Chapter 8

_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.