Thring, and all
the masters and scholars of the celebrated Uppingham School, for the very
many generous acts and kindly feelings exhibited to us during their
sojourn here." The address was introduced and explained by speeches
marked by refined feeling, and delivered with a noticeable grace of
manner. We will here cite, though for another reason, a few words of the
speaker who moved the address; he commented on the discipline which (from
the evidence of their conduct when at large) seemed to rule the school;
naively but pointedly he noted that no offence had ever been given; "No
boy had laughed at the villagers, if they were old and queer-looking or
queerly dressed; there had been no disorder, no shabby act, nothing
_un_decent" (so he put it in his unpractised English) "during the whole
twelve months we had spent among them." We give his testimony without
note or comment, sure that the facts would not be better told in words
less simple. They were little things he witnessed to; was it a little
thing that the witness could be truly borne?
The boys were not present to hear the speeches, but they will like well
to remember the scene without doors at that unlooked-for reunion of
school and village.
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