times; what must he be at night when dragged from bed to save his life,
and forced to sit up, rather cold and very empty, for several hours
before daybreak. Solaced, however, by these beguilements, the hours
passed cheerfully away.




CHAPTER XII.--FAREWELL.


_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,