again closed +with success. (Applause.) And it is a pleasant spot to look +on when you come down the dip of the valley before you near Uppingham, +and look up and see the ancient homes crowning the brow of the hill—it +is a fair sight to any eye, even to a stranger’s eye, the pleasant +homes of Uppingham, with the church and its spire in the midst, the +spire of the school chapel beyond, each adding, methinks, to the beauty +of the other, and both alike in their upward spring and their holy worship. +It <i>is</i> a pleasant spot to look on, and you made your old picturesque +street very beautiful with your decorations and that bright outbreak +of welcome which greeted us as we came in. (Cheers.) The +school hardly knew what we meant—they did not know when we asked +them to cheer at the top of the hill; but as the stream of life wound +round and came in sight of that avenue of arches and flags, then they +understood what was meant, and they were ready enough to second it. +(Cheers.) We were very thankful, also, that you recognise in that +<!-- page 133--><a name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>address—that +able address and pleasing to receive—how hard it was to go, how +great a risk had to be faced to save the school; for that was what was +at stake. I do not say that in years to come there should not +again have been a school as great as this, or greater; but this I am +sure of, that we were in the very last week of the life of this present +school; that at the beginning of the week, when it was decided to go, +there was news from different quarters that made it absolutely certain +that another Monday would have seen no school here. For a school +is not a mere machine which can be set going to order, and which anybody +who happens at the time to have the mastery of can deal with like a +machine. “I can call spirits from the vasty deep,” +says Shakespeare in one of his plays; and the rejoinder comes, “Why, +so can I, or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for +them?” (Laughter and cheers.) Now that is just what +they won’t do; and we simply had no choice; we lay absolutely +helpless before the fact that ruin stared us in the face, and we could +not stir hand or foot to stop it unless we had been able then to find +a door of escape. This present school was at an end, and neither +I nor some others amongst us could have set foot again in Uppingham +as our home. Now I do assure you ruin is a hard thing to look +on after a life-work of many years of labour—not a less hard thing +because the sun rose as usual, and it was all peace, and the buildings +looked as of old, and the fields were just as they had always been; +but an invisible barrier had risen up, and we had no place here any +more. To see the four-and-twenty years of life go at a touch—indeed +it was hard to think of. “For my part, I have built my heart +in the courses of the wall”—(cheers)—and nothing short +of this impelled us <!-- page 134--><a name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 134</span>to +that dire necessity of leaping in the dark, to go we did not know where, +and when we found the <i>where</i>, not knowing who would follow us. +But it was worth while to run any risk—to face any danger—to +keep together the life of this place, and that its name should not go +out in England. (Loud cheers.) We did not know who would +follow us, and it was a day to be remembered—a day of much cheer, +though full of labour and trial and fear also, when on that 4th of April +three hundred came in. (Loud applause.) Not above two or +three that night were wanting of those who were going to remain at the +school. (Cheers.) Well have you taken in your address that +staunch adherence of parent and boy as the proudest honour that a school +can boast of (cheers), and well have you noted that at Borth also the +entries kept level with the leavings, and that we have brought back +this year—this day—almost a hundred boys who had never seen +Uppingham. (Renewed cheering.) This was worth fighting for; +this is worth rejoicing. The school was saved, and we and you +to-night once more meet together as one body. (Loud applause.) +We are united now as we never have been before methinks (cheers); for +never before, to my knowledge, in England, have town and school been +so completely welded together as your welcome to us home and our presence +here together to-night shows us to be now. (Loud and long-continued +applause.) There have been many blessings in this great trial, +but certainly not least do I set that, that we and you are once more +met as one. Your work and ours is so mixed up—our work so +mixed with yours, and yours with ours—that it is not possible +that anything should go out of this place, any life come forth from +it, which does <!-- page 135--><a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>not +to a great degree bring honour or discredit to both; and I do think +(what was said to-night) that we are here together to work in the highest +way, not as a matter of pecuniary advantage only in a place like this, +but simply that we, one with another, should push forward life and make +it crown that living edifice of truth, which, as it seems to me, is +town and school working together. And what a type that town is. +“A city set upon a hill cannot be hid;” and surely as a +school and a home, a home of learning and light, this place is both +actually and figuratively set upon its hill. Everything of the +past year has gone out into land after land, in letters and papers and +narratives on all sides: the busy-boy mind and the busy-boy pen photographs +most accurately all the minute incidents that interest their opening +life, and it passes out everywhere. I know that in India, and +China, and Australia, and Canada—and I might go on with half the +countries in the world—there has been talk in many a distant home +of what has happened here. It may very well be that at this moment +your names are on many lips as letters of English news have come in +lately from England, and your welcome of us will travel out to the ends +of the earth, so great is the power of “a city set upon a hill.” +And when you pray that we may be Christian gentlemen in the life that +is coming, I say it lies a great deal in your own hands. Help +us by so smoothing our path in all ways so that your honour may be our +honour and your work our work, and that as we are grateful to you to-night +so the world outside may be grateful to you also for work hereafter, +and that none shall go out of Uppingham School and shall not carry wherever +he goes a thankful memory of Uppingham town, and that whenever the name +of Uppingham is <!-- page 136--><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span>heard +in any part of the world it shall be that of an honoured place, with +no divided interest, but one place working wisely, so that the world +may be grateful for good work done, as we to-night are grateful for +the welcome given, grateful for the lightening of our burdens, grateful +for the possibility of good work in the future, most grateful for the +happy homes you have given us in welcoming us home so fervently. +I thank you most heartily in the name of the school and the masters +and myself for this address, which I trust will for ever remain not +the least honoured relic of this school.”</p> +<p>The Headmaster sat down again amid much cheering from the audience +of townspeople, to which the small party of boys present found voice +to make no ineffective answer in three salutes ‘for Uppingham +town.’</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p><span class="smcap">charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press</span>.</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote12"></a><a href="#citation12">{12}</a> “Prom. +Vinct.,” 904.</p> +<p><a name="footnote19"></a><a href="#citation19">{19}</a> <i>The +Times</i>, Friday, April 14th, 1876.</p> +<p><a name="footnote46"></a><a href="#citation46">{46}</a> “Fifty +Years of my Life,” Albemarle, p. 308.</p> +<p><a name="footnote66"></a><a href="#citation66">{66}</a> Believers +in augury are too seldom confronted with the negative instance. +May we then invite their attention to the following? The address +was published in a paragraph of <i>The Times</i>, but the words “under +the same leadership” were omitted. Nevertheless, to the +discredit of omination, under the same leadership the school did return.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UPPINGHAM BY THE SEA***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 18036-h.htm or 18036-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/3/18036 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Uppingham by the Sea + a Narrative of the Year at Borth + + +Author: John Henry Skrine + + + +Release Date: March 22, 2006 [eBook #18036] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UPPINGHAM BY THE SEA*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1878 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +UPPINGHAM BY THE SEA. + + +A Narrative of the Year at Borth. + +BY +J. H. S. + +[Greek text]. + +London: +MACMILLAN AND CO. + +1878. +[_All Rights reserved_.] + +CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, +CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. + +EDUARDO THRING, + +_SCHOLAE UPPINGHAMIENSIS CONDITORI ALTERI_, +_OB CIVES SERVATOS_: + +ET + +MAGISTRIS ADJUTORIBUS, +QUI, +SALUTE COMMUNI IN ULTIMUM ADDUCTA DISCRIMEN, +DE RE PUBLICA +NON DESPERAVERUNT. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +In the spring of 1876 and of 1877, letters under the heading "Uppingham +by the Sea" were published in _The Times_ newspaper, and were read with +interest by friends of the school. We have thought the following +narrative would be best introduced to those readers under a name already +pleasantly familiar to them, and have borrowed, with the writer's +permission, the title of his sketches for our own more detailed account +of the same events. + +The readers whom we have in view will demand no apology for the attempt +to supply a circumstantial record of so memorable an episode in the +school's history. It deserves indeed an abler historian; but one +qualification at any rate may be claimed by the present writer: an eye- +witness from first to last, but a minor actor only in the scenes he +chronicles, he enjoyed good opportunities of watching the play, and risks +no personal modesty in relating what he saw. + +The best purpose of the narrative will have been served if any Uppingham +boy, as he reads these pages, finds in them a new reason for loyalty to +the society whose name he bears. + +JUNE 27TH, 1878, +FOUNDER'S DAY. + + + + +CHAPTER I.--EXILES, OLD AND NEW. + + + "_O what have we ta'en_?" _said the fisher-prince_, + "_What have we ta'en this morning's tide_? + _Get thee down to the wave_, _my carl_, + _And row me the net to the meadow's-side_." + + _In he waded, the fisher-carl_, + _And_ "_Here_," _quoth he_, "_is a wondrous thing_! + _A cradle_, _prince_, _and a fair man-child_, + _Goodly to see as the son of a king_!" + + _The fisher-prince he caught the word_, + _And_ "_Hail_," _he cried_, "_to the king to be_! + _Stranger he comes from the storm and the night_; + _But his fame shall wax, and his name be bright_, + _While the hills look down on the Cymry sea_." + + FINDING OF TALIESIN. + +Elphin, son of Gwyddno, the prince who ruled the coasts between the Dovey +and the Ystwith, came down on a May-day morning to his father's fishing- +weir. All that was taken that morning was to be Elphin's, had Gwyddno +said. Not a fish was taken that day; and Elphin, who was ever a luckless +youth, would have gone home empty-handed, but that one of his men found, +entangled in the poles of the weir, a coracle, and a fair child in it. +This was none other than he who was to be the father of Cymry minstrelsy, +and whom then and there his rescuers named Taliesin, which means Radiant +Brow. His mother, Ceridwen, seeking to be rid of her infant, but loath +to have the child's blood on her head, had launched him in this sea proof +cradle, to take the chance of wind and wave. The spot where he came to +land bears at this day the name of Taliesin. On the hill-top above it +men show the grave where the bard reposes and "glories in his namesake +shore." + +* * * * * + +There is something magnetic in a famous site: it attracts again a like +history to the old stage. Thirteen centuries and a half after the +finding of Taliesin, the same shore became once again an asylum for other +outcasts, whose fortunes we propose to chronicle. + +But since the day when they drifted to land the cradle of the bard, the +waves have ebbed away from Gwyddno's weir, and left a broad stretch of +marsh and meadow between it and the present coast, where stands the +fishing village of Borth. The village fringes the sea-line with half a +mile of straggling cottages; but the eye is caught at once by a massive +building of white stone, standing at the head of the long street, and +forming a landmark in the plain. This building is the Cambrian Hotel, +reared on a scale that would suggest the neighbourhood of a populous +health-resort. But the melancholy silence which haunts its doors is +rarely broken, between season and season, by the presence of guests, +unless it be some chance sportsman in quest of marsh-fowl, or a +land-agent in quest of rents. + +When, therefore, on the 15th of March, 1876, a party of four visitors--the +Rev. Edward Thring, Headmaster of Uppingham School, one of the Trustees +of the school, and two of the masters--were seen mounting the steps of +the porch, it was a sight to make the villagers wonder by what chance so +many guests came to knock at the door in that dead season. Had the wind +blown them hither? It blew a hurricane that day on the bleak coasts of +Cardigan Bay; but it was a shrewder storm yet which had swept this +windfall to the doors of Borth. + +The story must be briefly told. On November 2nd, 1875, Uppingham School +was dispersed on account of a fever which had attacked both town and +school, not without fatal casualties. On January 28th, 1876, the school +met again. In the interval the school-houses had been put in complete +sanitary order, and though the efforts made to amend the general drainage +of the town had been only on a small and tentative scale, it was thought +that the school, if secure on its own premises, might safely be recalled, +in spite of remaining deficiencies outside those limits. But, _tua res +agitur_--the term began with three weeks of watchful quiet, and then the +blow fell again. A boy sickened of the same fever; then, after an +interval of suspense, two or three fresh cases made it clear that this +was no accident. An inspection of the town drainage, ordered by the +authorities, revealed certain permanent sources of danger. It was clear +that the interests of school and town, in matters of hygiene as in +others, were not separable; perhaps the best fruit of the sequel has been +the mutual conviction that those interests are one. + +Meanwhile the new illustration of this connection of interests had a +formidable significance for the Uppingham masters. Men looked at one +another as those do who do not like to give a name to their fears. For +what could be done? The school could not be dismissed again. How many +would return to a site twice declared untenable? But neither could it be +kept on the spot: for there came in unmistakable evidence that, in that +case, the school would dissolve itself, and that, perhaps, irrevocably, +through the withdrawal of its scholars by their parents from the dreaded +neighbourhood. Already the trickling had begun; something must be done +before the banks broke, and the results and hopes of more than twenty +long working years were poured out to waste. + +When the crisis was perceived, a project which had been already the +unspoken thought in responsible quarters, but which would have sounded +like a counsel of despair had the situation been less acute, was suddenly +started in common talk and warmly entertained. Why should we not +anticipate calamity by flight? Before the school melted away, and left +us teaching empty benches, why should we not flit, master and scholar +together, and preserve the school abroad for a securer future afterwards +at home? + +In a space of time to be measured rather by hours than days, this project +passed through the stages of conception, discussion, and resolve, to the +first step in its execution. On Tuesday, March 7th, a notice was issued +to parents and guardians that the school would break up that day week for +a premature Easter holiday, and at the end of the usual three weeks +reassemble in some other locality, of which nothing could as yet be +specified except that it was to be healthier than that we were leaving. + +The proposed experiment--to transport a large public school from its +native seat and all its appliances and plant to a strange site of which +not even the name was yet known, except as one of several possible spots, +and to do this at a few days' notice--was no doubt a novel one. But the +resolve, if rapidly formed and daring, was none the less deliberate and +sane. Its authors must not be charged either with panic or a passion for +adventure. All the data of a judgment were in view, and delay could add +no new fact, except one which would make any decision nugatory because +too late. It was wisdom in those with whom lay the cast of the die, to +take their determination while a school remained for which they could +determine anything. + +It was a sharp remedy, however. For on the morrow of this resolve the +owners of so many good houses, fields, and gardens, all the outward and +visible of Uppingham School, became, for a term without assignable limit, +landless and homeless men, and the Headmaster almost as much disburdened +of his titular realm as if he were a bishop _in partibus_ or the chief of +a nomad caravan. It was a sharp remedy; but those who submitted to it +breathed the freer at having broken prison, and felt something, not +indeed of the recklessness which inspires adventure, but of the elation +which sustains it: + + Why now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark; + The storm is up, and all is on the hazard! + +There was cited at this time a somewhat similar event in the history of +Rugby School. Dr. Arnold, in a like emergency, had removed the school, +or all who chose to go, in numerous detachments under the care severally +of himself and others of his masters to various distant spots, among +others his own house in the Lake country, where they spent some two +months, and returned to Rugby when the danger was over. It was felt, +however, that this incident furnished no real precedent for the present +venture. What we were proposing was not to arrange a number of +independent reading-parties in scattered country retreats. Such a plan +would hardly have been practicable with a system in which, as in our +case, the division of the school for teaching purposes has no reference +to the division into boarding-houses. It was proposed to pluck up the +school by the roots and transplant it bodily to strange soil; to take +with us the entire body of masters, with, probably, their families, and +every boy who was ready to follow; to provide teaching for the latter, +not only without loss in the amount, but without interruption of the +existing system in any branch; and to guarantee the supply of everything +necessary for the corporate life of three hundred boys, who had to be +housed, fed, taught, disciplined, and (not the easiest of tasks) amused, +on a single spot, and one as bare of all the wonted appliances of public +school life as that yet uncertain place was like to prove, of which the +recommendation for our residence would be that no one else cared to +reside there. + + + + +CHAPTER II.