With the arrival of the boys came also news, that on the day before,
September 14th, the engineers had broken ground at Uppingham:
_Ea vox audita laborum_
_Prima tulit finem_.
We had waited not without some impatience for the first sound of the
pickaxe; and its echoes were welcomed as promising an end to our exile.
The new term opened smilingly. The smooth working order into which
everything fell at once contrasted pleasantly with the anxious bustle of
the entry in April. A glorious autumn was settling on the hills, draping
them from head to foot with a red mantle of the withering bracken, which
slowly burnt itself out along their slopes. There was sun and daylight
enough for many rambles along old paths or new ones before the year was
fairly dead.
Our prosperity was suddenly staggered. Just five weeks after the return
a case of scarlet fever occurred, followed in the course of the week by
half-a-dozen more. An outbreak of this kind is too common an incident in
a large school to merit much surprise or great alarm. But then our
circumstances were exceptional.
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