ern rivals for
fifteen or twenty years, the huge hollow halls and endless dormitories
were silent, and the storms that sway with savage force down from the
hills wreaked their will upon the windows and the rotting roof. Inside
the refectory--the windows being blown in--and over the antique-carved
mantelpiece, two swallows' nests had been built to the ceiling or
cornice. The whitewashed walls were yellow and green with damp, and
covered with patches of saltpetre efflorescence. But they still bore,
legible and plain, the hasty inscriptions scrawled on them, years and
years before, by hands then young, but by now returned to dust. The
history of this little kingdom, the hopes and joys, the fears and
hatreds of the subjects, still remained, and might be gathered from
these writings on the walls, just as are the history of Egypt and of
Assyria now deciphered from the palaces and tombs. Here were the names
of the kings--the head-masters--generally with some rough doggerel
verse, not often very flattering, and illustrated with outline
portraits. Here were caricatures of the ushers and tutors, hidden in
some corner of the dormitories once, no doubt, concealed by the
furniture, coupled with the very freest personalities, mostly in pencil,
but often done with a burnt stick. Dates were scattered everywhere--not
often the year, but the day of the month, doubtless memorable from some
expedition or lark played off half a century since. Now and then there
was a quotation from the classics--one describing the groaning and
shouting of the dying Hercules, till the rocks and the sad hills
resounded, which irresistibly suggested the idea of a thorough caning.
Other inscriptions were a mixture of Latin and any English words that
happened to rhyme, together producing the most extraordinary jumble.
Where now are the merry hearts that traced these lines upon the plaster
in an idle mood? Attached to the mansion was a great garden, or rather
wilderness, with yew hedges ten feet high and almost as thick, a
splendid filbert walk, an orchard, with a sun-dial. It is all--mansion
and garden, noble yew-tree hedges and filbert walk, sun-dial and
all--swept away now. The very plaster upon which generation after
generation of boys recorded their history has been torn down, and has
crumbled into dust. Greater kingdoms than this have disappeared since
the world began, leaving not a sign even of their former existence.

_ORCHIS MASCULA._

The _Orc