Uppingham by the Sea Part 3

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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.e.l.ls, 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 sh.o.r.e and marsh; but when the herring-fry pa.s.sed 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 ba.s.s 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, pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 fis.h.i.+ng-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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sengers 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 a.s.sails 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 mult.i.tude, and the train glides softly on between the br.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 cla.s.s-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 beat.i.tudes_? _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 circ.u.mstances of our life at Borth, we have somewhat antic.i.p.ated the narrative of events. But it was a plan agreeable to the facts of the case, that narrative should pa.s.s 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 n.o.ble 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. _Heureus.e.m.e.nt 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 embarra.s.sed 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 a.s.sembly 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 makes.h.i.+ft 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 b.u.t.tresses, 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 sh.o.r.e 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. Nettles.h.i.+p, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 grat.i.tude 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 leaders.h.i.+p, 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 circ.u.mstances; 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 gra.s.s 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 a.s.sembly 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 ma.s.se_ 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 pa.s.sed:

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 a.s.sistant- 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 a.s.surances 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 gra.s.s-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 cla.s.s-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.