--A CHARTER OF SETTLEMENT. + + + _Habet populus Romanus ad quos gubernacula rei publicae deferat_: _qui + ubicunque terrarum sunt_, _ibi omne est rei publicae praesidium_, _vel + potius ipsa res publica_. + + CICERO. + + HAMLET. _Is not parchment made of sheep-skins_? + + HORATIO. _Ay_, _my lord, and of calf-skins too_. + + HAMLET. _They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that_. + + SHAKESPEARE. + +The Trustees of the School met at Uppingham on March 11th. This was the +earliest opportunity of consulting them collectively on the resolution to +break up the school and to migrate, which had been taken on the 7th. They +sanctioned the breaking up of the school. On the question of its removal +elsewhere they recorded no opinion. + +Meanwhile a reconnaissance was being made by one of our body, who was +despatched to visit, as in a private capacity, Borth, and two or three +other spots on the Welsh coasts, while inquiries were also made in other +directions. + +On Monday, 13th, the Headmaster left Uppingham for a visit to the sites +which promised most favourably. A deep snow on the ground made the +departure from home seem the more cheerless, but it had melted from the +Welsh hills before we reached them. On Tuesday, the party--which now +consisted of the Headmaster, two of the staff, and one of the Trustees +(whose services on this occasion, and many others arising out of it, we +find it easier to remember than to acknowledge as they deserve)--stayed a +night at the inland watering-place of Llandrindod, one of the suggested +sites. The bleak moors round it were uninviting enough that squally +March day. But the question of settling here was dismissed at once; +there was not sufficient house-room in the place. So next morning we +bore down upon Borth. + +The first sight of the place seemed to yield us assurance of having +reached our goal. The hotel is a long oblong building with two slight +retiring wings, beyond which extends a square walled enclosure of what +was then green turf; Cambrian Terrace overlooks the enclosure at right +angles to the hotel, the whole reminding us remotely of a college +quadrangle. On entering the hotel, the eye seized on the straight roomy +corridors which traverse it, and the wide solid staircase, as features of +high strategic importance. A tour of the rooms was made at once, and an +exact estimate taken of the possible number of beds. Besides two other +members of the staff, who joined the pioneers at Borth, the school +medical officer had come down to meet us, and reported on what lay within +his province. Meanwhile two of the party were conducted by mine host to +explore a "cricket-ground" close to the hotel, or at least a plot of +ground to which adhered a fading tradition of a match between two local +elevens. The "pitch" was conjecturally identified among some rough +hillocks, over the sandy turf of which swept a wild northwester, "shrill, +chill, with flakes of foam," and now and then a driving hailstorm across +the shelterless plain. So little hospitable was our welcome to a home +from which we were sometime to part not without regretful memories. + +Next day, March 16th, a contract was signed, which gave us the tenancy of +the hotel till July 21st, with power to renew the contract at will for a +further term after the summer holidays. Our landlord, Mr. C. Mytton, was +to provide board (according to a specified dietary) and bed (at least bed- +room) for all who could be lodged in his walls, and board (with light and +firing) for the whole party; to supply the service for the kitchen, and +to undertake the laundry. Servants for attendance on the boys were to be +brought by the masters. The payment was to be 1 pound a head per week +for all who were lodged and boarded, or boarded only, in the hotel. For +washing, and one or two other matters, an extra charge was admitted. We +have only to add that the bargain was one with which both parties, under +their respective circumstances, had reason to be satisfied; and that the +arrangement worked not more stiffly than could be expected where the +large margin of the unforeseen left so much to subsequent interpretation. +Even Dido and Hiarbas were not agreed about the precise width of a bull's- +hide. We do not, however, wish it to be inferred from this classical +parallel, that our settlers claim to have rivalled the adroitness of the +Punic queen in her dealings with the barbarian prince: + + [Greek text] {12} + + + + +CHAPTER III.--TRANSFORMATIONS. + + + _Your snail is your only right house-builder_; _for he builds his + house out of the stuff of his own vitals_, _and therefore wherever he + travel he carries his own roof above him_. _But I have known men_, + _spacious in the possession of bricks and mortar_, _who have not so + much made their houses as their houses have made them_. _Turn such an + one out of his home_, _and he is a bare_ "_O without a figure_," + _counting for nothing in the sum of things_. _He only is truly + himself who has nature in him_, _when the old shell is cracked_, _to + build up a new one about him out of the pith and substance of + himself_. + +Ten days after the reconnaissance described in the last chapter, the +pioneers of the school were again upon the ground. + +On Monday, March 27th, a goods train of eighteen trucks, chartered by the +Uppingham masters, was unloading three hundred bedsteads, with their +bedding, on Borth platform. These were to be distributed among the +quarters of their respective owners, in some dozen different houses, +which we had engaged in addition to the hotel. The workmen were mostly +Welshmen, anxious to be doing, but understanding imperfectly the speech +of their employers. With the eagerness of their temperament, they went +at the trucks, and Babel began. Amid a confused roar of contradictory +exhortations, with energetic gesture, and faces full of animation and +fire, they were hauling away, to any and every place, the ton-loads of +mattresses, and the fragments of unnumbered bedsteads. It was time for +the owners to interpose; and those of the school party who were present, +knowing that time was very precious, and that example is better than +precept, especially precept in a foreign language, put their own hands to +the work, the Headmaster being foremost, and earned a labouring man's +wage at unloading the trucks and carrying the goods to their billets. +Some of our new acquaintances watched the scene with a shocked surprise +that authorities should share in the manual labour, instead of looking on +and paying for it. But their feelings at last determined to admiration. +"Why, sirs," they exclaimed, "you get it done as if you were used to move +every three weeks." But, in fact, there was so much to be done, and so +few days to do it in, that the exigencies of the work spared neither age, +sex, nor degree of our party. None were exempt, and those who were not +employed in porterage and rough carpentry might be found shifting +furniture, or stitching curtains, or jointing together bedsteads. + +Meanwhile, workmen in and round the hotel were as busy as +stage-carpenters preparing a transformation scene. First, by the +elimination of carpets and furniture, the interior was reduced to a +_tabula rasa_. Then, in the somewhat weather-beaten top story, +plastering and surface-washing went briskly on. Our hosts assured us no +hands could be found for this work, but the Headmaster made a descent +upon Aberystwith and returned with the required number. A contractor was +fitting the large coffee-rooms, the billiard-room and others, and the +ground-floor corridor from end to end, with long narrow tables--plain +deal boards on wooden trestles--for the accommodation of three hundred +diners. Outside, the stables were converted into the school carpentery, +and the coach-house into a gymnasium. Above all, a wooden school-room, +eighty-three feet by twenty, had been designed, and its site marked out +on the north side of the enclosure behind the hotel. + +Then there was the care of providing supplementary house-room for many +purposes: rooms for music practice, and for the boys' studies (of which +we shall have more to say), and for hospital uses. Ordinary "sick-room" +accommodation was soon obtained by paying for it, but a fever hospital +was also a requirement which, with our experiences, we were not likely to +forget, and this was less easy to secure. We had to scour the +neighbourhood, knocking at the door of many a farmhouse and country +homestead, before we were provided. + +The house-room being secured, came the labour of furnishing; the +distribution of tables, benches, bookshelves, &c, for the class-rooms, +and of furniture (in many cases a minimum) for the needs of masters and +their families; the ticketing of the bed-room doors, the beds, the chests +of drawers, and each drawer in them, with the name of the occupant--with +many like minutiae, which it took longer to provide than it does to +detail them. The task was not rendered easier by being shared in part +with our hosts, who had hardly taken the measure of our requirements. It +became necessary at the last moment to telegraph to the Potteries for a +large consignment of bed-room ware, which, in spite of protestations, had +been laid in only in half quantities. The world of school has marched +forward since the days when three or four basins sufficed for the toilet +of a dozen boys. + +While the elementary needs of the colony were being attended to, its more +advanced wants were not neglected. There were those whom the anxiety of +providing for the school amusements, and in particular its cricket, +suffered not to sleep. We believe that the first piece of school +property which arrived on the scene was the big roller from the cricket- +field. Resolved to gather no moss in inglorious ease at home, it had +mounted a North-Western truck, and travelled down to Bow Street station, +where it was to disembark for action. It cost the Company's servants a +long struggle to land it, but once again on terra firma it worked with a +will and achieved wonders, reducing a piece of raw meadow land in a few +weeks' space to a cricket-field which left little to be desired. This +meadow lay within a few hundred yards of Bow Street station, four miles +by rail from Borth. It is the property of Sir Pryse Pryse, of Gogerddan, +who gave the school the use of it at a peppercorn rent. + +This was but one of the many acts of unreserved generosity shown by this +gentleman to the school. It is not often that the opportunity offers of +winning so much and such hearty gratitude as our neighbour of Gogerddan +has won by his prompt liberality; still less often is the opportunity +occupied with such thoughtful and ungrudging kindness. + +We had help in the same kind from the Bishop of St. David's, who put at +our service a field close to the hotel; a rather wild one, but in which +little plots and patches for a practising wicket were discovered by our +experts. The firm sands to the north were reported to yield an excellent +"wicket;" with the serious deduction, however, that the pitch was worn +out and needed to be changed every half-dozen balls. + +Among such cares the week rolled away only too speedily, and brought the +day of the school's arrival upon us. If we have failed, as we have, to +convey a true impression of the serious labour and anxieties which +crowded its hours, we will quote the summary of a writer who described it +at the time, and knew what he was describing: "It was like shaking the +alphabet in a bag, and bringing out the letters into words and sentences; +such was the sense of absolute confusion turned into intelligent shape." +{19} + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + + _Gesta ducis celebro_, _Rutulis qui primus ab oris_ + _Cambriae_, _odoratu profugus_, _Borthonia venit_ + _Litora_; _multum ille et sanis vexatus et aegris_, + _Vi Superum_, _quibus haud curae gravis aura mephitis_: + _Multa quoque et loculo passus_, _dum conderet urbem_ + _Inferretque deos Cymris_. + + AN EPIC FRAGMENT. + + [Greek text]. + +The careful general who has completed his disposition without one +discoverable flaw, who has foreseen all emergencies, and anticipated +every possible combination, may await the action with a certain moral +confidence of success. But he would be a man of no human fibre, were he +not to feel some disquiet in his inmost soul when he gets upon horseback +with his enemy in sight, and listens for the boom of the first gun. Not +very different, except for the absence of a like confidence in the +completeness of their dispositions, were the emotions of the masters who +manned the platform of Borth Station, when the gray afternoon of Tuesday, +April 4th, drew sombrely towards its close. The station was crowded with +spectators from Aberystwith and Borth itself, curious to watch the entry +of the boys. Expectation was stimulated by the arrival of a train, which +set all the crowd on tip-toe, and then swept through the station--a mere +goods train. Half an hour's longer waiting, and the right train drew up, +and discharged Uppingham School on the remote Welsh platform. It struck +a spark of home feeling in the midst of the lonely landscape, and the +chill of strange surroundings, to see well-known faces at the windows, +and to meet the grasp of familiar hands. But there was no time for +sentiment that stirring evening. The station was cleared with all speed +of boys and spectators, the former turning in to tea at those endless +tables, the latter strolling away to carry home their first impressions +of their invaders. Then one group of masters and servants set to work to +sort the luggage which cumbered the platform, while others received it at +the hotel door, and distributed it to the various billets. Light was +scant, hands were not too numerous, and the work was not done without +some confusion. But it was done; and the tired workers went to their +beds, thankful for what was finished, and full of good hopes for the work +which was yet to be begun. + +And the boys--how did they feel? As they stepped out from the railway +carriage into those bare, vasty corridors and curtainless dormitories, +did some little sense of desolateness in the new prospect temper its +excitement? Did some homesickness arise in the exile as he pondered on +the retirement and comfort of the "house" at Uppingham, and his +individual ownership of the separate cubicle, and the study which was +"his castle?" He was a unit now, not of a household, but of a camp. +Small blame to him if life seemed to have lost its landmarks, and things +round him to be "all nohow," as he sat down in some bare hall upon a +schoolfellow's book-box (wondering whether he should ever see his own), +to while away with a story-book the listless interval before bed-time, +under the niggard light of a smoking lamp, or a candle flickering in the +draught. What exactly he felt or thought, however, we do not pretend to +know. We only know that there was not one of them but felt proud to be +out campaigning with his school, and would have counted "ten years of +peaceful life" not more than worth his share in that honourable venture. + +There was no work for them next morning (their masters were busy enough +providing for the physical needs of the colony), and they were free to +explore their new country, to ramble up the headlands or along the margin +of the marsh. The arrivals of last night were but the first instalment +of the school, about half the number. The same train brought in a new +freight this evening, and the scene on the platform was similar, but more +tranquil. By a special train after midnight came in a few more from the +most distant homes, and the muster was complete. The number, two hundred +and ninety, fell but slightly below the full complement of the school. +Putting out of account the names of those who would in any case have left +the school that Easter, no more than three, we believe, failed to follow +us down to Borth. So unanimous an adhesion of the school to its leaders +no one had been sanguine enough to reckon on. It increased no doubt at +the moment the difficulties of making provision, but withal it made the +task better worth the effort. + +Next morning the school was called together, and the Headmaster addressed +them, feeling, perhaps, somewhat like a general publishing a manifesto to +his troops before a campaign. It was a great experiment, he said, in +which they were sharing; let them do their best to make the result a +happy one for themselves, and for the people among whom they had come. +They were "making history," for this experience was a wholly new one, +which might not impossibly prove helpful some day to others in like +circumstances. + +It is pleasant to record that the appeal was not wasted. + +At the dinner-hour to-day, the full numbers being now on the spot, the +resources of the commissariat were put to the test. Some anxiety was +relieved when the supply proved sufficient; it would have been small +cause for reproach if the caterers had failed in their estimate on the +first experiment. But of the commissariat we shall say more presently. + +The secondary necessities of life, fire and light, were not forthcoming +with quite the same promptness. There was a twilight period in many +houses before lamps were furnished in sufficient abundance. The place of +fuel was supplied by the genial weather of the first week; and perhaps +few were aware of what we were doing without. Next week the east winds +and the coal arrived together. + +The hotel laundry found the task it had undertaken beyond its strength. +No wonder. Three hundred sets of _articles de linge_ reach a figure of +which our hosts had hardly grasped the significance. We are sometimes +told that Gaels and Cymry cannot count. At any rate, when the bales of +linen came pouring in upon them, heaping every table and piling all the +floor, and still flowing in faster than room could be found, the +laundresses, brave workers though they were, felt that the game was lost: + + They stand in pause where they should first begin, + And all neglect. + +One poor nymph was discovered by a compassionate visitor dissolved in +tears over her wash-tub. Such misery could not be permitted; and we +transferred half the task at once to the laundries of Aberystwith. + +On the afternoon of this day took place the distribution of "studies." +That is to say, some sixty or eighty boys (a number more than doubled +afterwards), in order to relieve the pressure on our sitting-rooms, were +billeted upon some of the village people, who let their rooms for the +purpose. From two to six boys were assigned to each room according to +its capacity. We shall speak again of these studies. Here we will only +pause to thank our good landladies for the intrepidity with which they +threw their doors open to the invasion, the more so as they mostly +claimed to belong to the category of "poor widows"--a qualification upon +which they were disposed to set a price in arranging their charges. Their +daring proved no indiscretion. The writer, who has the honour of knowing +them all, was the depositary of many and emphatic testimonies on their +part to the cordial relations between them and "the children." This +endearing term was exchanged for another by one good old lady, who +appealed to him against the "very wicked boys," whom she charged with +having "foolished" her. The complication traced to ignorance of one +another's speech (the boys spoke no Welsh, and she would have done more +wisely to speak no English), and a _modus vivendi_ was easily restored. +Poor soul! she took a pathetic farewell of them when their sojourn ended: +"They must forgive her for having a quick temper; she had had much +trouble; her husband and four sons had gone down at sea." + +On Friday came a piece of cheering news. Some sympathisers were +intending to appeal to parents of boys in the school for subscriptions to +a fund, which should help to defray the expense incurred by the masters +in moving and resettling the school. The appeal met with a liberal +response in many quarters; a large sum was raised, though from a number +of subscribers smaller than the promoters of the fund expected. Men, who +were feeling the double pressure at once of keen and novel cares, and of +an outlay already large, which no one could see to the end of, will not +forget that well-timed succour. Not least will it be remembered as a +"material guarantee" that the subscribers believed the cause they aided +to be worth a costly effort to save. + +The week closed with an old scene on a new stage--a football match on Sir +Pryse's field at Bow Street. It was the last of the house-matches, which +had been interrupted at Uppingham to be played out here. The sight of +the school swarming into the railway carriages, which carried us to the +four-mile-distant ground, and then the mimic war of the red and white +jerseys contrasting the gray Gogerddan woodlands which overhang the +meadow, and the shouts of the English boys blending with the excited but +unintelligible cries of the Welsh rustic children, who were rapt +spectators of the game, brought home to us the piquant contrast between +our unchanged school habits and the novelty of their framework. + +The weather of this first week was dry and genial; and it had no +pleasanter moments than those spent on the beach at sunset, whither the +school flocked down after tea for half an hour's leisure in the after- +glow. There is plenty of amusement for them on this broad reach of sand +and shingle. Some are groping for shells or for pebbles, which the +lapidary will transform for a trifle into dazzling jewels; others are +playing ducks and drakes on the waves, or entertaining themselves like +Prospero's elves, + + That on the sands, with printless feet, + Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him + When he comes back again. + +More pensive spirits saunter up and down the grassy terrace which +overlooks the beach, and watch the shifting line of dark figures seen +against the white wall of the breaker, or note the fugitive tints on the +dimpling surface of the water, or the wet margin of the tide. A group of +villagers is clustered round the water-fountain a few yards away; the +children chatter about us as they fill their pitchers; and the old women, +creeping homewards, cast a glance under their bonnets at the boys, and +exchange muttered comments with their gossips. Soon the cliffs of the +southern headland grow duskier and more remote; the sea fades to a cold +uniform gray; the colours of the brown twilight marsh and the violet +hills are lost in one another; and so, with a refreshing breath of +idyllic peacefulness, the stirring week came to an end. "Its evening +closed on a quiet scene of school routine, as if doubt and risk, turmoil +and confusion and fear, weary head and weary hand, had not been known in +the place. The wrestling-match against time was over, and happy dreams +came down on Uppingham by the Sea." + + + + +CHAPTER V.