n faces, eh? And
then, tell me, did the Rutland pastures ever yield such juicy mutton,
or flow so abundantly with milk?

_Grumb_. Enough, enough; you have it. Only I won't be told I was
revelling in comfort when I was doing nothing of the kind. I'll bear
it, but I won't grin and say I like it; I'll say nothing against it if
it's better not, but I shan't say what is untrue in favour of it.
[_Exeunt arm-in-arm_.]

Our two interlocutors fairly exhaust the facts of the case between them,
and the historian, who can serve no purpose by trying to think things
better or worse than they were, will silence neither. We give our honest
praise to the organisers of the food supply for their effectual
performance of a very heavy, vexatious, and precarious task, the scale of
which we have been brought by inquiry to estimate at its true magnitude.
At the same time we will spare such sympathy as the dignity of the matter
demands for the sufferers from tough beef, tub butter, smoked puddings,
cold potatoes, and congealed gravy, and not mislead any refugee
schoolmaster of the future into the belief that he can dine in the
wilderness as comfortably as in Pall Mall.

CHAPTER VIII.--DIVERSIONS AT BORTH: NEW SOIL, NEW FLOWERS.

_There be delights_, _there be recreations and jolly pastimes that
will fetch the day about from sun to sun_, _and rock the tedious year
as in a delightful dream_.

MILTON, "AREOPAGITICA."

_O summer day_, _beside the joyous sea_!
_O summer day_, _so wonderful and white_,
_So full of gladness and so full of pain_!
_For ever and for ever shalt thou be_
_To some the gravestone of a dead delight_,
_To some the landmark of a new domain_.

LONGFELLOW.

Housed, fed, and taught; what more does the school need done for it? "Is
that all?" some of the English public will exclaim. "Then you have done
nothing. What about the boys' sports?" We foresaw the question, and
when we left home some people felt uneasy as to what would happen to a
school separated from its fives-courts and playing-fields. True, there
was to be a beach, and the boys could amuse themselves by throwing stones
into the sea: but when there were no more stones to throw--what then? The
prospect was a blank one.

Well, as we have seen, things came right enough as regarded the cricket.
Players had to content themselves with fewer games, for the ground could
only be reach