_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.