--THE NEW COUNTRY. + + + _All places that the eye of Heaven visits_, + _Are to a wise man ports and happy havens_. + + RICHARD II. + +The primitive man, after he has satisfied the claims of appetite, +stitched his skin-mantle, and thatched a hut, may begin to spare time for +reflection on the quality and flavour of the prey he has eaten, or the +picturesqueness of his cabin. Till then his estimate of things is +quantitative. He asks not of what sort his food is, but whether there is +enough of it, and regards less the cut of his coat than its thickness. + +The analogy of our circumstances must be our excuse for postponing so +long a description of our new settlement, its physical surroundings, and +the complexion of our domestic and social life. Not in truth that we had +returned to barbarism: but who could dilate on the beauty of mountain +scenery, in sight of which he was perhaps to starve; who would criticise +the pattern of his dinner-service, or be fastidious in carpets and wall- +paper, before he could reckon upon dinner, or call shelter his own? + +But a week is over, and we have all settled into our berths. The boys +have found that there will be dinner every day; the masters that no one +will have to pitch his tent on a sand-dune, or spread a straw litter in a +bathing-machine. The level of comfort was, of course, not uniform. How +should it be? Probably there is a choice of corners in a workhouse or +casual-ward. Some of our party tasted the painful pleasures of the poor +in the scant accommodation and naked simplicity of cottage lodgings. It +was long after our arrival that we discovered a valued friend still +sitting on the corner of his packing-case, and brewing his coffee on a +washhand-stand. The fire smoked all day; but this vice in the apartment +was neutralised by a broken window. Yet he should be quite happy, he +said, if he could get a glazier _and_ a sweep (like smoke and draught, +one would not do without the other), a bolster, an occasional clean +towel, and a little warm water in the morning. + +Those who had brought a family with them into camp were more seriously +troubled with the cares of providing quarters, and pondered regretfully +on the peace and roominess of home. Still as we are leaving no one +houseless or dinnerless, we may turn aside to describe at more leisure +the place we lived in and the manner of our life. + +The stage on which our little history was enacted is a maritime plain of +irregular semicircular shape, with a sea-front of five miles, and a depth +inland of from two to three miles. This plain, a dead level stretch of +peat, of which part is coming under cultivation, while part is still +marsh, is surrounded by a ring of hills, which rise in successive well- +defined ranges of increasing height, till they culminate in the summits +of Cader Idris on one side and Plinlimmon on the other. + +The River Dovey, which cleaves the circle of mountains, flows in a broad +estuary along the base of the northward hills, under which, at the mouths +of the estuary, lies the little port of Aberdovey. At the other end of +the arc formed by the coastline, close under the slopes of the promontory +which closes the plain at its north-west corner, stands the village of +Borth, three-quarters of a mile of straggling dwellings, which vary in +scale and character from the primitive mud-cabin of the squatter to the +stately hotel which formed the headquarters of the school. The little +town is irregular even to quaintness, without being picturesque. Its +houses are not grouped according to size and character, but dropped as it +were anyhow, in chance collocations, tall and low, thatched and slated +together. Two or three gigantesque meeting-houses, featureless and +sombre, domineer over the roofs around them. One or two others of a less +puritan design, and not out of character with the church on a knoll a +furlong off, compensate their severer rivals. The shape of the village +is determined by the narrow ridge of terra firma, the mere heaping of the +tides, between the quaking marsh and the encroaching sea. The nidus of +the present settlement is the tiny hamlet of Old Borth, perched on a spur +of the promontory, and well out of reach of flood tides. We are not sure +that the mother may not outlive her colony, unless substantial measures +are taken to guard against another 30th of January. Near Old Borth, +through a gap in the hills, comes the River Lery, a trout-stream known to +our anglers, thanks again to Sir Pryse who owns it. It races bubbling +round the furze-clad knoll, whose Welsh name is translated Otter's +Island, on which stands the church, and then is silenced in a blank +straight-cut channel, which conveys it through the marsh into the estuary +at Ynyslas. Up the gorge of the Lery runs the railway, which carried us +so often past the massive church and steep pine-grown graveyard of +Langfihangel-geneur-glyn, and across the broad meadows of Bow Street, to +the civilisation of Aberystwith. For Aberystwith was our Capua, and used +to draw large parties on many a blank afternoon for marketing or +amusement. + +Then there was the beach, four miles of it, from the rocks of Borth Head, +where the waves could be watched breaking on the seaweed-covered reef, +and sending up columns of white spray against the black face of the +cliffs, away to the yellow sand dunes near the Dovey's mouth, and the +reaches of wet sands where we noted on summer days "the landscape winking +through the heat," almost with the effect of a mirage. These sands, firm +and sound under foot, were a famous walking-ground at all times; but they +changed their character very much with the seasons; at one time +retreating and laying bare a beach of shingle under the pebble ridge; at +another, swinging back to cover them up again. In the former state of +the shore a suggestive phenomenon might be observed. At low-water mark +there appeared certain dark shapeless lumps, which might be taken for +rocks at a distance, but were in fact the roots and stumps of a submerged +pine-forest. Remains of the same forest are found in the marsh. Wood +can be cut from the buried trunks, looking as fresh in fibre as if the +tree still grew. Here is the verification of the legend (or is it, +perhaps, the suggestion of it?) which records the fate of the Lost +Lowland Hundred. Once on a time (the Cymric bards answer for it), a +flourishing tract of country stretched at the foot of the hills which are +now washed by the tides of Cardigan Bay. The fishermen of Borth, as they +creep past the headlands in their fishing-smacks, have seen deep down in +the clear waters, the firmly-cemented stones of a causeway, which must +once have traversed the plain, and the line of which may be not +indistinctly descried stretching far out to seaward from the mouth of a +little combe. It is true that geologists whom we have consulted ridicule +the fancy of masonry offering such resistance to the tides, and explain +it away as a pebble-ridge built up by the action of currents. And +perhaps we might mention in this connection, that one of our party, on +the first view, was half persuaded he had seen a sea-serpent. Well, this +prosperous country, defended against the sea by embankments, was during +the heroic age of Wales laid under water by the opening of the sluices in +a drunken frolic. A fragment of it, the marsh between the pebble-ridge +of Borth and the hills, would seem to have been recovered; but it enjoys +a precarious safety, and even within our experience the sea gave a +meaning threat of claiming his own again. But that is a story which must +be told in its own place. + +Such then were the geographical details of the spot in which we had +settled, and they made up a landscape, which, if it can be more than +rivalled in other parts of the Principality, has yet a characteristic and +impressive beauty. The following extract may serve, for lack of a better +rendering, to describe how the scene looked to the eyes of someone who +watched it on a June afternoon from the grassy slopes of Borth Head: + + My eyes run on with the tide which drifts inland up the estuary, and, + farther than vision can really follow, track the march of its glancing + ripples, as they swim on past shoal and sand-dune and morass up to the + dewy gates of the Spring, in among green-clad river meadows and crisp + close-skirted woodlands which the salt breath of sea-winds restrains + from a richer luxuriance, on past springing knolls plumed with dark + firs, and dimpling valleys mellow with the contrasted gold of the + oak's young leafage. Above these, hills moulded on a grander scale + heave up their broad shoulders to the sunlight, which is reflected in + pale but tender hues of blue or violet or rose from their bare rock + masses, or the slopes hardly less bare, which are swept by great + winds, and browsed yet closer by climbing mountain sheep. At this and + the other point the bosses of the hills are lighted with the sparkle + of gorse-thickets, or dusky with heather not yet kindled into bloom. + Lower down there are belts of woodland, fencing off the pastures which + strew the lowest terraces of the mountains from the barren wastes + above them, and these pastures are brightly flecked with patches of + white-walled homesteads down to the brown edge of the marsh. And so, + ridge after ridge, the hills enclose the scene in a half-circle, of + which this breezy headland, our "specular mount," is an extreme horn. + But what the eye reposes on at last is the broad floor of marsh-land + between mountain and sea. A broad smooth floor, which would be vacant + and dull enough had not Nature taken thought to drape its formlessness + the more lovingly and richly. She has unrolled on it a carpet of + various and solemn-tinted stuffs, where pale breadths of rusted bents + sometimes mellow into strips of verdurous pasture, sometimes deepen + into belts of embrowned peat-beds, sometimes take a yellower + barrenness in parched flats, still briny and unreclaimed, and shaggy + with bristling reeds. It is a wilderness, but not unrelieved with + here and there an oasis, where, like islands left high and dry in a + deserted ocean bed, one and another rocky knoll lift up above the + waste flats around them some acres of sweet grass, or a broad field of + flowering mustard, shining with a splendour as of cloth of gold, and + fringed with a loop or two of silver braid by the river winding at the + base. There is animate life, too, sprinkled not stintedly over its + surface, not only of visitant sea-fowl from the shore, or solitude- + loving creatures native to the place--plover and duck and long-winged + herons, but also of cattle and horses grazing on the cultivated edges + of the marsh, which make us look for the homes of their human masters + at no great distance. Why there they are, lying overlooked at our + feet all the while, a straggle of lowly white-roofed dwellings + clinging to the long pebble ridge like barnacles on a rock, breathing + a thin smoke from their scattered chimneys, whence the blessed smell + of peat-fires is wafted through the dry air to our nostrils. But one + great house I notice with a crowd about its door-steps, and a flag + waving over them a device I have somewhere seen before, where the + kitchen chimney smokes with a most hospitable volume; guests must be + plenty there. Yes; and if further signs of life be needed, you may + listen to the puff of a farmer's steam-engine planted in the swamp, + and see the glitter of the steel ropes, with which it draws its + ploughshares, resistless as fate, through the oozy fallows. Well, if + it is come to this, the farmers and their engines will soon civilise + away the beauty of this romantic wild. But shall we complain? If + they have begun to drain these intractable marshes, then there is a + chance for other places, where the interest on the cost of drainage + will be less problematical than here. + + + + +CHAPTER VI.--MAKESHIFTS. + + + [Greek text]. + +From our chapter on the geographical features of our settlement we pass +on to describe how the settlers were housed and organised. + +If a school be an institution for teaching purposes, its school-room and +class-rooms should be the most essential portion of its plant. Without +discussing the adequacy of the definition, we will begin with these. We +were not ill provided; with an exception or two, the rooms appropriated +for class-rooms answered the purpose well. Some of them were spacious; +the rest were large enough for the wants of the classes, limited to an +average of twenty. Nor would a Government Inspector have justly measured +this adequacy by the "cubic capacity," if he failed to take into account +the exhilarating five minutes' breathing time upon the beach, at eleven +o'clock. There was a rare pleasure in those moments of escape from Greek +verbs to the sparkle of the tide and the scent of the sea breeze. + +What Germans call the "real" subjects, were also provided for. The +modern languages were taught mostly in the class-rooms of the classical +masters. Music took up her quarters in several scattered dwellings. +Wales is the home of song, and our musicians were very welcome to make +the cottage walls resound to violin or key-board. We remember well the +affectionate reverence with which one aged custodian spoke of the +"pianass" she was proud to house; she cherished them as if they had been +tame elephants. Several concerts were given during our stay--but in the +Assembly Rooms of Aberystwith; our wooden school-room was found, on the +first experiment, unfit for the purpose, from the want of resonance. The +makeshift gymnasium and carpentery, in the stables and coach-house, have +been mentioned before. If among "real studies" we may include the +cricket, this was, as we saw, well cared for; while the instructor in +swimming had nothing to complain of, with four miles of good beach, and +the Irish Channel before him. + +If the accommodation during school hours was adequate, it was less easy +to find elbow-room for the boys at other times. It was well enough from +May to August under the ample roof of blue summer weather; but in the +rainy season (and at Borth, as elsewhere, that winter was a wet one) we +should have been sorely cramped but for relief afforded by the "studies" +noticed in a previous chapter. It is time we should describe them. +Studies they were not, in the sense in which the word is understood at +Uppingham, where a school law declares that "a boy's study is his +castle," and confers upon him what Aristotle calls the "unspeakable" +delight of the "sense of private property." At Borth this could not be. +In very rare cases was a room the one and indivisible belonging of a +single owner; often as many as six shared the table and fireplace. Some +of these tenements had at least the less solid merit of looking +picturesque. Peeping into a Welsh interior, with its stone +kitchen-floor, polished wainscoting, and oak furniture, its walls hung +with German prints of imaginative battle-pieces and Nonconforming +worthies, and its kitchen-dresser with ranks of ancestral crockery, vivid +in light and colour, which catches the eyes first of all things through +the open door, "This," one was tempted to cry, "were the study for me! +Here would I sit in the shelter of the wooden screen which keeps away +draughts and noisy company, and turn the pages of my Livy for the tale of +Cincinnatus, and deeds of rustic heroes; or hear old Horace descant on +the gracious simplicity of life among the Sabines." + +The boys thought quite otherwise. The kitchen was generally the last +room to be chosen. Perhaps the idyllic attractions did not balance the +drawback of living in the thoroughfare of the house. Nor could one fail +to sympathise with those who preferred the garret, a poor thing but their +own, in which two studious souls could hob-nob, or even the austere +whitewash, narrow skylight, and niggard dimensions of some monastic cell, +which held just the one student, his table, and his books. The editor of +the School Magazine, writing a month after our arrival, finds it "a queer +new feeling to do the old work in a strange place, to miss the accustomed +pictures on the walls, the accustomed column of books rising on either +hand--even the familiar table-cloth and carpet, and to sit instead inside +the framework of a six-foot bed, with roof and walls forming the queerest +possible combinations of lines and angles, and hung with three different +patterns of paper." To woo the muses in a garret is the common fate of +genius; but most of the "students" (for so their landladies, misled by a +name, called the occupants of a study) were better off than this literary +gentleman. When fires came to be lighted in the winter, there was a +cheerful domesticity in the sight of the red coals, which is unknown to +the solitude of Uppingham studies, with their hot-water pipe that warms +but not exhilarates. In particular, one cheery well-furnished parlour, +where a blazing hearth threw its light over the well-worn bindings of a +select library brought with us from the Sixth-Form-room, and on the well- +contented faces of its two custodians, burns as a bright spot in our +memory of those winter days. + +Thus we managed things even better than if we had listened to another +ingenious writer, with whose proposal we will close this topic. It was +this: "Let two hundred bathing-machines be brought together from +Llandudno and other watering-places within reach, and ranged along the +beach. Let one machine be assigned to each boy, and let them be filled +up with book-shelves, table, chairs, &c. Thus the whole difficulty will +be solved in a moment. And the plan has this further advantage, that +when the time comes for returning to Uppingham, the bathing-machines +would be simply formed in line, and driven across the country to +Rutlandshire, and all further trouble in the way of furniture-vans and +families-removing be cut away at one stroke." + + + + +CHAPTER VII.--THE COMMISSARIAT. + + + _To feed were best at home_. + + MACBETH. + + [Greek verse] + + ILIAD IX. + + PRINCE HENRY. _Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer_? + + POINS. _Why_, _a prince should not be so loosely studied as to + remember so weak a composition_. + + PRINCE HENRY. _Belike then my appetite was not princely got_; _for_, + _by my troth_, _I do now remember the poor creature_, _small beer_. + _But_, _indeed_, _these humble considerations make me out of love with + my greatness_. + + 2 HENRY IV. + +"Who ought to take the command, in the event of anything happening to +your lordship?" asked Wellington's officers on an occasion in the +Peninsular War. "Beresford," the great strategist answered, after +reflection. And then, in answer to their surprised looks: "If it were a +question of handling troops, some of you fellows might do as well, +perhaps better than he; but what we now want is someone to _feed_ our +men." {46} + +This story, and the countenance of the epic and royal personages of our +mottoes, is our excuse for passing on to treat of the ignoble topic of +knives and forks, and to describe how three times a day our colony was +fed. It is a topic which could not be left outside a narrative which +seeks to "show how fields were won." + +If our readers will follow the master of the week as he makes his round +of the tea-tables at a quarter to seven on a winter evening, he will +witness a cheerful scene not wanting in picturesqueness. The vista of +the corridor is filled with three very long and very narrow tables, and +the boys of as many houses seated at them. The subdued light, which +streams from numerous but feeble oil-lamps through the atmosphere of +fragrant vapour steamed up by the tea-urns, falls with Rembrandtesque +contrast of light and shadow on the long ranks of faces. There is that +hum of quiet animation which seems always to exhale along with the aroma +of the Chinese leaf. From the urn, where the house matron mounts guard +up to the Sixth Form end of the table, where the head of the house is +jotting down the list of absentees from the roll-call, the cloth is +thickly studded with the viands in tins and jars, rich and various in +colour, with which the schoolboy adds succulence to his meal. We open a +door out of the dim corridor, and enter a room with three more houses +seated round its walls. The sense of animation rises with the warmth and +brightness of the fire which roars in the grate. We collect the lists, +and move on to another and another room, till we have seen the last of +the eleven houses in a severely simple servants'-hall on the basement +floor. Thence we return to the wind and rain outside. + +If we came here at dinner-time, we should see the housemaster at the head +of his table, and his wife or members of his family at the other end. The +scene would be quite wanting in the picturesque, but no sense of comfort +would make amends for it. For it is dark, especially in the centre of +the corridor, and the carver of those vast joints never knows when he +will strike his elbow against the walls or passers-by; while the +incidence of draughts is clearly enough defined by here and there a coat- +collar turned up in self-defence; for neither the glass front door, nor +the wooden porch, nor our massive porter can effectually keep out the +weather. Dinner here is a stern bit of the day's work, to be discharged +with a serious fortitude. + +We have described how we eat, but said nothing yet of what was eaten. Yet +our practical narrative cannot ignore the matter. Certain delicate +subjects, however, are best treated dialectically, and perhaps we could +not here do better than record a dialogue which we think we must have +overheard between Grumbler and Cheerful, two dramatic characters not +unknown to readers of the School Magazine some year ago: + + _Cheer_. Have you read that jolly letter in _The Times_, on + "Uppingham by the Sea?" + + _Grumb_. Yes, I have; and the writer says, "The commissariat was on + the whole good." I must say that surprises me. + + _Cheer_. Why where was it at fault, then? + + _Grumb_. Where? It was at fault all round. Look at the + puddings--everlastingly smoked! + + _Cheer_. Yes; but the commissariat is not puddings. + + _Grumb_. Well then, the coals--all chips and small dust; at least, + when there _were_ any. + + _Cheer_. But the commissariat is not coals. + + _Grumb_. Then the cold plates your gravy froze on! + + _Cheer_. My good fellow, who ever heard of hot plates on a picnic? + + _Grumb_. How about the vegetables then, that never came to table + except to make believe there was something in the Irish stew? or what + do you call the thing they sometimes served out for butter? + + _Cheer_. Ah! well! "a rose by any other name"--you know the rest. But + still, the commissariat isn't bad because the butter was so sometimes. + + _Grumb_. Oh! of course, you can say the Commissariat (if you spell it + with a big C) doesn't mean the meat, or the soup, or the puddings, or + the greens, or the butter, or the coals, or the rest of it--but if it + isn't these, I should like to know what it is. + + _Cheer_. (_loftily_). My good friend, it is easy for you to say this + thing or the other was not to your fancy, but it was not quite so easy + a matter for our landlord to provide a daily supply of meat, bread, + and dairy stuff for some four hundred people; especially as it had to + be organised for the occasion, without previous experience. I take it + if you knew how the farmers had to be coaxed to sell us their butter, + how green things couldn't be had in the markets for love or money, and + if you knew how many miles of railway those beeves travelled to and + fro between pasture, slaughter-house, and kitchen, before their weary + joints rested on our table, I say you would thank the commissariat + that you hadn't something worth grumbling about. I am glad we never + were on famine rations. I asked to live, not to live well. + + _Grumb_. (_a trifle ashamed, but dogged_). Why, of course, I don't + mean to say things might not have been worse. Still I stick to it, + they were not nice. + + _Cheer_. But you'll admit the commissariat did its work: the army was + fed. After all, the proof of a pudding is _not_ the eating of it, it + is how you feel after it. Now, people are not starved who look the + strong healthy fellows ours did when they went home after the first + term of it. No 'famine marks' in those firm, brown faces, eh? And + then, tell me, did the Rutland pastures ever yield such juicy mutton, + or flow so abundantly with milk? + + _Grumb_. Enough, enough; you have it. Only I won't be told I was + revelling in comfort when I was doing nothing of the kind. I'll bear + it, but I won't grin and say I like it; I'll say nothing against it if + it's better not, but I shan't say what is untrue in favour of it. + [_Exeunt arm-in-arm_.] + +Our two interlocutors fairly exhaust the facts of the case between them, +and the historian, who can serve no purpose by trying to think things +better or worse than they were, will silence neither. We give our honest +praise to the organisers of the food supply for their effectual +performance of a very heavy, vexatious, and precarious task, the scale of +which we have been brought by inquiry to estimate at its true magnitude. +At the same time we will spare such sympathy as the dignity of the matter +demands for the sufferers from tough beef, tub butter, smoked puddings, +cold potatoes, and congealed gravy, and not mislead any refugee +schoolmaster of the future into the belief that he can dine in the +wilderness as comfortably as in Pall Mall. