said, if he could get a glazier _and_ a sweep (like smoke and draught,
one would not do without the other), a bolster, an occasional clean
towel, and a little warm water in the morning.

Those who had brought a family with them into camp were more seriously
troubled with the cares of providing quarters, and pondered regretfully
on the peace and roominess of home. Still as we are leaving no one
houseless or dinnerless, we may turn aside to describe at more leisure
the place we lived in and the manner of our life.

The stage on which our little history was enacted is a maritime plain of
irregular semicircular shape, with a sea-front of five miles, and a depth
inland of from two to three miles. This plain, a dead level stretch of
peat, of which part is coming under cultivation, while part is still
marsh, is surrounded by a ring of hills, which rise in successive well-
defined ranges of increasing height, till they culminate in the summits
of Cader Idris on one side and Plinlimmon on the other.

The River Dovey, which cleaves the circle of mountains, flows in a broad
estuary along the base of the northward hills, under which, at the mouths
of the estuary, lies the little port of Aberdovey. At the other end of
the arc formed by the coastline, close under the slopes of the promontory
which closes the plain at its north-west corner, stands the village of
Borth, three-quarters of a mile of straggling dwellings, which vary in
scale and character from the primitive mud-cabin of the squatter to the
stately hotel which formed the headquarters of the school. The little
town is irregular even to quaintness, without being picturesque. Its
houses are not grouped according to size and character, but dropped as it
were anyhow, in chance collocations, tall and low, thatched and slated
together. Two or three gigantesque meeting-houses, featureless and