And then we adjourned to see the
School Corps inspected--such solemn 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.
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