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII.--DIVERSIONS AT BORTH: NEW SOIL, NEW FLOWERS. + + + _There be delights_, _there be recreations and jolly pastimes that + will fetch the day about from sun to sun_, _and rock the tedious year + as in a delightful dream_. + + MILTON, "AREOPAGITICA." + + _O summer day_, _beside the joyous sea_! + _O summer day_, _so wonderful and white_, + _So full of gladness and so full of pain_! + _For ever and for ever shalt thou be_ + _To some the gravestone of a dead delight_, + _To some the landmark of a new domain_. + + LONGFELLOW. + +Housed, fed, and taught; what more does the school need done for it? "Is +that all?" some of the English public will exclaim. "Then you have done +nothing. What about the boys' sports?" We foresaw the question, and +when we left home some people felt uneasy as to what would happen to a +school separated from its fives-courts and playing-fields. True, there +was to be a beach, and the boys could amuse themselves by throwing stones +into the sea: but when there were no more stones to throw--what then? The +prospect was a blank one. + +Well, as we have seen, things came right enough as regarded the cricket. +Players had to content themselves with fewer games, for the ground could +only be reached on half-holidays. On the other hand, the season of 1876 +gained a character of its own from the novelty of its matches against +Welsh teams. One of these was the eleven of Shrewsbury School. With +this ancient seat of learning our troubles brought us into genial +intercourse, and a few months later we met them again on the football- +field. Both matches were played at Shrewsbury; in the former we gained a +victory over our kind hosts, the latter was a drawn game. + +The athletics were held on the straight reach of road beyond Old Borth; +the steeple-chases in the fields which border it. At the prize-giving, +the "champion" was hoisted as usual, and carried round the hotel, instead +of along the _via sacra_ of the Uppingham triumph, with the proper +tumultuary rites. For the make-believe of paper-chases we had the +realities of hare-hunting, of which we will speak again in its season. +Grounds for football were found when the autumn came; the best was a +meadow just below Old Borth, of excellent turf, which dries quickly after +rain; though the peaty soil, lately reclaimed from the marsh, would quake +under the outset of the players. + +The village boys, fired by a novel example, began to hold their own +athletics. One might see the corduroyed urchins scrambling down the +street in a footrace, or jerking their awkward little limbs over a +roadside ditch. Our boys looked on as men look at a monkey, half amused, +half indignant at the antics "which imitated humanity so abominably." + +If we were little worse off than at home in the appliances for games, +there were other recreations which were proper to the place, and clear +gain to the immigrants. For example, the fishing in the Lery, along +whose banks groups of anglers might be seen strolling, whipping the water +to the full entertainment of themselves and the fish, or now and then +blessing Sir Pryse, as the angler landed his first trout from our good +friend's waters. Yet we had our old sportsmen too, who could kill trout +as well as amuse themselves, and bring home a delicate dish for a half- +holiday tea. For masters, there was a little shooting to be had on the +land of some friendly neighbours; and on the no-man's-land of the coast, +a variety of sea-fowl fell to our guns, and were stuffed to enrich our +museum with a "Borth Collection." We must not forget the Rink at +Aberystwith, for which parties used to be formed on half-holidays; nor +the Golf, which the long strip of rough ground along the shore tempted us +to introduce. The "links" were famous in extent and variety of ground, +but the game, in spite of patronage in high quarters, did not become +popular. There were also recreations of a more intellectual kind: +archaeological visits to "British camps," or others of those Cymric +monuments, which were just then provoking Lord F. Hervey's +incomprehensible spleen; scientific rambles in quest of rare shells, +seaweeds, or the varieties of a new flora; and rambles, half-scientific, +half-predatory, along the woody cliffs of the Lery, whence adventurers +would return with news of a hawk's nest discovered, but not reached, or +the more substantial result of snakes, and such venomous "beasties," +captured and brought home in a bag. The rocks under Borth Head were good +hunting-grounds, and supplied sea-monsters for an aquarium, which the +Headmaster built and presented to the school. One of the first prizes +was a small octopus, which his captor, having no other vessel handy, +brought home floating in his cap. In the aquarium, however, spite of +this good beginning, we have to record a failure. "The masters could +not, and the boys would not, attend to it; and our best octopus, after +coming to the top of the water, and spitting a last farewell at sundry +lookers-on, died; and with him died the attempt." + +We are quoting from a letter of a correspondent to _The Times_, and we +cannot better conclude this part of the subject than by a graphic +paragraph from the same hand: + + Again, there were the birds, many always on shore and marsh; but when + the herring-fry passed up the bay the birds positively possessed it. + There was a wilderness of glistening wings in the air, a restless bank + of floating feathers on the sea--a mile of wings and glancing foam of + life, with many a strange wild cry, giving the high notes to the deep + bass of the waves. How often from the marsh, or somewhere, dreamland + or ghostland, came the plaintive wail of the curlews; then the + dotterels would run and flit about the sands; and, not least, the + herons, measuring out their dominions with their lordly arch of wings + in leisurely pride of sovereignty, passed grandly on their way; or, + ever and anon, a thousand plover, as with one soul, would turn and + glance in the sun far away. All this was a new revelation to many + boys, whose sole ideas of birds had been sparrows, thrushes, perhaps, + and ducks at so much a couple, and a duck-pond. + +In our enumeration, however, of fish and fowl we had almost forgotten "a +portent of the wave," which was a nine hours' wonder with us. A stray +seal, revisiting the familiar shore, and unaware of the change which had +transformed his quiet haunts was encountered by one of our party as he +cruised round Borth Head in his fishing-boat. We are glad to record that +the _rencontre_ ended without bloodshed. It was a sportsman and a +naturalist who had crossed the poor seal's path; but he remembered that +he, too, was a stranger in the land, and he could not lift rifle against +the + + Sea-worn face, sad as mortality, + +which leaned from the ledge of rock to look at him. So the monster +passed on his way unharmed. + +We have detailed at length enough of the diversions and interests which +lay close at our own doors. But these delights pale by the side of those +red-letter days when we went far afield to keep a holiday among the +mountains. We shall not see the like of those days again! On such +mornings, the hotel steps and the esplanade would be dotted with anxious +groups waiting for breakfast, and observing the omens of the sky. If +these are favourable, a little before eight a broad stream sets towards +the station, and fills the sunny platform with a vivacious crowd. +Masters, who organise the several expeditions, use the interval to count +heads and sort their parties. The benevolent Cambrian railway supplies +spare carriages and return tickets at single fares. Presently the train +is sighted sliding down the winding incline from Langfihangel; it picks +us all up--near two hundred souls, it may be--moves out into the open +plain, still glittering with the morning dew, and reaching Glandovey, +drops half its passengers at the junction to explore the northward coast, +while it carries the rest to Machynlleth and Cemmes Road. Here and there +it sows little companies of explorers at some mountain's foot or river's +mouth. One band assails Cader Idris from the rich vale of Dolgelley, and +meets on the summit another which has scaled it from Tal-y-llyn. Each +party is convinced that their ascent was the more creditable in point of +speed, and that they enjoyed the more magnificent views. One, however, +claims an advantage which can be more easily gauged; they have haled a +hamper of luncheon with them to the peak, with infinite pains. During +the descent this hamper (but that was after luncheon) slipped from its +carrier's hand, and plunged beyond recovery down the Fox' Walk. +Meanwhile, others are befogged on the broad top of Aran Mowddy, but will +be anxious to explain this evening, that if the view from the summit was +lost in mist, that was more than made amends for by "the enchanting +glimpses caught through the cloudrifts in the descent." The day wears +on, and signs of fatigue appear. Some are wondering what Miss Roberts of +the famous "Lion" at Dolgelley has got for their dinner. Small boys +begin to declare that they could go on at this pace for any time you +like; this is nothing to what they did last year in the Highlands; +something like mountains _there_, you know! The sun is far in the west +when the knot of adventurous reconnoitrers who have gone farthest afield +mount the train at Portmadoc. Nearer home they thrust heads out of +window to rally their friends who join them on the poverty of their +exploits. These, taciturn with weariness or hunger, find they haven't +their best repartees at command. But they are all smiles and good humour +again at the news that young So-and-so, with two or three more, who had +strayed from their party, were sighted rushing along, all dust up to +their eyes, to catch the train as it moved out of the station. There is +no other to-night; but our good hostess, we know, will give the +youngsters tea, put them to bed, and forward them prepaid next morning. +At length the last station has poured in its tributary to the volume of +the returning multitude, and the train glides softly on between the +brimming estuary and the marsh golden with sunset. The full stream is +peaceably disgorged again through the narrow station-door, and +distributes itself along the tea-tables. Sleep comes down upon tired +limbs and easy consciences, and the day's glory throws the rich shadows +of some Midsummer Night's Dream far into the bright dawn of another +working day. + +It was never professed that on these occasions we were doing other than +taking a holiday. If, together with mountain air and the scent of +heather, a boy drank in a love and understanding of Nature, and felt, +possibly for the first time, the inspiration of beauty, then probably +hours were never spent in a class-room to more profit than were these on +the slopes of Cader or Plinlimmon, or along the banks of Mowddy. + + + + +CHAPTER IX.--THE FIRST TERM: MAKING HISTORY. + + + "_Happy is the people which has no history_." _Stands this too among + the beatitudes_? _Surely this were a fit evangel only for sheep and + oxen_, _or for such human kine as covet the fat pastures rather than + the high places of existence_. _For whoso is ill-content to live long + and see good days_, _save he may also live much and see great days_, + _will not be so tamely gospelled_, _seeing that every past is mother + of a future_, _and that there is no history but is a prophecy as + well_. + +In our late digression on the conditions and circumstances of our life at +Borth, we have somewhat anticipated the narrative of events. But it was +a plan agreeable to the facts of the case, that narrative should pass +into description at the point where the stream of our little history, +after descending the rapid of alarms and difficulties, abrupt resolves +and swift action, fell quietly again into the smooth channel of a new +routine. Not that the story of the succeeding months was really +uneventful. If our readers suppose that from this point onward we led a +prosperous untroubled existence, it will be due to the illusion, which, +in fiction, makes us cheerful over the woes of the struggling hero, +because we have glanced at the end of the book, and view the present +trouble in the light of the successful issue: what the end would be we +did not know, nor when it would come. And if, to resume our metaphor, +the current of the enterprise flowed for the most part smoothly, there +were rocks underneath which those who saw them could not forget, though +they seldom raised an eddy on the surface. Here, however, we must ask +the reader to believe us that it was so, without demanding explanations, +which at this date would be inconvenient. We will go on then to notice +the chief incidents of the term. + +The wooden school-room, the slow completion of which had been watched +with some impatience, was ready for use on April 29th. On the next day, +being Sunday, we inaugurated it by reuniting under its shelter our +scattered congregations, hitherto distributed over the three largest +rooms at our disposal. It was not a noble building, being, +architecturally, a long shed of rough planks against the bowling-green +wall, which was whitewashed for the better lighting of the room. But it +was apt to the conditions of a colony, looking as it did like a log-house +in a backwoods-clearing. Internally it was well lighted and ventilated, +and just sufficient for our numbers. _Heureusement il n'y on a pas +beaucoup_. This was not the only occasion on which we were thankful for +the school's self-imposed limit of numbers. The completion of this poor +structure was a fact of which those who have but little knowledge of +school affairs will appreciate the value. It was a new burden on an +embarrassed exchequer, but not a gratuitous one. It is not too much to +say that the social life of the school would have been of a different and +lower stamp, and its organisation crude and ineffective, if there had +been no place of assembly where we could meet for common occasions, for +roll-call, prayers, addresses, lectures, entertainments--no place to +furnish the visible unity, which is so large an influence in a healthy +social life. And did the school ever feel surer of its oneness, or more +proud of its name, than when it sat on those rude benches within the +ruder walls of their makeshift great school-room? + +The next day, May 1st, is the Uppingham Encoenia, the commemoration of +the Chapel opening. It forced one to contrast the wooden walls in which +the Saint's-day's service was held, with the high rooftree and the deep +buttresses, which this year would not echo the chanting procession. The +anniversary rites lapsed of necessity. An accidental piece of ceremony +marked this day; for that morning a flagstaff was erected on the terrace +in front of the hotel, and a flag run up, by the lowering of which the +hour of dinner or roll-call could be signalled to ramblers on the shore +or the hill. On the 19th of the month we hoisted with much cheering our +own colours: a banner, on which some of the ladies had worked the +Founder's device, the antique schoolmaster and his ring of scholars. The +flags (there were three in all) were carried home with us, and the faded +and tattered folds which had fought with the sou'-wester, now droop in a +graceful canopy at one end of the great school-room. + +By the middle of June the new church of Borth, so opportunely built in +time for our settlement, was declared ready. It was courteously placed +at our disposal for two services on Sunday before the hours of the parish +services. The building exactly held us, with a little pinching. The +first occasion of our using it was a confirmation held by the Bishop of +St. David's. The Bishop, whose early connections are with this +neighbourhood, and who had already in his capacity of landowner given us +proof of his goodwill, seemed to rejoice in the occasion of expressing +his sympathy with the immigrants into his quiet home. The kindness of +the visit was not slight; for the journey, to and fro, from difficulties +of transport, demanded two days. We have the more reason to be grateful +for his willing sacrifice of time, because, in view of the interval since +the last confirmation and of the long sojourn in Wales before us, we +should otherwise have suffered a kind of mitigated excommunication. + +June 29th and 30th were the days of the "Old Boys' Match," the annual +reunion of the Past and Present School. There seemed no reason why +absence from our native soil should sever our ties with the Past. Quite +the contrary. _Ubi Caesar ibi patria_, thought our Old Boys, who, +indeed, never before felt so glad to claim their heritage in the fortunes +of Uppingham. The game, which was like other games of cricket, and need +not be described, was played on the Gogerddan field, where the +Headmaster, in lieu of his customary supper, not practicable at Borth, +gave a luncheon each day. On the first day, as the company rose from +table, a signal was given to the school to draw up to the tent, outside +which the guests were standing. They formed a kind of hollow square to +see what would happen, and an old Uppinghamian (Mr. R. L. Nettleship, +Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford) came forward and presented an "Address +from the Old Boys at Oxford, to the Headmaster and Masters of Uppingham +School." He noticed briefly the circumstances under which it had been +drawn up, explaining why (through lack of time to concert matters with +the sister university) it had come from Oxford only, and added that they +hoped shortly to give something more substantial than parchment. "What +they could offer was a slight thing, it was true, yet one which their old +Headmaster and his coadjutors would not think valueless." He proceeded +to read the address, which ran thus: + + "We, the undersigned old members of Uppingham School, now resident at + Oxford, write to express our deep sympathy with the Headmaster and + Masters of Uppingham School in the great difficulties with which they + have lately had to contend. Feeling as we do, that though we have + left the school, we still, in the truest sense, belong to it, we can + but testify our gratitude to those whose courage and skill have + carried it safely through such a crisis, and converted a great + misfortune into a proof that it is strong enough to defy accidents. + Our confidence in the Headmaster is, as always, entire and unabated, + and we are sure that the school which he has so successfully led to + Borth will come back under the same leadership, with its vigour + undiminished, to its home at Uppingham." {66} + +In reply the Headmaster said, addressing himself to the memorialists and +the school, "the past and future (for what we are doing has a past and +future), I thank you for this with all my heart, for this which you call +'a slight thing.' It is a slight thing; but yet, like a flag which +armies have rallied round and have died for, it can give spirit and +endurance and confidence. Yes, it is true, as you say, that these have +been hard times, as those know who have had day by day to watch ruin +coming closer and closer, with no hope, no room for escape. Like men in +the story tied to the stake in front of the advancing tide, we had to see +wave on wave coming up to bring a slow but sure destruction." Then, +after speaking of the