societies
on half-holiday evenings, the dark hours did not hang heavily, and the
expected tedium of an Arctic winter was not experienced. The term closed
with a concert given in the Assembly Room at Aberystwith, December 13th,
and another on the next night in the Temperance Hall at popular prices.
On the 14th, a team of Old Boys played the usual football match against
the Present School, and were beaten by two goals to one. That evening
the class-list was read and the prizes given. If the boys hoped to
gather from the Headmaster's speech an intimation of where they would
meet him after Christmas they were disappointed. The government had as
yet no communication to make. Next morning, in the darkness before dawn,
the special train carried them to their homes, to await with curiosity
their next marching orders.

CHAPTER XI.--LUDIBRIA MARIS.

_Sit down_, _and hear the last of our sea-sorrow_.

"THE TEMPEST."

_They said_, "_and why should this thing be_?
_What danger lowers by land or sea_?
_They ring the tune of Enderby_."

JEAN INGELOW.

"England, when she goes to war," said a Prime Minister not long ago, "has
not to consider whether she will be able to fight a second or a third
campaign." We remembered that we were Englishmen; and on January 19th,
1877, went down again with a good courage for our third campaign on the
Welsh coast. A furious gale was howling that day among the hills of
Cardiganshire, recalling to the memory of some of us the stormy Ides of
March, when the pioneers of our little army first set foot in Borth.
_Omina principiis inesse solent_. This gale was sounding the key-note
of the term's adventures.

The cause of our return to Borth for a third term is briefly told. We
had gone home at Christmas, uncertain whether we should meet again there
or at Uppingham. Dr. Acland, of Oxford, to whose active sympathy with
the school in its perplexities we must at least gratefully allude, had
undertaken on our behalf to inspect the sanitary condition of Uppingham,
and give us his judgment on the expediency of reassembling there. His
judgment was submitted to the attention of the Trustees at their meeting,
on December 22nd, when it was resolved that, "In the face of Dr. Acland's
report, the Trustees deeply regret they cannot at present recall the
school to Uppingham." So we went back to the sea.

Our numbers this term just missed by one the normal total of three
hundr