We have detailed at length enough of the diversions and interests which lay close at our own doors. But these delights pale by the side of those red-letter days when we went far afield to keep a holiday among the mountains. We shall not see the like of those days again! On such mornings, the hotel steps and the esplanade would be dotted with anxious groups waiting for breakfast, and observing the omens of the sky. If these are favourable, a little before eight a broad stream
sets towards the station, and fills the sunny platform with a vivacious crowd. Masters, who organise the several expeditions, use the interval to count heads and sort their parties. The benevolent Cambrian railway supplies spare carriages and return tickets at single fares. Presently the train is sighted sliding down the winding incline from Langfihangel; it picks us all up—near two hundred souls, it may be—moves out into the open plain, still glittering with the morning dew, and reaching Glandovey, drops half its passengers at the junction to explore the northward coast, while it carries the rest to Machynlleth and Cemmes Road. Here and there it sows little companies of explorers at some mountain’s foot or river’s mouth. One band assails Cader Idris from the rich vale of Dolgelley, and meets on the summit another which has scaled it from Tal-y-llyn. Each party is convinced that their ascent was the more creditable in point of speed, and that they enjoyed the more magnificent views. One, however, claims an advantage which can be more easily gauged; they have haled a hamper of luncheon with them to the peak, with infinite pains. During the descent this hamper (but that was after luncheon) slipped from its carrier’s hand, and plunged beyond recovery down
the Fox’ Walk. Meanwhile, others are befogged on the broad top of Aran Mowddy, but will be anxious to explain this evening, that if the view from the summit was lost in mist, that was more than made amends for by “the enchanting glimpses caught through the cloudrifts in the descent.” The day wears on, and signs of fatigue appear. Some are wondering what Miss Roberts of the famous “Lion” at Dolgelley has got for their dinner. Small boys begin to declare that they could go on at this pace for any time you like; this is nothing to what they did last year in the Highlands; something like mountains there, you know! The sun is far in the west when the knot of adventurous reconnoitrers who have gone farthest afield mount the train at Portmadoc. Nearer home they thrust heads out of 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.
“Happy is the people which has no history.” Stands this too among the beatitudes? Surely this were a fit evangel only for sheep and oxen, or for such human kine as covet the fat pastures rather than the high places of existence. For whoso is ill-content to live long and see good days, save he may also live much and see great days, will not be so tamely gospelled, seeing that every past is mother of a future, and that there is no history but is a prophecy as well.
In our late digression on the conditions and circumstances of our life at Borth, we have somewhat anticipated the narrative of events. But it was a plan agreeable to the facts of the case, that narrative should pass into description at the point where the stream of our little history, after descending the rapid of alarms and difficulties, abrupt resolves and swift action, fell quietly again into the smooth channel of a new routine. Not that the story of the succeeding months was really uneventful. If our readers suppose that from this point onward
we led a prosperous untroubled existence, it will be due to the illusion, which, in fiction, makes us cheerful over the woes of the struggling hero, because we have glanced at the end of the book, and view the present trouble in the light of the successful issue: what the end would be we did not know, nor when it would come. And if, to resume our metaphor, the current of the enterprise flowed for the most part smoothly, there were rocks underneath which those who saw them could not forget, though they seldom raised an eddy on the surface. Here, however, we must ask the reader to believe us that it was so, without demanding explanations, which at this date would be inconvenient. We will go on then to notice the chief incidents of the term.
The wooden school-room, the slow completion of which had been watched with some impatience, was ready for use on April 29th. On the next day, being Sunday, we inaugurated it by reuniting under its shelter our scattered congregations, hitherto distributed over the three largest rooms at our disposal. It was not a noble building, being, architecturally, a long shed of rough planks against the bowling-green wall, which was whitewashed for the better lighting of the room. But it was apt to