incidents which ended in our coming to this spot, +he continued: "We have been brought by our troubles much before the eyes +of the public. They speak of 'the fierce light that beats upon a +throne,' but that is hardly so intolerable as the fierce light that beats +upon a great calamity. Yet I trust that fierce light may prove to the +school a refining fire. Certainly the present school has behaved +worthily under their novel circumstances; they have shown themselves true +sons of Uppingham. You of the past school see round you your successors, +and you may be proud of them; at least we have suffered no trouble +through those you see before you here. + +"The end of all this which of us knows? But we have faith that it shall +be good. Though all seems to fail and perish, all our work to die, yet I +am sure there shall be no real death of the life of the school, but that +it shall have its resurrection." + +The words were meant for the ears to which they were addressed. If to +readers remote from the facts and the feeling of the hour they perhaps +strike a note of scarcely intelligible emotion yet our story cannot spare +them. To us who heard them they were an expressive summary of many +thoughts, and fears, and hopes of that time, which our narrative cannot +give expression to otherwise than in this indirect fashion. Had those +thoughts and hopes been other, we should not, perhaps, have had this +story to tell. + +The choir gave an _al fresco_ concert on the night of the second day of +the match in the grass close. The resonance from the surrounding +buildings made the songs very effective for an outdoor entertainment. + +_Surgit amari aliquid_. Just at this time came news of a new fever case +at Uppingham. We knew what might be the significance of the news, and +began to make up our minds for another term at Borth. + +On July 5th a public concert was given by the choir, and attended by the +rest of the school, at Aberystwith. It was the second of two given in +support of the new church at Borth, to the debt on which the proceeds +were devoted. The first was held in the Assembly Room of the Queen's +Hotel, a beautiful room, with fine acoustic properties. We cannot say as +much for the Temperance Hall, in which the second was given. It is a +structure of the very severest Georgian architecture. "Why," asks a +reporter, "should water-drinkers allow it to be supposed that the graces +of art are all in the hands of Bacchus?" The journey to and fro by rail +was, in the popular estimate, an integral part of the entertainment; its +charm lay in the uncertainty as to whether the laden train would be able +to climb the abrupt incline to Langfihangel, or would keep on the rickety +rails as it spun down the same curve in returning. Otherwise, that the +school should make a railway journey _en masse_ to hold an evening +concert seemed, under our nomad conditions, to be only in the common +course of things. + +One concert we held in the wooden school-room on the 22nd of May; on that +occasion (we quote the magazine's reporter) "All the members of the choir +might be seen flocking to the school-room, with candle and candlestick in +hand, to furnish light for the performance. The candles were arranged in +sevens on wooden shelves all down the sides of the room, and though the +whole spectacle had its laughable side, as most things have, the general +effect was far from bad. It was cheerful enough; in fact, only a +Christmas-tree and some more disorder was needed to turn the +entertainment into as good an imitation of a happy school-treat as you +would get at a day's notice." But the music sounded dully in the timber +walls, and the experiment was not repeated. + +Meanwhile a new inroad of care had for the last fortnight, since the late +news from Uppingham, disquieted the colony. Major Tulloch, a Government +Inspector, who, on behalf of the Local Sanitary Board, had reported on +the state of the town of Uppingham, had expressed a strong opinion that +the school ought not to return thither before Christmas. In consequence +of this a memorial was sent from the masters to the Trustees, requesting +them to reverse their decision of June 17th, which recalled the school in +September. At a meeting of the Trustees, on July 14th, the following +resolution was passed: + + Resolved--"That, while in the opinion of the Trustees there is nothing + in the present condition of the town of Uppingham which calls upon + them to rescind their resolution of the 17th ult, yet, having regard + to a memorial addressed to them by the whole body of the assistant- + masters, they are willing, in compliance with the same, that the + school shall remain at Borth during the autumn term." + +Arrangements were at once begun for returning to camp after the holidays. +The responsibility for this step, which was thus devolved upon the +masters, though it was accepted without hesitation, was felt to be no +light one. Our engagement with the lessee of the hotel had provided for +a renewal of the contract at will; but there remained the owners of some +thirty houses, large and small, with whom we should have to reckon. They +would have us in their hands, and might, if so minded, "turn our +necessity to glorious gain." Then, too, many of the lodging-houses, +excellent as airy summer pavilions, did not promise much comfort in +winter time, to those who remembered how in the spring weeks the curtains +and everything movable within doors + + Fluttered in the besieging wind's uproar, + And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor. + +Moreover, natives who knew, threatened us with rain all day and every +day, from the beginning of September till the end of October, after which +it would be dry. Others, who also knew, promised us fine weather till +the latter date, and then wet till Christmas. Putting the two assurances +together, one inferred that weather at Borth would be like weather in +general. However, in prospect of winds and wet, the open porch of the +hotel was walled up with planks so as to put another door between the +sou'-wester and the diners in the corridor. Also a long lean-to shed, +like a cloister without windows, was run along two sides of the bowling- +green wall. The outlay on the latter yielded no adequate return. It +afforded some shelter for chapel roll-call, and for the few minutes' +lounge before evening prayers, except when it rained hard enough, and +then the water poured through the contractor's felt roof. It was too +narrow to be used, as was hoped, for games; unless, indeed, we had turned +it into a skittle-alley. But then skittles is a game of low connections. +Finally, well-wishers were solemn in their warnings that the drainage of +the spot was defective (which, indeed, was no otherwise than true, till +we brought about a reform), and that our settlement by the sea was +nothing if it was not healthy. + +The outlook then was not unclouded. But one bright day we had before we +said good-bye to the past, and fronted the future cares. Sir Pryse had +invited the school to spend a day with him at Gogerddan, Thursday, July +20th, the last day of term. Room was found for all his guests to dine +together in a large barn near the house, where, from the high and narrow +windows, the light fell in picturesque mellowness on the close-packed +ranks. A match was played in the grounds between the school and an +Aberystwith eleven; the rest whiled away the afternoon right pleasantly +among the flowers and grass-slopes. At a pause in the game there was a +gathering on the lawn to watch the execution of a little surprise which +the cricketers had prepared for our host. From a box which had been +perilously smuggled in, was produced a memorial gift (it consisted of a +study-clock and inkstand), which "the cricketers of Uppingham begged Sir +Pryse to accept, as a slight acknowledgment of his special liberality to +themselves;" for so it was set forth in an address which the captain of +the eleven proceeded to read to him. Our host, as much startled as if +the present and the address had been shot at him out of a cannon, +answered in a brief but not the less effective speech. Then, as if to +relieve the warmth of feeling generated between us, a piano was run into +the bow of an open window, and the choir outside delivered themselves of +some hearty music. Soon the evening train was carrying us home for the +reading of the class-list and the prize-giving. In the customary +address, the Headmaster could congratulate the school on having borne +themselves well during the great time in the school's history which this +day brought to a close: he called on them to "come back with the soldier +spirit" to face whatever remained. + +There was dark work going on in the street that night. When dawn broke, +it disclosed an array of flags, streamers, and devices, along the +approach to the station, where "the special" was waiting. Prominent +among the devices was the motto, _Au revoir_. For the feeling it spoke, +all were grateful; but not all rejoiced in the occasion of it. The train +moved out of the station with the school, to a boy, on board of it, to +the sound of a farewell cheer, and so the curtain fell on the first act +of the play. + + + + +CHAPTER X.--A WINTER CAMPAIGN. + + + _Sanitas sanitation, omnia sanitas_. + + _The farmer vext packed up his beds and chairs_, + _And all his household stuff_, _and with his boy_ + _Betwixt his knees_, _his wife upon the tilt_, + _Sets forth_, _and meets a friend_, _who hails him_, "_What_! + _You're flitting_!" "_Yes_, _we're flitting_," _says the ghost_ + (_For they had packed the thing among the beds_). + "_Oh_, _well_," _says he_, "_you flitting with us too_-- + _Jack_, _turn the horses' heads and home again_." + + TENNYSON, "WALKING TO THE MAIL." + +September 15th and 16th were the days of the school's return to Borth. We +slipped at once and easily into the groove of last term's routine, +filling our old quarters and several additional houses. Some building +operations needed for the winter's sojourn have been mentioned by +anticipation. Our medical officer, also, and the ready pickaxe of +"Sanitary Tom" (as the boys called the navvy who was his stout ally), had +been at work laying bare the subterranean geography of our premises and +making all right. At his instance, the proprietor ran out an extended +culvert into the sea beyond low-water mark, a grand engineering work, +which remains the one permanent monument of our settlement. Having in +mind some ancient aspersions on the wholesomeness of Borth we are glad to +bear testimony to the present adequate sanitation of the place. + +We do not write for the scientific, and yet we must notice (we hope +without wounding an unprofessional ear) the beautiful economy of natural +forces by which that sanitation is effected. The channel of the Lery, +between which and the sea the hotel is built, runs parallel to the +coastline, till it meets at right angles the estuary of the Dovey. The +same tide which washes the beach also fills the Lery channel and the +adjoining ditches. When the ebb has set in the water in the latter +stands for a time at a higher level than on the beach. Reflecting on +this, our engineers cut a duct between the Lery and the sea, so as to +draw the water from the river down the main drainage artery, performing +twice daily a most effective flushing. + +Some of us would have preferred to leave a more dignified memorial of +ourselves, forgetting, perhaps, that it is a Cloaca which is the most +impressive witness to the civilised resources of an ancient king. So an +offer was made to the proprietors that, if they would find the tools and +directors of the work, the school would provide the labourers for the +making of a road between the village and the church, an interval of a +furlong of marshy land, bridged at that time by a makeshift causeway. +They did not, however, see their way to accept our amateur industry, and +the project fell through. + +With the arrival of the boys came also news, that on the day before, +September 14th, the engineers had broken ground at Uppingham: + + _Ea vox audita laborum_ + _Prima tulit finem_. + +We had waited not without some impatience for the first sound of the +pickaxe; and its echoes were welcomed as promising an end to our exile. + +The new term opened smilingly. The smooth working order into which +everything fell at once contrasted pleasantly with the anxious bustle of +the entry in April. A glorious autumn was settling on the hills, draping +them from head to foot with a red mantle of the withering bracken, which +slowly burnt itself out along their slopes. There was sun and daylight +enough for many rambles along old paths or new ones before the year was +fairly dead. + +Our prosperity was suddenly staggered. Just five weeks after the return +a case of scarlet fever occurred, followed in the course of the week by +half-a-dozen more. An outbreak of this kind is too common an incident in +a large school to merit much surprise or great alarm. But then our +circumstances were exceptional. If the infection spread, it might be +difficult to find hospital room; to communicate it to the villagers, as +might easily befall, would be an unhappy return for their own ready +hospitality; and then how miserable to have fled from sickness at +Uppingham, and find it had followed us to Borth, as if, like the haunted +family of the poem, "we had packed the thing among the beds." Already +there came news which raised unspoken doubts of our returning home after +Christmas. How, then, if we could not stay here? The question was hard +to answer. + +It is, however, a well-recognised fact that epidemics of this kind are +very much under the control of scientific precautions, and as we had good +advice on the spot, no time was lost in stamping out the plague. War is +not made with rose-water (it certainly was not rose-water which reeked +along our passages), and fever germs can be exterminated, it seems, by +nothing less exasperatingly unsavoury than carbolic acid, an agency which +was laid on without any ruth. Grumblers were offered the alternative of +being smoked with sulphur. Some complained of sore throats, contracted, +they said, from the fumes of the disinfectant, and declared that the +remedy, like vaccination, was only a mitigated form of the disorder. The +landlords of our studies looked on with irresolute wonder, when some of +us sprinkled their floors with a potent decoction poured from watering- +pots. Most of them regarded it as a kind of magical rite into which it +would not be seemly to inquire. In one house a practical seaman, late +home from a cruise, took a less reverent view of the lustration, and +uttered hints of what he would do to the perpetrators' heads if their +acid touched his carpets again. Probably the best disinfectant applied +was the clear strong wind, which ten days after the first case succeeded +the previous relaxing weather. All windows and doors were ordered wide +open for the free passage of the blast; and the boys were directed to +bring down their rugs, great-coats, and dressing-gowns, and anything of +the kind which might be supposed to harbour mischief, and spread them for +purification on the pebbles of the beach. It will be believed the scene +was a quaint one, however it might remind the scholar of the idyllic +laundry scene by the Phaeacian shore, where Nausicaa and her maidens: + + [Greek verse] + +Whether it was these purgations, or the fumes of the carbolic which +exorcised the infection, or whether the pest was starved out by the +immediate and careful isolation of the cases that occurred, we must leave +doctors to determine. It is certain that the epidemic came to an end in +less than ten days after the first case. That we were able to apply the +most necessary of measures, that of isolating at once all cases declared +or suspected, we owe to the readiness of the villagers to put house-room +at our service, a readiness on which we certainly had no right to +calculate. The rent we might pay them was no measure of the service +rendered. If a panic had closed their doors, our situation would have +been worse than critical. + +The cause of the outbreak could not be confidently assigned, but since +the most probable theory traced it to a recent railway excursion made by +some school parties, these expeditions were discontinued for a time. This +was no great privation, for the year was closing in. + +About this time, October 16th, the appointment of new "Praepostors" was +made, to fill up vacancies in the body. In speaking as usual on the +occasion, the Headmaster called attention to the experiment in +self-government which our special circumstances were affording. There +would be little reason for our recording the occasion, were it not that +since that date the monitorial system in public schools has been +canvassed in the Press, on occasion of an untoward incident of recent +notoriety, and has been described by some as the parent of the "grossest +tyranny," ruinous to the future of any school from which the institution +is inseparable. We had thought this view of the system obsolete, or +correct only of schools subject to obsolete conditions. If we were +mistaken, it may be worth while to record an experience which tends to a +less pessimistic conclusion. + +It will easily be understood that the mechanical organisation of the +school was greatly deranged by the removal from home. The boys of the +several houses were no longer locally separated, nor in the same +immediate contact with their housemasters; they were restrained by few +bolt-and-bar securities, "lock-up" being for the most part impracticable, +and were allowed a larger liberty in many less definable ways. At the +same time they were exposed to no little discomfort, and during the rainy +months to much monotony, the very conditions which promote bullying and +other mischief. Further, the same causes which reduced the control of +masters, also embarrassed the upper boys in their monitorial duties. Thus +the school was left in a quite unusual degree to its self-government, and +that government had to act at a disadvantage. + +Yet the result was that all went well. The boys did not bully one +another, and they gave their masters no sort of trouble. Old rules had +to be relaxed, because they could not be enforced, but no licence came of +it; new rules had to be made, which might seem vexatious and not very +intelligible restrictions, but there was no tendency to break them. Of +course wrong things were done at Borth as elsewhere; but if we were to +record the few misdeeds which occur to us, their insignificance would +provoke a smile; while we have good evidence for the belief that the rate +of undetected offences was not increased. + +These are the facts we have to record. Different explanations will +suggest themselves to others, but among observers on the spot there was +but one opinion--that the prosperous result was due to the system of self- +government, "monitorial system," or whatever we name the institution, +which rests on the assumption that English boys are capable of +responsibility and authority, and will prove trustworthy if their masters +are willing to trust them. We do not forget that other factors entered +into the cause; one which cannot be ignored was the consciousness of the +boys that the school was on its trial, and that a public one. But people +cannot acquire self-control merely by the removal of restraints, or +behave well, for a long time together and in spite of tedium, simply +because they would like to do so. The truth is, that in a time which +might have been anarchical, we lived on the fruits of a long-established +order; and it is fair to add that at the end of thirteen months there +were no visible symptoms that discipline was wearing threadbare. + +Shall we, for writing this, be taxed with the vain-glory for which public +schools are at times reproached? We must brave the charge, then; for the +facts seem to furnish evidence of a kind so rarely obtainable, that to +omit them from this chapter in school life would be hardly excusable. An +experiment so crucial as that to which we were submitted does not occur +once in fifty years. + +But enough of serious matters. Let us go out and forget them in a run +with Sir Pryse's harriers, along the breezy gorse-covered downs of the +Gogerddan estate. We take the train which arrives just after we have +risen from dinner, and land at the upland village of Langfihangel. It is +a Saturday afternoon, the 21st of October, the day is clear and sunny, +and several ladies are of the party. A few hundred yards from the +station we met the hounds, and Sir Pryse's man who hunts them. The owner +is not with them, but (by his good leave) yonder tall, lithe fellow, the +best runner in the school, acts as Master of Hounds. He promises us good +sport, having heard from the huntsman of a hare which is "waiting for +us." As they prepare to cast off, the non-effectives separate from the +runners, and climb a round-topped hill which commands the country. The +fields are spread like a map under us; nothing on the face of the country +escapes our eyes. The hare that was "waiting for us" has grown tired of +it, and left the rendezvous, but another is soon started, and a stout +one. She is of the mountain breed, as are many in this country; they +could not otherwise have held out so long before the pursuit of such +runners, to say nothing of the hounds. The "tally-ho" comes cheerly up +to us from the valley through the crisp October air, and we see puss +scudding along up the hedgerow, the hounds and the foremost runners in +the next field, the rest thinning out and straggling behind them. Among +these we recognise with glee a friend or two, who years ago were in the +first flight of every Uppingham paper-chase (_si nunc foret illa +uventus_), labouring across a turnip-field, or held by the leg in a gorse- +cover. A check gives them a chance of coming up again with huntsman and +master. We won't spoil the chance by halloing where the hare went, +though, from our vantage-ground, we can view her throughout. Our friends +have just got in line with the leaders, and are finding their breath +again for a second burst, when the scent is recovered; the chase sweeps +up the ridge, and over it out of our sight, away, perhaps, towards the +moorland spurs of Plinlimmon. We descend the hill homewards, leaving +puss to her doom, whatever it may be. For these runs sometimes had a +fatal termination. In the school serial is told the story of a +magnificent day, of which, however, the runners did not witness the end, +for "time was drawing late, and we were far from the station, so had to +leave the hounds under the charge of the huntsman alone, and as the hare +was now exhausted, they soon killed her. We were on the scent for over +two hours, and ran about twelve miles." These days took place two or +three times a week; for good practical reasons the "field" was restricted +in numbers. + +After the short and sharp battle with the scarlet fever narrated above, +the term went on very peacefully, but with a growing expectation that +this would not be the last one in Wales. News from Uppingham of the +unpreparedness of the place to receive us left little room for doubt, but +the question was not decided (at least, officially) even at the date of +the break-up. The prospect of a fresh period of makeshift life was not a +welcome one; but the worst had been faced by this time, and found, after +all, not hard to deal with. The long dark evenings of November proved a +less difficulty than was anticipated. With afternoon school shifted to +the hour of sunset, and with meetings of the Debating and other societies +on half-holiday evenings, the dark hours did not hang heavily, and the +expected tedium of an Arctic winter was not experienced. The term closed +with a concert given in the Assembly Room at Aberystwith, December 13th, +and another on the next night in the Temperance Hall at popular prices. +On the 14th, a team of Old Boys played the usual football match against +the Present School, and were beaten by two goals to one. That evening +the class-list was read and the prizes given. If the boys hoped to +gather from the Headmaster's speech an intimation of where they would +meet him after Christmas they were disappointed. The government had as +yet no communication to make. Next morning, in the darkness before dawn, +the special train carried them to their homes, to await with curiosity +their next marching orders. + + + + +CHAPTER XI.