September 15th and 16th were the days of the school’s return to Borth.  We slipped at once and easily into the groove of last term’s routine, filling our old quarters and several additional houses.  Some building operations needed for the winter’s sojourn have been mentioned by anticipation.  Our medical officer, also, and the ready pickaxe of “Sanitary Tom” (as the boys called the navvy who was his stout ally), had been at work laying bare the subterranean geography of our premises and making all right.  At his instance, the proprietor ran out an extended culvert into the sea beyond low-water mark, a grand engineering work, which remains the one permanent monument of our settlement.  Having in mind some ancient aspersions on the wholesomeness of Borth we are glad to bear testimony to the present adequate sanitation of the place.

We do not write for the scientific, and yet we must notice (we hope without wounding an unprofessional ear) the beautiful economy of natural forces by which that sanitation is effected.  The channel of the Lery, between which and the sea the hotel is built, runs parallel to the coastline, till it meets at right angles the estuary of the Dovey.  The same tide which washes the beach also fills the Lery channel and the adjoining ditches.  When the ebb has set in the water in the latter stands for a time at a higher level than on the beach.  Reflecting on this, our engineers cut a duct between the Lery and the sea, so as to draw the water from the river down the main drainage artery, performing twice daily a most effective flushing.

Some of us would have preferred to leave a more dignified memorial of ourselves, forgetting, perhaps, that it is a Cloaca which is the most impressive witness to the civilised resources of an ancient king.  So an offer was made to the proprietors that, if they would find the tools and directors of the work, the school would provide the labourers for the making of a road between the village and the church, an interval of a furlong of marshy land, bridged at that time by a makeshift causeway.  They did not, however, see their way to accept our amateur industry, and the project fell through.

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.