The weather of this first week was dry and genial; and it had no pleasanter moments than those spent on the beach at sunset, whither the school flocked down after tea for half an hour's leisure in the after- glow. There is plenty of amusement for them on this broad reach of sand and shingle. Some are groping for shells or for pebbles, which the lapidary will transform for a trifle into dazzling jewels; others are playing ducks and drakes on the waves, or entertaining themselves like Prospero's elves, That on the sands, with printless feet, Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back again. More pensive spirits saunter up and down the grassy terrace which overlooks the beach, and watch the shifting line of dark figures seen against the white wall of the breaker, or note the fugitive tints on the dimpling surface of the water, or the wet margin of the tide. A group of villagers is clustered round the water-fountain a few yards away; the children chatter about us as they fill their pitchers; and the old women, creeping homewards, cast a glance under their bonnets at the boys, and exchange muttered comments with their gossips. Soon the cliffs of the southern headland grow duskier and more remote; the sea fades to a cold uniform gray; the colours of the brown twilight marsh and the violet hills are lost in one another; and so, with a refreshing breath of idyllic peacefulness, the stirring week came to an end. "Its evening closed on a quiet scene of school routine, as if doubt and risk, turmoil and confusion and fear, weary head and weary hand, had not been known in the place. The wrestling-match against time was over, and happy dreams came down on Uppingham by the Sea." CHAPTER V.--THE NEW COUNTRY. _All places that the eye of Heaven visits_, _Are to a wise man ports and happy havens_. RICHARD II. The primitive man, after he has satisfied the claims of appetite, stitched his skin-mantle, and thatched a hut, may begin to spare time for reflection on the quality and flavour of the prey he has eaten, or the picturesqueness of his cabin. Till then his estimate of things is quantitative. He asks not of what sort his food is, but whether there is enough of it, and regards less the cut of his coat than its thickness. The analogy of our circumstances must be our excuse for postponing so long a description of our new settlement, its physical surroundings, and the complexion of our domestic and social life. Not in truth that we had returned to barbarism: but who could dilate on the beauty of mountain scenery, in sight of which he was perhaps to starve; who would criticise the pattern of his dinner-service, or be fastidious in carpets and wall- paper, before he could reckon upon dinner, or call shelter his own?