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.




CHAPTER IX.--THE FIRST TERM: MAKING HISTORY.