truck
a spark of home feeling in the midst of the lonely landscape, and the
chill of strange surroundings, to see well-known faces at the windows,
and to meet the grasp of familiar hands. But there was no time for
sentiment that stirring evening. The station was cleared with all speed
of boys and spectators, the former turning in to tea at those endless
tables, the latter strolling away to carry home their first impressions
of their invaders. Then one group of masters and servants set to work to
sort the luggage which cumbered the platform, while others received it at
the hotel door, and distributed it to the various billets. Light was
scant, hands were not too numerous, and the work was not done without
some confusion. But it was done; and the tired workers went to their
beds, thankful for what was finished, and full of good hopes for the work
which was yet to be begun.

And the boys--how did they feel? As they stepped out from the railway
carriage into those bare, vasty corridors and curtainless dormitories,
did some little sense of desolateness in the new prospect temper its
excitement? Did some homesickness arise in the exile as he pondered on
the retirement and comfort of the "house" at Uppingham, and his
individual ownership of the separate cubicle, and the study which was
"his castle?" He was a unit now, not of a household, but of a camp.
Small blame to him if life seemed to have lost its landmarks, and things
round him to be "all nohow," as he sat down in some bare hall upon a
schoolfellow's book-box (wondering whether he should ever see his own),
to while away with a story-book the listless interval before bed-time,
under the niggard light of a smoking lamp, or a candle flickering in the
draught. What exactly he felt or thought, however, we do not pretend to
know. We only know that there was not one of them but felt proud to be
out campaigning with his school, and would have counted "ten years of
peaceful life" not more than worth his share in that honourable venture.

There was no work for them next morning (their masters were busy enough
providing for the physical needs of the colony), and they were free to
explore their new country, to ramble up the headlands or along the margin
of the marsh. The arrivals of last night were but the first instalment
of the school, about half the number. The same train brought in a new
freight this evening, and the scene on the platform was similar, but more
tranq