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.