_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.