bilant
music. There swept past our ears, first, the moving strains of "Auld
lang syne," and then, as if in answer to the appeal to "Auld
acquaintance," came the jocund chorus "There is nae luck about the
house"--most eloquent assurance that we were welcome home. And then in
turn the music died down, and the crowd round the now halted procession
cheered with a will for "the school," "the Headmaster and the masters,"
and the school taking up with zest the genial challenge, returned the
blessing with such a shout as if they meant the echoes of that merry
evening to make amends in full to street and houses for their fourteen
months of silence.

It was "all over but the shouting:" but that was not over till some hours
of dusk had gathered over school and town. For first the multitude
besieged the well-known mighty gates, behind which lies the studious
quiet of the Schoolhouse Quad. When they were admitted they came in like
a flood, and filled the space within; but for all they were so many,
there was an orderliness and quietude in the strange assemblage which
made their presence there seem not strange at all, and they listened like
one man to the words in which the Headmaster, who came out to meet them,
framed his thanks for this unequivocal welcome. This done, they flowed
out again, and streamed across the valley and up the hill to carry the
same message of goodwill to the distant houses, and so with more cheering
and more speeches came to an end a day of happiest omen for the joint
fortunes of Uppingham School and Town.

A few additional details are needed to complete our account. A friend,
remarkable for his plain common-sense, reminds us that the epic vehicle
we so indistinctly describe, was the Seaton 'bus, and that the music was
due to "the splendid band connected with Mrs. Edmonds' menagerie, which
happened to be in the town." We are not in a position to deny either
statement, or another to the effect that "the conveyances which
accompanied the 'bus formed a procession of considerable length," having
been halted by arrangement outside the town, and formed into file for the
entry. When the same friend hazards some further criticism on a
confusion of dates and incidents in our narrative, in which he finds the
events of two days, a Friday and a Saturday, presented as in a single
scene, we feel it time to silence him by an appeal, which he does not
follow, to the "truer historic sense" and the "massive grouping"