Uppingham by the Sea | Page 6

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