But if the good old School was a success in those bygone days, what must be said for it now, when, under the Napoleon-like administration of its present chief, the school-house has been rebuilt in its own park, upon all the best and latest known principles of comfort and sanitation, where a boy can, besides going through the full round of usual study, follow the bent of his own peculiar taste, and find special training, whether it be in horse-shoeing or music, chemistry or wood-carving, ambulance work or drawing from the figure; whilst the beautiful river is covered with boats, the cricket-fields and football yards are crowded, and the bathing stations are a constant joy?
Truly the present generation of Bedford boys are much blessed in their surroundings; and whilst they remember with gratitude the pious founder, Sir William Harper, should strive to do credit to his name and memory by the exercise of their powers in the battle of after-life, having received so thorough and broad-minded a training in the happy and receptive days of their youth.
Bedford town is now one of the most strikingly attractive in England, with its fine river embankment, its grand old churches, its statues erected to the memory of the "inspired tinker," Bunyan, and the prison philanthropist, Howard, both of whom lived about a mile or so from the town, the former at Elstow, the latter at Cardington. It was very good and heart-restoring to revisit the hospitable old school with its pleasant surroundings and to find, as Robert Louis Stevenson says, that,—
"Home from the Indies, and home from the ocean,
Heroes and soldiers they all shall come home;
Still they shall find the old mill-wheel in motion,
Turning and churning that river to foam."
Since printing our last little "Tour Round the Bookshelves," in which we ventured to include some capital lines by our evergreen and many-sided friend Rudolf Chambers Lehmann, he has again added to the interest of our Visitors' Book under the following circumstances. Guests and home-birds were all resting after the exhausting idleness of an Easter holiday when they were suddenly aroused from their day-dreams by loud cries of "Fire!" accompanied by the sound of horses and chariots approaching the house at full speed. On looking out, like Sister Anne or a pretty page, we were able to assuage our guests' natural alarm by explaining that the local fire brigade were practising upon our vile bodies and dwelling, and if fear existed, danger did not. On their ultimately retiring, satisfied with their mock efforts, and fortified by beer, our welcome guest wrote with his usual flying pen the following characteristic lines to commemorate their visit:—