--LUDIBRIA MARIS. + + + _Sit down_, _and hear the last of our sea-sorrow_. + + "THE TEMPEST." + + _They said_, "_and why should this thing be_? + _What danger lowers by land or sea_? + _They ring the tune of Enderby_." + + JEAN INGELOW. + +"England, when she goes to war," said a Prime Minister not long ago, "has +not to consider whether she will be able to fight a second or a third +campaign." We remembered that we were Englishmen; and on January 19th, +1877, went down again with a good courage for our third campaign on the +Welsh coast. A furious gale was howling that day among the hills of +Cardiganshire, recalling to the memory of some of us the stormy Ides of +March, when the pioneers of our little army first set foot in Borth. +_Omina principiis inesse solent_. This gale was sounding the key-note +of the term's adventures. + +The cause of our return to Borth for a third term is briefly told. We +had gone home at Christmas, uncertain whether we should meet again there +or at Uppingham. Dr. Acland, of Oxford, to whose active sympathy with +the school in its perplexities we must at least gratefully allude, had +undertaken on our behalf to inspect the sanitary condition of Uppingham, +and give us his judgment on the expediency of reassembling there. His +judgment was submitted to the attention of the Trustees at their meeting, +on December 22nd, when it was resolved that, "In the face of Dr. Acland's +report, the Trustees deeply regret they cannot at present recall the +school to Uppingham." So we went back to the sea. + +Our numbers this term just missed by one the normal total of three +hundred. In the two preceding terms they had been smaller by some five +or six. The camp at Borth, therefore, had not suffered from want of +recruits. Indeed, it was now foreseen that the return to Uppingham would +be for about one-third of the school a first arrival there. + +The beginning of the end of our exile seemed to be marked by the reduced +number of masters' families in camp. Some had gone into winter quarters +at Aberystwith; some had already resettled at Uppingham. Our connection +with home began to be retightened also by parochial and other common +transactions, in which we took our share from a distance. Not, indeed, +that the connection had ever been discontinued. We had left too precious +pledges behind us. The deserted gardens did not waste all their +sweetness on the air which we had exchanged for a "fresher clime." A +thin intermittent stream of their products found its way along the nine +hours of railway through most of the year. Flowers, fruit, and +vegetables might raise tantalising memories of the pleasant places where +they grew, but were not the less welcome to dwellers in this somewhat +austere tract where they did not grow or grew very niggardly. The +traffic in these delicacies drew the attention of the London and North- +Western Railway Company, whose officials called to account one of our +servants for travelling with an excess of personal luggage. The artless +contrabandist, besides his own modest pack, had fourteen several hampers +and boxes under his charge. This was checked. But who was the miscreant +who systematically staved in and pounded into such odd shapes the little +tin boxes in which our rose-fanciers had their choice blooms sent them by +post? Post Office authorities thought the damage was caused by "the +pressure of the letters." We did not, and remonstrated, till the +practice, whoever was the criminal, was stopped. Besides these gracious +souvenirs of home, there were from time to time business matters which we +had to transact as parishioners and ratepayers. One was sensible of an +almost humorous contrast, when we discussed our interests in the Midlands +in a room overlooking the coast and hills of Cardiganshire, where one +turned from watching the waves breaking crisply on the beach, to study a +map of some property in Rutland pastures. It has been accounted a signal +proof of Roman self-confidence, that bidders could be found for a piece +of land on which Hannibal was encamped at the moment of sale. The +situations are not quite parallel. But people who could seriously +debate, as we did, on the purchase of a freehold at a time when not even +their Rome was their own, clearly had not despaired of their country. + +With the exception of the moving incidents to be immediately narrated, +the tale of this term's life differs little from that of the preceding. +The round of work and play was much the same; the harriers were out +again, football went on as before, till superseded by the "athletics," +and a match was played on March 7th against Shrewsbury School on their +ground, of which the result was a drawn battle. + +Our difficulties this term were with the elements. In novels of school +life, where the scene is laid on the coast, the hero always imperils his +bones in an escapade upon the cliffs. The heroes of our romance knew +what was expected of them. Accordingly, two new boys of a week's +standing start one afternoon for a ramble on Borth Head and are missing +at tea-time. Search parties are organised at once (it was not the first +occasion, for the writer remembers sharing in a wild-goose chase which +lasted four hours of the night, along and under the same cliffs); while +one skirted the marsh to Taliesin, another explored the coast. The +latter party at nine o'clock in the evening discovered the involuntary +tenants perched upon a rock a little way up the cliff. They had climbed +to it to escape the tide which had cut them off, and here they sat, +telling stones in turn, they said, to while away the time till the tide +should retire. Before the waters went, however, darkness came; and +either from fear of breaking bones in the descent or suspicion of some +fresh treachery in the mysterious sea, they clung to their perch, +blessing the mildness of a January night without wind or frost, but +blessing with still more fervency the lanterns of their rescuers. They +had passed five hours in this anxious situation. + +This was the sportive prelude of more serious trouble. _Nunquam +imprudentibus imber incidit_: as the servant perhaps reflected, who, on +Monday, January 29th, was conveying the dinner of his master's family +from the Hotel kitchen to Cambrian Terrace. As he crossed the gusty +street between them, the harpies of the storm swept the dinner from dish, +and rolled a prime joint over and over in the dust. A leg of mutton was +following, but he caught it dexterously by the knuckle-end as it fell, +and rescued so much from the wreck. Such incidents are significant: +trifles light as air, no doubt, but at least they showed which way the +wind blew. And did it not blow? for three days the sou'-wester had been +heaping up the sea-water against the shores of Cardigan Bay. People +remembered with misgivings that an expected high tide coincided in time +with the gale, and shook their heads significantly as they went to bed on +the eve of January 30th. + +In the half light before sunrise, the classes, emerging from the school- +room after morning prayers, found the street between them and the Terrace +threaded by a stream of salt water, which was pouring over the sea-wall +in momently increasing volume. Skirting or jumping the obstruction they +reached the class-rooms, and work began. But before morning school was +over the stream had become a river, and thrifty housewives were keeping +out the flood from their ground-floors by impromptu dams. Those who were +well placed saw a memorable sight that morn, as the terrible white +rollers came remorselessly in, sheeting the black cliff sides in the +distance with columns of spouted foam, then thundering on the low sea- +wall, licking up or battening down the stakes of its palisades, and +scattering apart and volleying before it the pebbles built in between +them, till the village street was heaped with the ruins of the barrier +over which the waters swept victoriously into the level plain beyond: + + The feet had hardly time to flee + Before it brake against the knee, + And all the world was in the sea. + +Those who were looking inland saw how + + Along the river's bed + A mighty eygre reared its head + And up the Lery raging sped. + +And though they could not see how the tenants of the low-lying hamlet of +Ynislas fled to their upper storey as the tide plunged them into twelve +feet of water; how it breached the railway beyond, sapping four miles of +embankment, and sweeping the bodies of a drowned flock of sheep far +inland to the very foot of the hills; yet they saw enough to make them +recall the grim memories of the historic shore, and doubt if our fortunes +were not about to add a chapter to the legend of the Lost Lowland +Hundred. + +For an hour the narrow ridge on which the village stands was swept by a +storm of foam, while, from moment to moment, a wave exploding against the +crest of the ridge, would leap in through the intervals between the +houses, and carrying along a drift of sea-weed and shingle, splintered +timber, and wrecked peat-stacks, go eddying down into the drowned +pastures beyond. Yet when the ebb came, and men began to count their +losses, there were but few to record. The embankment at the south end of +the village had been beaten flat, and the road behind it buried under a +silt of shingle; the nearest houses to it had been flooded and threatened +with collapse, so that the owners were offering them next day on easy +terms; from our hospital, which stood in this quarter, the one patient +and his nurse were rescued on the backs of waders; the foundations of a +chapel, which was building on lower ground, were reported sapped, and a +staunch Churchman of our Welsh acquaintance stood rapturously contrasting +the fate of the conventicle with the security of his own place of worship +on the neighbouring knoll. "If Borth goes, the church won't, anyhow!" he +cried, in self-forgetting fervour. No lives were lost, though several +were barely saved. One of our party rescued his dog, already straining +at his chain to escape a watery grave; another saved (dearer than life +itself) his favourite violin. A fisherman, surprised in his kitchen, was +flung down and nearly strangled between door and doorpost by the rush of +a wave through the window. A neighbour was drifted out of his house on +the top of one wave, and scrambled back to find the door slammed and held +against him by another. Rueful groups of women stood in the street, +sobbing over armfuls of what one feared might be drowned infants, but +were, in fact, the little pigs which they had plucked alive and +remonstrant from the flooded styes. In short, if many were frightened, +few could plead to being hurt. + +Meanwhile, the boys had found their way from the class-rooms upon bridges +of railway-sleepers requisitioned from the station-yard. We could not +but enjoy that "something not altogether unpleasing to us in the +calamities of our neighbours," but the "humorous ruth," with which we +contemplated the comical incidents of the disaster was exchanged in good +time for practical pity. There was to be another high tide that evening, +and how would the village stand this second storm of its broken defences? +So the order was given to assemble in the street after dinner, and work +at the repair of the breaches. The street looked like an ant-hill, as +the workers, divided into gangs by houses, with the housemaster at the +head of his gang, swarmed on the roadway, clearing it from the _debris_ +with pickaxe, spade, and a multitude of hands; re-stacking the cottagers' +store of peat-sods, which the waves had sown broadcast; forming chains +across the beach to pass up from hand to hand the large pebbles at low- +water mark, to build in between the palisades; or cutting down the old +stakes and driving in new ones. This last was the most attractive branch +of the service. How enviable was he whom a reputation as a woodman +secured the enjoyment of an axe, and the genial employ of hewing and +hammering! This was much to be preferred to cutting your hands in moving +rubbish or standing still to hand wet stones in a freezing wind. However, +the pleasure of helping other people was common to all; and many of the +young hearts, which tasted that pleasure in this rough day's labour, will +have gained an impulse of prompt helpfulness that may serve them in other +and ruder storms than that which shook the frail homes of these friendly +villagers. + +We do not know how our defences would have stood the test of battle. They +were not put to the proof, for the wind, veering to the north that +morning, and blowing strongly all day, reduced again the volume of the +water in the bay, and the following tides came and went harmlessly. But +had the morrow repeated the terrors of this day, we should hardly have +been up to witness them, for (_proh pudor_!) we rewarded ourselves for +our exertions by a lie-a-bed next morning in place of early school. + +Elsewhere the storm-wave had worked more havoc. At Ynyslas, a flock of +one hundred and fifteen sheep were caught in their pastures, and drowned, +the farmer rescuing only eleven. The cottagers were driven to their +lofts, while the tide snatched away their furniture, doors, +window-frames, and tables, and strewed them along the railway banks. +There was flotsam and jetsam on what was now once more the coast-line at +the village of Taliesin, where in old days the bard's cradle had been +washed ashore; here one poor woman recovered her parlour-table of heavy +oak; her chairs had travelled farther yet to the door of a farmhouse in +the extreme corner of the marsh. These people were greater sufferers +than our villagers, but we could only help them by a subscription to +replace their losses. + +For ourselves, we suffered nothing except a temporary scarcity of coals +and oil from the interruption of the railway traffic. It was a fortnight +before the next train ran on the stretch between us and Machynlleth, and +in the meanwhile the gap was bridged by a coach service. From four miles +of embankment the ballast had been sapped away, and the sleepers and +rails collapsing into the void presented a dismal picture of wreck. + +Yes, we suffered one other privation. It was long before our football- +field rose again from the deeps, and was dry enough for play. Its +goalposts pricking up mournfully through the floods were a landmark which +the boys recognised with rueful eyes in the midst of the drowned and +deformed landscape. + +More substantial measures than the patching up of the barricades in which +we assisted must be taken if Borth is to remain permanently in the roll +of Welsh villages. Our storm-wave was but part of a system of aggression +which the sea is carrying out upon these coasts. Older residents +remember a coach-road under the promontory, where now there is nothing +but rock and seaweed, and look forward gloomily to a day when Borth will +be "disturbed;" for so they euphemistically describe the catastrophe +which is finally to wash it away. But an acquaintance of ours, who +claims one of the longest memories in the place, is more confident. He +has known Borth seventy years and as he has never seen it destroyed +during all that time, does not think it will be now. His own house is +safe on the hill of Old Borth, so he judges with all the calm of +conscious security. His conviction, however, is not shared by his +townsfolk, who were soon busy holding meetings, and considering schemes +for the provision of something better than these moral guarantees. +Heartily do we hope that funds and measures will be found to save our +friends from another and more calamitous "disturbance." But a letter +from Borth, a year later, speaks of the sea as again threatening their +security. "We are not afraid of him, though," the correspondent, one of +our landladies, devoutly adds, "for he is under a Master." All the same, +we should like to hear of a stout sea-wall as well. + +Once again the elements caused us alarm. A heavy gale got up in the +evening of February 19th, and roared all night upon the roof of the +hotel, tearing up the fluttering tiles in patches, and sending them +adrift through the air, till the master who slept under the leads, in +charge of the top storey, began to doubt whether the straining roof would +last overhead till morning. It was small consolation that this time he +and his neighbours should at least "die a dry death," so the inmates of +the floor were summoned from their beds in the small hours to spend the +rest of the night in a bivouack on the ground-floor. One or another of +those luckless youngsters will, in after days, remember, as a cheerful +incident, the arrival on the scene of the Headmaster, with a store of +biscuits and such supplies as could be requisitioned at the moment, to +provision the watch. Your schoolboy, he reflected, is hungry at all +times; what must he be at night when dragged from bed to save his life, +and forced to sit up, rather cold and very empty, for several hours +before daybreak. Solaced, however, by these beguilements, the hours +passed cheerfully away. + + + + +CHAPTER XII.