confidence of success. But he would be a man of no human fibre, were he
not to feel some disquiet in his inmost soul when he gets upon horseback
with his enemy in sight, and listens for the boom of the first gun. Not
very different, except for the absence of a like confidence in the
completeness of their dispositions, were the emotions of the masters who
manned the platform of Borth Station, when the gray afternoon of Tuesday,
April 4th, drew sombrely towards its close. The station was crowded with
spectators from Aberystwith and Borth itself, curious to watch the entry
of the boys. Expectation was stimulated by the arrival of a train, which
set all the crowd on tip-toe, and then swept through the station--a mere
goods train. Half an hour's longer waiting, and the right train drew up,
and discharged Uppingham School on the remote Welsh platform. It struck
a spark of home feeling in the midst of the lonely landscape, and the
chill of strange surroundings, 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