n little
soldiers, marching past in their serviceable uniforms, the line rising
and falling with the inequalities of the ground, and bowing out a good
deal in the centre, at the very moment that the good-natured old Colonel
was careful to look the other way. Then there was a leisurely game
of cricket, with a lot of very old boys playing with really amazing
agility; and then I fell in with an old acquaintance, and we strolled
about together, and got a friendly master to show us over the
schoolrooms and one of the houses, and admired the excellent
arrangements, and peeped into some studies crowded with pleasant
boyish litter, and talked to some of the boys with an attempt at light
juvenility, and enjoyed ourselves in a thoroughly absurd and leisurely
fashion. And then I was left alone, and walking about, abandoned myself
to sentiment pure and simple; it was hard to analyse that feeling which
was stirred by the sight of all those fresh-faced boys, flowing like
a stream through the old buildings, and just leaving their own little
mark, for good or evil, on the place--a painted name on an Honours
board, initials cut in desk or panel, a memory or two, how soon to
grow dim in the minds of the new generation, who would be so full of
themselves and of the present, turning the sweet-scented manuscript of
youth with such eager fingers, that they could give but little thought
to the future and none at all to the past. And then one remembered,
with a curious sense of wistful pain, how rapidly the cards of life were
being dealt out to one, and how long it was since one had played the
card of youth so heedlessly and joyfully away; that at least could not
return. And then there came the thought of all the hope and love that
centred upon these children, and all the possibilities which lay before
them. And I began to think of my own contemporaries and of how little
on the whole they had done; it was not fair perhaps to say that most
of them had made a mess of their lives, because they were honest,
honourable citizens many of them. It was not the poor thing called
success that I was thinking of, but a sort of high-hearted and generous
dealing with life, making the most of one's faculties and qualities,
diffusing a glow of love and enthusiasm and brave zest about one--how
few of us had done that! We had grown indolent and money-loving and
commonplace. Some of those we looked to to redeem and glorify the world
had failed most miserably, thro