--FAREWELL. + + + _The primal sympathy_, + _Which_, _having been_, _must ever be_. + + WORDSWORTH. + +Thenceforward the weeks rolled smoothly on, unmarked by moving incident, +till they gladdened us with the growing light of spring, and brought us +within near sight of our home. Must the truth be told? We are all of us +loyal sons of Uppingham, but not all of us were glad to find our return +to the mother-country was at last arriving. So far away from the +offence, we need not fear attainder if we confess, some few of us, that +our hearts were not whole in their welcome of the long-deferred event. It +belonged to the irony that waits on all lives which are not too dull a +material for fortune's jests, that we should cease to desire our home +just when long patience and often-thwarted efforts, and + + The slow, sad hours which bring us all things ill, + And all good things from evil, + +had brought its coveted security at last within our reach. For so it was +with some of us. Perhaps the air of sea and mountain had got into the +blood, and infected it with a certain disrelish for the restraints, the +even decorum, and the tamer surroundings of our life in the Midlands. +Well, we are not the only emigrants who have preferred their backwoods to +the streets of the mother city, nor the first campaigners who have come +back to home-quarters a trifle spoiled by adventure. And, moreover, +while everything about us was a reminder of what we must forego, there +was nothing to tell us of what a greeting our townsmen were preparing for +us, or of the solid mutual good which filled the vista beyond that +auspicious welcome. + +However, alike for those who were impatient and those who were half +reluctant to attain it, the equal-handed hours brought the end of our +exile. On one of our last evenings, April 6th, a reading was given in +the school-room, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with Mendelssohn's music; no +unfit close, we said, to our _annns mirabilis_. For, indeed, its +incidents had been "such stuff as dreams are made of," as whimsical if +not quite as harmless, as if their plot had been directed by the blithe +goblin of Shakespeare's fantasy. The chorus of readers and of singers +were so far encouraged by their success, as to offer a second recital as +a farewell entertainment to the good people of Borth. They enjoyed it +hugely. Doubtless some of the simpler members of that audience would +follow the drift of the Sassenach poet only at a certain distance; but +Bottom's "transformed scalp," a pasteboard ass's-head, come all the way +from Nathan's, was eloquent without help of an interpreter. "Oh! that +donkey, he was beautiful," was the dramatic criticism of an esteemed +friend, a fisher's wife. The criticism was at least sincere; from the +moment of the monster's entry she had been in one rapture of laughter, +till her "face was like a wet cloak ill laid up." Well, the kind soul +had reason good enough for her merriment. But had the reason been less, +our neighbours would not have lost the occasion of dropping the shyness +of intercourse in a frank outburst of good fellowship. + +But we took a more solemn farewell on the morrow, the 10th of April. The +parts were reversed now, and we were the spectators. Just at sundown of +a day of clear spring weather, the school was gathered at their doors +watching a long procession of villagers advancing up the street towards +them. We had heard whispers in the morning of a "demonstration," and now +it was come. Through the dust we caught sight of banners flying at the +head of the column; under them marched the choir of children singing, and +behind them the whole village was a-foot. The people of Borth, of every +age and degree, from the first householders and yeomen of the place to +the fishermen's boys and girls, had come to wish us God speed. Reaching +the school quarters they halted, the boys lining the roadway on each side +of them, and filling the broad flight of steps before the hotel doors. +When the cheers for "Uppingham" and our answering cheers for "Borth" had +rung out across the sands to seaward, there was an interval, filled up +with songs by the children, while they waited the arrival of the +spokesmen, whom they had charged with their valediction. When these +arrived, a deputation of the villagers moved into the school-room shed, +and there presented a brief address, which ran thus: "We, the inhabitants +of Borth, beg to tender our most sincere thanks to Dr. Thring, and all +the masters and scholars of the celebrated Uppingham School, for the very +many generous acts and kindly feelings exhibited to us during their +sojourn here." The address was introduced and explained by speeches +marked by refined feeling, and delivered with a noticeable grace of +manner. We will here cite, though for another reason, a few words of the +speaker who moved the address; he commented on the discipline which (from +the evidence of their conduct when at large) seemed to rule the school; +naively but pointedly he noted that no offence had ever been given; "No +boy had laughed at the villagers, if they were old and queer-looking or +queerly dressed; there had been no disorder, no shabby act, nothing +_un_decent" (so he put it in his unpractised English) "during the whole +twelve months we had spent among them." We give his testimony without +note or comment, sure that the facts would not be better told in words +less simple. They were little things he witnessed to; was it a little +thing that the witness could be truly borne? + +The boys were not present to hear the speeches, but they will like well +to remember the scene without doors at that unlooked-for reunion of +school and village. It was a scene made up of homely elements enough, +but somehow, in our own memory at least, few pictures will remain printed +in such fast colours. Clearly, as on that evening, we shall always see, +distinct in the quiet light of the afterglow, the ranks of serious faces, +touched and stilled by the surprise of a contagious sympathy, as English +boys and Welsh cottagers looked each other in the face, and felt, if for +the space of a few heartbeats only, an outflash of that ancient kinship +which binds man and man together more than race and circumstance divide. + +It pleases the smaller kind of criticism to cheapen the meaning of such +incidents as this, and explain them by the easy reference to interested +and conventional motives. Wiser men will take occasion to rejoice that +human nature is after all so kind; and if this be error, we would rather +err with the wise. Take once again our thanks, kind people of Borth, if +our thanks are worth your taking. You showed us no little kindness in a +strange land, and the day is far off when we shall forget the friendly, +gentle people whose name is the memorial of a great ill escaped, of much +good enjoyed, in the days that are over, and the landmark of who knows +what greater good in the days that are to be. + + + + +CONCLUSION. + + + _Perhaps poetry and romance are as plentiful as ever in the world_, + _except for those phlegmatic natures_, _who_, _I suspect_, _would in + any age have regarded them as a dull form of erroneous thinking_. + _They exist very easily in the same room with the microscope_, _and + even in railway carriages_: _what banishes them is the vacuum in + gentleman and lady passengers_. _How should all the apparatus of + heaven and earth_, _from the farthest firmament to the tender bosom of + the mother who nourished us_, _make poetry for a mind that has no + movements of awe and tenderness_, _no sense of fellowship which + thrills from the near to the distant, and back again from the distant + to the near_? + + GEORGE ELIOT. + + [Greek verse] + + ANTIGONE. + +All is over now; April was just a twelfth-night old when the school +departed. Some of our company have lingered on for business, a few from +reluctance to have done with it. But to-day the last group has taken +wing for the Midlands. Old "Borth," the colley dog, followed them to the +station, and poked his nose into the carriage to take his leave. Old +Borth--we had almost forgotten him, and that had been deep ingratitude +for he was not the least warm-hearted of our friends in Wales. His +master lived two miles away; but soon after our arrival, Borth had come +down from the hills to attach himself to our fortunes, and henceforth +became, as it were, our familiar, the pet of the regiment, like the goat +of the "23rd." He knew his position, and was a stickler for formalities; +he had a wag of the tail for every boy who wore the image of the +venerable schoolmaster upon his cap; but if he met him bare-headed, or, +by any chance, in an indistinctive head-gear, he would cut that boy dead, +were he never so much the same urchin from whose hand he had yesterday +eaten a cheese-cake. That was his official rebuke for the irregularity. +By day, Borth would bask in some sunny corner of our quarters; at night, +he has been known to venture on a nearer intimacy where doors were left +open. We found you once ourselves, Borth, curled up and asleep upon our +own bed. You woke up, shook yourself with a modest, but not startled +manner, and walked quietly away, like a gentleman. + +Ah! kind friend, you showed us the sincerest of flatteries, that of +imitation. You left a comfortable home for chance quarters and uncertain +fare, that you might be one of us, an outcast among outcasts. Now we +must part, for our home will spare us no longer, as neither will yours +spare you. And so the last good-bye is said, and you are limping away to +your hills again, with dejection expressed in every fibre of your frame, +from the drooping ears to the last hair on your tail. + +All is over, and the place is very silent, except for the clink of +hammers where they are breaking down our wooden walls, and, seaward, the +cry and splash of gull and tern dipping for their prey in the shoal of +herring-fry which is wandering about the bay. Close inshore a porpoise +is wallowing, like the jolly sea-pig that he is, in his berth of +glistening water. The wild creatures seem to have grown tamer since +there are no strollers to keep them aloof. This morning, as we passed +his pool, the stately heron let us come within twenty yards of him before +he got leisurely upon the wing. The village seems even quieter; the +people at their doors betray, to our fancy, a certain lassitude as if, +like merrymakers on the morrow of a revel, they felt somewhat sleepy and +sorry, now that the stirring social year is over, and the little fishing +town has returned to its "old solitary nothingness." + +Yes, the silence has come down again; but it is a silence full of voices. +For, as it often happens that, when things without are stillest, men hear +most audibly the tumult of their own brains, so is it now with us. Action +is ended, and memory begins to work. Into the vacuum which the silence +makes, the stream of our little history pours in a long backwater. Our +thoughts go back to the beginning of it, the hour when, as we were +sailing prosperously under press of canvas, the blast struck us suddenly +out of a sunny sky. We live again the slow months of enforced vacation, +and the brief spell of apparent security, broken by the second stroke. We +recall the slow and painful sickening of hope, amid the frustration of +attempted remedies; the watchings and communings by late firesides; the +morning questionings and bulletins; the deepening of fears, until the +moment when the sharp pressure of calamity became the liberating touch, +and made a hazardous adventure seem a welcome alternative. Not less +distinctly we remember the zest with which the wretched waiting for evil +tidings was exchanged for hopeful activity; the rush of preparations; the +anxiety which watched their passage through the ordeal of practice; the +growing sense of security; the mellowing down of novelty and privation +into routine and ease; the contrast, all the while, between the outward +peace of the colony, and the secret difficulties of finance and +commissariat; the long intermittent crisis which gave the administrative +no rest; the hopes and efforts for our return home, and the reversal of +them; all this, and--and--very much else as well, which was of acutest +interest at the time, and which it will become convenient to describe +only when it will be of interest to no one. All this passes before us in +the series of a long dissolving view, full of bright lights, and only +less full of unlovely shadows. + +And, somehow, as we review the past this evening, pacing the beach in the +twilight, the fact accomplished seems to us not smaller, but greater than +when we lived in it. There are moments some would say of illusion, some +of vision--when the things most familiar to our eyes and thoughts, +whether in nature or human society, surprise us with a dignity and beauty +not discovered in them before. That glamour is in the air this evening. +Perhaps the night-wind, which creeps to us from over the grassy tomb of +Taliesin, warrior and bard has touched the fancy with a breath out of his +heroic days. What wonder if it were so? Thirteen centuries ago the hero +became the guardian of the shore; but the story which ends to-day is, +perhaps, as worthy note as any he has watched from his hill-side. Those +who rate the dignity of human action by other standards than the breadth +and conspicuousness of its stage, will not mock us because we find some +stuff of romance in the homely circumstance and not always epic passages +of this modern episode of school. + +But if the stranger who may read the tale will spare his scorn--those for +whom we shall tell it would forgive even a bolder word; for some of them +were themselves a part of it, and others will make it a part of their +heritage in the past. English schools have always honoured their +traditions, counting them the better part of their wealth. Some have +majestic memories of royal benefactors, or can point to a muster-roll of +splendid names, whose greatness was cradled in their walls. Such +traditions are not ours. A past, not brief, but not memorable, has +denied us these. But a tradition we have henceforward which is all our +own and wholly single in its kind. We persuade ourselves that in far-off +years those who bear our name will say that, in the memory of a great +disaster overcome, no mean heirloom has been left them. They will not be +ashamed of a generation which, in an hour of extreme peril, did not +despair of the commonwealth, but dared to trust their faith in a further +destiny, and saved for those who should come after them a cause which +must else have perished in the dark. _Stet fortuna domus_. And stand it +will if there is assurance in augury. For the fairy legend has a truth +in fact, and the luck of a house, grasped daringly and held fast in an +act of venturous hardihood, will not break or be lost again until the +sons forget to guard it. + +Here and there, at any rate, among the posterity which will sometime fill +our ranks, there will not be wanting generous and gifted spirits, +_illustres animae nostrumque in nomen iturae_, who will rejoice in making +good the forecast that the venture was not made in vain. They will +possess more worthily the good which an elder race foresaw and laboured +not all unworthily to preserve. To their safe keeping we commend as +under a seal, the legacy of hopes which are better left unspoken now. + + + + +APPENDIX. + + +HOW WE LEFT BORTH. + + +(_From_ "_The Cambrian News_.") + +On Tuesday evening, April 10, the inhabitants of Borth, almost to a man, +turned out to take part in a farewell demonstration to the masters and +scholars of Uppingham School, after their twelve months' residence in +Wales. Shortly after seven o'clock a procession of the inhabitants was +formed, and, headed by a flag-bearer, made its way to the square in front +of the Cambrian Hotel, where several songs were sung by the assembly +under the schoolmaster's (Mr. Jones's) direction; and at the conclusion a +hearty round of cheers was given for the Uppingham School, who +immediately responded by making the place ring again with three +enthusiastic cheers for Borth. The assembly then adjourned to the wooden +building in the hotel-yard, when Mr. Jones, Brynowen, was voted to the +chair on the proposition of Mr. Lewis, Post Office, seconded by Mr. +Jones, Neptune Baths. + +The CHAIRMAN said, as the meeting was aware, the object of the +demonstration--and he was exceedingly glad to see such a popular +demonstration--was, that the Borth people might have a chance of giving +public expression to the kind feeling of respect they entertained for Mr. +Thring, the masters, and scholars of Uppingham School before they left +Borth, after a twelve months' sojourn there. (Cheers.) When some twelve +months ago a rumour came to Borth respecting the advent of Uppingham +School, a few old women and nervous people, in the innocence of their +hearts, were afraid they would be swamped by an inundation of Goths and +Vandals. (Laughter.) The meeting would, however, agree with him that +kinder-hearted gentlemen than the masters, and better-behaved boys than +the scholars, could not be found. (Hear, hear.) There had been no town- +and-gown feeling existing similar to what prevailed in places of greater +pretensions. The people of the village and the School had pulled +together in a friendly manner, and everything had gone on quite smoothly. +(Hear.) After referring to the progress of the School under the +headmastership of Mr. Thring, and remarking that the older schools would +have to look to their laurels, as Uppingham was treading close upon their +heels, the Chairman said that in some fifteen or twenty years to come +many of the boys would be in Parliament, some of them officers in the +army or navy, fighting the battles of the nation, some of them would be +barristers, seeing that the people got fair play in the courts of law, +others would no doubt be eminent merchants, importing the produce of +foreign countries, whilst others would be surgeons, like Dr. Childs--(loud +cheering)--and physicians. They would therefore exercise an influence +over the destinies of the nation. (Cheers.) The people of Borth were +exceedingly sorry that the school was going away. Its members would be +missed very much indeed. He owed the Uppingham people no ill-feeling, +but if a case of smallpox, the cholera, or some other virulent disease +broke out in that place and prevented the return of the school, he was +sure that Borth people would not feel at all sorry. (Laughter and +cheers.) There was the name of a gentleman whom he might mention. That +gentleman had earned the gratitude of the Borth people perhaps more than +anyone else. He referred to Dr. Childs. (Applause.) He had acted the +part of the Good Samaritan thoroughly, responding as readily to the call +of the sick and suffering at midnight as at noon. (Cheers.) He would +detain them no longer, but ask Mr. Lewis to submit a proposition to the +meeting. + +Mr. LEWIS, Post Office, said he had very great pleasure in reading the +resolution, because he knew it would be heartily responded to by everyone +present. It was as follows:--"We, the inhabitants of Borth, beg to +tender our most sincere thanks to Dr. Thring, and all the masters and +scholars of the celebrated Uppingham School, for the very many generous +acts and kindly feelings exhibited towards us during their sojourn here." +Mr. Lewis followed by commenting upon the excellent discipline which +evidently ruled the school, judging from their exemplary conduct out of +school. He was not aware of any shabby, mean, or ungenerous act +committed by the young gentlemen during the whole twelve months they had +been at Borth. (Applause.) The meeting would remember the assistance +rendered in the terrific storm in February. Even the ladies came out and +helped the people in their distress--(loud applause)--thereby setting an +excellent example to the women of Borth. (Cheers.) They had not only +worked as hard as they could, but subscribed money among themselves which +they distributed to the most needy of those who had sustained loss by the +storm. (Applause.) The money then distributed would pass into other +hands in a short time, but the kind feelings the act engendered would +last for ever. (Applause.) He only hoped that each and all connected +with Uppingham School would enjoy long, prosperous, and useful lives. +(Loud applause.) + +Mr. JONES, The Baths, expressed the fears he once entertained, in common +with others, that the Uppingham School would take Borth by storm, an +opinion he had to change entirely after the boys had been there a week, +for instead of laughing at the quaintness of some of the Welsh costumes +or the peculiarities of the nation, they had obtained the goodwill of the +inhabitants by their gentleness of demeanour, and completely won their +hearts on that memorable day when masters and scholars, young and old, +turned out to assist in reducing, as much as possible, the ill-effects of +the storm. (Cheers.) He did not exactly wish that some contagious +disease would break out at Uppingham, but he hoped that when the School +got back it would repent, and so return to Borth. (Laughter and cheers.) + +Speeches were also made by Mr. Thomas G. Thomas and Mr. R. Pritchard +Roberts, Garibaldi House. + +The Rev. E. THRING, M.A., then rose amid cheers and said: Mr. Chairman +and our friends at Borth, I have made many speeches in my life since I +have been master of this school. Two-and-twenty years of +school-mastering gives a good deal of exercise for the tongue from time +to time; but never in my life have I stood up to make any speech which I +feel so little capable of making as I do to-night; not from want of +practice, but because the feelings you have aroused in us are such--and +our sojourn here has been such a boon to us (cheers)--that it is +impossible for me to tell you the value we set on living here, and the +welcome we have received. (Applause.) I never heard anything sweeter to +my ear than your singing to-night. The time it must have taken, the +goodwill manifested in the songs, and altogether the circumstances under +which they were delivered, and we on our last day here, made them go down +into my heart, and into all our hearts with peculiar power. (Cheers.) +Never in my life have I had such testimony to the school which I cared so +much for, as the testimony you have given to-night. We get our +reputation in the English world, but what is that compared to the inner +life to which you have borne witness. What signifies it whether we know +much or little in comparison with the fact that we have a character of +life which you like. It is life answering unto life across all those +ties, both of nationality--for I grieve I cannot speak in your native +tongue--and also of distance which set gulfs between man and man, but +cannot separate life when it is true. (Hear, hear.) If your life is +true, and our lives are true, then it flows across and we meet as +to-night one united body of living men. (Cheers.) And this is what +gives a peculiar value to our being here. You know as none can know what +this school is. We came among you as strangers, and you looked upon us +with the eyes of strangers; we stayed among you as friends, and we part +from you as friends. (Cheers.) Everybody knows that the one thing on +earth which makes life pleasant is the friendly atmosphere in which men +live--the one thing that makes it hateful is to be surrounded by +thoroughly bitter hearts. There is an old saying that "stone walls do +not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." No, the life within can make +any place enjoyable--nay, happy. Yet, I think it is better to be in +happy surroundings too. Of this, however, you may be sure: those +glorious hills of yours, this sea, and all the happy hours we have spent +wandering about, will not easily pass out of our minds. The jewel of a +friendly spirit has also been set in very bright surroundings. We do +rejoice in the life we have had here, and all that we have found. +(Cheers.) You have spoken to-night of the good conduct of the school, +and have said that we have caused no trouble since our stay here. That +like many other questions, has two sides. Is it not a great credit to +this place that when between a hundred and seventy and a hundred and +eighty strange boys have been put into your cottages and homes, there has +not arisen a single difficulty for the whole year? I say it is quite as +much a feather in your caps as in ours. I am proud of it--very proud of +it. (Applause.) I would also refer to the extensive power which lies in +a great school. It is quite true that some few years hence, these boys +whom you have looked on with interest will be schoolmasters, barristers, +and leaders in every part of the world. (Applause.) There is not a +quarter of the globe where we have not our representative. It is now, +and not in the future only, that I may venture to say that there is no +part of this globe where men are to be found, where, here and there, +Borth has not been heard of this year. (Cheers.) I will mention two +facts only which may interest you. This very week, quite unconscious of +this meeting to-night, I sent a letter to North Canada, with, I may say, +a very glowing account of Borth in it--(cheers)--and the day before +yesterday, having a little leisure, I wrote to the Lieutenant-Governor of +the North-West Provinces of India, when I mentioned Borth in equally warm +terms. (Applause.) That, I need not say, is going on all around us. +These three hundred pens of our school are busy day by day giving to +their friends their own views of our life here, and I may no doubt say +that on the whole they are pleasant views. (Cheers.) It is not only a +pleasant fact to mention, but I hold that where life is working well with +life it is a real power for good that goes out into all lands, a sort of +missionary force traversing this earth, speaking of us as capable of +coming here, and of the welcome you have given us. (Hear, hear.) That, +however, would be a slight thing if we did not leave behind us, as I am +sure we do, that feeling of happy life which we take away with us. +(Cheers.) For my own part, at all events, if I leave, it is not the last +time I hope to spend in Borth. (Applause.) I know no place that has +been more attractive to me, no place where, if I can, I shall more +readily come back to--not, I hope, next time as an exile, but coming from +home to happy holiday to spend it pleasantly among my friends here. +(Applause.) + +MR. LEWIS proposed a hearty vote of thanks to Dr. Childs for his +gratuitous attendance on the sick in his professional capacity. (Loud +cheers.) + +DR. CHILDS referred to the pleasure experienced in doing a kindly action, +and afterwards humorously added that at one time he thought of setting up +in practice at Borth, but finding the place so healthy he had given up +the idea. (Laughter and cheers.) He should, however, know where to send +his convalescent patients in future. He should recommend them to take +the first train, and spend a week on the sands at Borth, with an +occasional dip in the Neptune Baths. (Loud laughter and cheers.) Three +cheers were given for the ladies of Uppingham School, and the assembly +separated after singing the National Anthem. + + + +HOW WE CAME BACK TO UPPINGHAM. + + +(_From the_ SCHOOL MAGAZINE.) + +(_Signifer, statue signum, hic manebimus optime_.) + +Who has not known the moment when, as he looked on some familiar +landscape, its homely features and sober colouring have suddenly, under +some chance inspiration of the changing sky, become alive with an +unexpected beauty: its unambitious hills take on them the dignity of +mountains, its woods and streams swell and broaden with a majesty not +their own. Though, perhaps, it is their own, if Nature, like Man, is +most herself when seen in her best self; if her brightest moments are her +truest. + +Shall we be thought fanciful if we confess that we felt something of this +same kind when, returning from a year-long exile, in the last gleams of a +bright May evening we turned the corner of the High Street of Uppingham, +and came face to face with our welcome. The old street, seen again at +last after so many months of banishment, the same and not the same; the +old, homely street--forgive us, walls and roofs of Uppingham, and forgive +us, you who tenant them, if sometimes perhaps to some of us, as our eyes +swept the grand range of Welsh mountain-tops, or travelled out over +limitless sea distances, there would rise forbidden feelings of +reluctance to exchange these fair things for the bounded views and less +unstinted beauties of our midland home: forgive us, as you may the more +readily because these thoughts, if any such lingered, were charmed away +on the instant by the sight of the real Uppingham. There lay the path to +our home, an avenue of triumphal arches soaring on pillars of greenery, +plumed with sheaves of banners, and enscrolled with such words as those +to whom they spoke will know how to read and remember. Our eyes could +follow through arch after arch the reaches of the gently-winding street, +alive from end to end with waving flags, green boughs, and fanciful +devices, till the quiet golden light in the western sky closed the vista, +and glorified with such a touch of its own mellow splendour the ranges of +brown gables and their floating banners, that for a moment we half +dreamed ourselves spectators of an historic pageant in some "dim, rich +city" of old-world renown. Only for a moment, though; for when we drop +our eyes to the street below us, those are our own townsfolk, +well-remembered faces, that throng every doorstep and fill the +overflowing pavements and swarming roadway. Yes, they are our own +townsfolk, and they are taking care to let us know it--such a welcome +they have made ready for us. + +We hardly know how to describe with the epic dignity which it merits the +act by which they testified their joy at our return. We who saw the +sight were reminded of an incident in the AEneid-- + + Instar montis equum divina Palladis arte + Aedificant, sectaque intexunt abiete costas; + Votum pro reditu simulant. + + * * * * * + + Pueri circum innuptaeque puellae + Sacra canuut, funemque manu contingere gaudent. + +But the ill-starred folk of Troy could not have shown more enthusiasm in +haling within their walls the fatal wooden horse, than did the men and +boys of Uppingham, who harnessed themselves, some four-score of them, to +that guileless structure, which, though indeed it has some other name, we +will call at present our triumphal car. They harnessed themselves to it +at the east-end of the town, and drew it with the pomp of a swarming +multitude all the length of the long street to its western mouth and half +the way back again. On went that unwieldy car of triumph, bearing a +freight of eager faces behind its windows, and carrying a crowd of +sitters, precariously clustered wherever a perch could be found on its +swaying roof, under the verdant span of the arches and the flow of the +streamers: + + Ilia subit mediaeque minans inlabitur urbi. + +On it went, with the hum of applauding voices increasing round it, till +the popular fervour found articulate utterance in a burst of jubilant +music. There swept past our ears, first, the moving strains of "Auld +lang syne," and then, as if in answer to the appeal to "Auld +acquaintance," came the jocund chorus "There is nae luck about the +house"--most eloquent assurance that we were welcome home. And then in +turn the music died down, and the crowd round the now halted procession +cheered with a will for "the school," "the Headmaster and the masters," +and the school taking up with zest the genial challenge, returned the +blessing with such a shout as if they meant the echoes of that merry +evening to make amends in full to street and houses for their fourteen +months of silence. + +It was "all over but the shouting:" but that was not over till some hours +of dusk had gathered over school and town. For first the multitude +besieged the well-known mighty gates, behind which lies the studious +quiet of the Schoolhouse Quad. When they were admitted they came in like +a flood, and filled the space within; but for all they were so many, +there was an orderliness and quietude in the strange assemblage which +made their presence there seem not strange at all, and they listened like +one man to the words in which the Headmaster, who came out to meet them, +framed his thanks for this unequivocal welcome. This done, they flowed +out again, and streamed across the valley and up the hill to carry the +same message of goodwill to the distant houses, and so with more cheering +and more speeches came to an end a day of happiest omen for the joint +fortunes of Uppingham School and Town. + +A few additional details are needed to complete our account. A friend, +remarkable for his plain common-sense, reminds us that the epic vehicle +we so indistinctly describe, was the Seaton 'bus, and that the music was +due to "the splendid band connected with Mrs. Edmonds' menagerie, which +happened to be in the town." We are not in a position to deny either +statement, or another to the effect that "the conveyances which +accompanied the 'bus formed a procession of considerable length," having +been halted by arrangement outside the town, and formed into file for the +entry. When the same friend hazards some further criticism on a +confusion of dates and incidents in our narrative, in which he finds the +events of two days, a Friday and a Saturday, presented as in a single +scene, we feel it time to silence him by an appeal, which he does not +follow, to the "truer historic sense" and the "massive grouping" of +imaginative history. + + + +THE ADDRESS. + + +On Tuesday of the next week, May 8, an address was presented by a +deputation of the townspeople to the Headmaster and assistant masters. +The ceremony took place in the school-room, the body of which was almost +filled by those who had assembled to support their deputation, while the +masters, their families, and the Sixth Form were seated on the tiers of +the orchestra. The deputation coming forward, Mr. Bell said that Mr. +Hawthorn and himself had been requested by their fellow townsmen to +undertake the presentation of an address, in explanation of which he +would make a few remarks. In an appreciative speech he reviewed the +circumstances which had given rise to the present occasion, gave some +explanation of the form and terms of the address, and took occasion to +add that although the ladies were not mentioned in the address, the +townspeople were not unmindful of the energetic way in which they had +seconded the efforts of the masters. + +MR. HAWTHORN said he had been asked to read the Address, but that he was +unwilling to do so without some slight expression of the feelings with +which he and others took part in the presentation of it. Though they +were met to congratulate the school, they felt, he said, that there were +good grounds to congratulate themselves as townsmen. The absence of the +school had pressed with greater or less severity on many tradesmen, being +felt more especially by a large number of the poorer inhabitants, and had +made it evident to many how poor a place Uppingham would be without a +school upon its present important scale. But they valued the School on +other grounds too; they recognize the advantage of the presence among +them of so many representatives of liberal education and its broader +views on matters of public interest. To the Headmaster it must be a +cause for rejoicing and thankfulness that the labour of his life had been +saved from a sudden and unfortunate conclusion. To him and his assistant +masters, the parents, and the boys, by whose loyal adherence the time of +trial had been happily passed through, their congratulations were +offered. He proceeded to read the address, which was received with much +applause by the townspeople. It is a handsomely illuminated document, to +which between sixty and seventy names are attached; the terms of it are +as follows: + +"_To the Rev. Edward Thring, M.A., Headmaster, and to the Assistant +Masters of Uppingham School_. + +"Gentlemen,--We, the undersigned residents in Uppingham, have great +pleasure in meeting you with a hearty welcome on the re-assembling of the +school in full numbers in its native home, and gladly avail ourselves of +this opportunity of conveying to you our congratulations that the period +of anxiety and trial through which you have so successfully passed has +clearly demonstrated the sound principles upon which the school has been +conducted, and which have raised it to its present eminence as one of the +great schools of the country, and have won for it the confidence of +parents in all parts of the kingdom, many of whom have entrusted their +sons to your care at Borth, and are continuing that trust now that you +are returning to your homes. + +"We desire also to express our sense of the courage and enterprise +manifested in removing the school from Uppingham at the time of the +anxious crisis in February, 1876. + +"And we pray Almighty God that it may please Him to bless the school, and +that under His guidance those who from time to time leave the school may +as scholars and Christian gentlemen uphold its fame in whatever sphere +they may be placed. + +"_Uppingham_, _May_, 1877." + +The HEADMASTER then rose and said: "Mr. Bell, Mr. Hawthorn, and friends +in Uppingham,--Home is home, and you may be quite sure that we, at all +events, who went through exile felt it indeed to be home when we came +back again. (Applause.) It does not signify what the circumstances may +be, but it is not possible to live long in a place and to have your home +there without taking root in it, and having fibres sent deep which cannot +be torn up without pain. (Applause.) We are very grateful, therefore, +for the hearty, the enthusiastic welcome you gave us on our return. +(Cheers.) Assuredly as our eyes looked on this pleasant hill and the +familiar fields, we felt a deep thankfulness for the great peril passed, +the page of life turned, and a year such as never can come again closed +with success. (Applause.) And it is a pleasant spot to look on when you +come down the dip of the valley before you near Uppingham, and look up +and see the ancient homes crowning the brow of the hill--it is a fair +sight to any eye, even to a stranger's eye, the pleasant homes of +Uppingham, with the church and its spire in the midst, the spire of the +school chapel beyond, each adding, methinks, to the beauty of the other, +and both alike in their upward spring and their holy worship. It _is_ a +pleasant spot to look on, and you made your old picturesque street very +beautiful with your decorations and that bright outbreak of welcome which +greeted us as we came in. (Cheers.) The school hardly knew what we +meant--they did not know when we asked them to cheer at the top of the +hill; but as the stream of life wound round and came in sight of that +avenue of arches and flags, then they understood what was meant, and they +were ready enough to second it. (Cheers.) We were very thankful, also, +that you recognise in that address--that able address and pleasing to +receive--how hard it was to go, how great a risk had to be faced to save +the school; for that was what was at stake. I do not say that in years +to come there should not again have been a school as great as this, or +greater; but this I am sure of, that we were in the very last week of the +life of this present school; that at the beginning of the week, when it +was decided to go, there was news from different quarters that made it +absolutely certain that another Monday would have seen no school here. +For a school is not a mere machine which can be set going to order, and +which anybody who happens at the time to have the mastery of can deal +with like a machine. "I can call spirits from the vasty deep," says +Shakespeare in one of his plays; and the rejoinder comes, "Why, so can I, +or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them?" +(Laughter and cheers.) Now that is just what they won't do; and we +simply had no choice; we lay absolutely helpless before the fact that +ruin stared us in the face, and we could not stir hand or foot to stop it +unless we had been able then to find a door of escape. This present +school was at an end, and neither I nor some others amongst us could have +set foot again in Uppingham as our home. Now I do assure you ruin is a +hard thing to look on after a life-work of many years of labour--not a +less hard thing because the sun rose as usual, and it was all peace, and +the buildings looked as of old, and the fields were just as they had +always been; but an invisible barrier had risen up, and we had no place +here any more. To see the four-and-twenty years of life go at a +touch--indeed it was hard to think of. "For my part, I have built my +heart in the courses of the wall"--(cheers)--and nothing short of this +impelled us to that dire necessity of leaping in the dark, to go we did +not know where, and when we found the _where_, not knowing who would +follow us. But it was worth while to run any risk--to face any danger--to +keep together the life of this place, and that its name should not go out +in England. (Loud cheers.) We did not know who would follow us, and it +was a day to be remembered--a day of much cheer, though full of labour +and trial and fear also, when on that 4th of April three hundred came in. +(Loud applause.) Not above two or three that night were wanting of those +who were going to remain at the school. (Cheers.) Well have you taken +in your address that staunch adherence of parent and boy as the proudest +honour that a school can boast of (cheers), and well have you noted that +at Borth also the entries kept level with the leavings, and that we have +brought back this year--this day--almost a hundred boys who had never +seen Uppingham. (Renewed cheering.) This was worth fighting for; this +is worth rejoicing. The school was saved, and we and you to-night once +more meet together as one body. (Loud applause.) We are united now as +we never have been before methinks (cheers); for never before, to my +knowledge, in England, have town and school been so completely welded +together as your welcome to us home and our presence here together to- +night shows us to be now. (Loud and long-continued applause.) There +have been many blessings in this great trial, but certainly not least do +I set that, that we and you are once more met as one. Your work and ours +is so mixed up--our work so mixed with yours, and yours with ours--that +it is not possible that anything should go out of this place, any life +come forth from it, which does not to a great degree bring honour or +discredit to both; and I do think (what was said to-night) that we are +here together to work in the highest way, not as a matter of pecuniary +advantage only in a place like this, but simply that we, one with +another, should push forward life and make it crown that living edifice +of truth, which, as it seems to me, is town and school working together. +And what a type that town is. "A city set upon a hill cannot be hid;" +and surely as a school and a home, a home of learning and light, this +place is both actually and figuratively set upon its hill. Everything of +the past year has gone out into land after land, in letters and papers +and narratives on all sides: the busy-boy mind and the busy-boy pen +photographs most accurately all the minute incidents that interest their +opening life, and it passes out everywhere. I know that in India, and +China, and Australia, and Canada--and I might go on with half the +countries in the world--there has been talk in many a distant home of +what has happened here. It may very well be that at this moment your +names are on many lips as letters of English news have come in lately +from England, and your welcome of us will travel out to the ends of the +earth, so great is the power of "a city set upon a hill." And when you +pray that we may be Christian gentlemen in the life that is coming, I say +it lies a great deal in your own hands. Help us by so smoothing our path +in all ways so that your honour may be our honour and your work our work, +and that as we are grateful to you to-night so the world outside may be +grateful to you also for work hereafter, and that none shall go out of +Uppingham School and shall not carry wherever he goes a thankful memory +of Uppingham town, and that whenever the name of Uppingham is heard in +any part of the world it shall be that of an honoured place, with no +divided interest, but one place working wisely, so that the world may be +grateful for good work done, as we to-night are grateful for the welcome +given, grateful for the lightening of our burdens, grateful for the +possibility of good work in the future, most grateful for the happy homes +you have given us in welcoming us home so fervently. I thank you most +heartily in the name of the school and the masters and myself for this +address, which I trust will for ever remain not the least honoured relic +of this school." + +The Headmaster sat down again amid much cheering from the audience of +townspeople, to which the small party of boys present found voice to make +no ineffective answer in three salutes 'for Uppingham town.' + +* * * * * + +CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{12} "Prom. Vinct.," 904. + +{19} _The Times_, Friday, April 14th, 1876. + +{46} "Fifty Years of my Life," Albemarle, p. 308. + +{66} Believers in augury are too seldom confronted with the negative +instance. May we then invite their attention to the following? The +address was published in a paragraph of _The Times_, but the words "under +the same leadership" were omitted. Nevertheless, to the discredit of +omination, under the same leadership the school did return. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UPPINGHAM BY THE SEA*** + + +******* This file should be named 18036.txt or 18036.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/3/18036 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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