"Eight o'clock, sir!"
Taffy heard the voice speaking above a noise which his dreams confused
with the rattle of yesterday's journey. He was still in the train,
rushing through the rich levels of Somersetshire. He saw the broad
horizon, the cattle at pasture, the bridges and flagged pools flying past
the window—and sat up, rubbing his eyes. Blenkiron, the scout, stood
between him and the morning sunshine, emptying a can of water into the
tub beside his bed.
Blenkiron wore a white waistcoat, and a tie of orange scarlet and blue,
the colors of the College Servants Cricket Club. These were signs of the
Long Vacation. For the rest his presence would have become an archdeacon;
and he guided Taffy's choice of a breakfast with an air which suggested
the hand of iron beneath the glove of velvet.
"And begging your pardon, sir, but will you be lunching in?"
Taffy would consult Mr. Blenkiron's convenience.
"The fact is, sir, we've arranged to play Teddy 'All this afternoon at
Cowley, and the drag starts at one-thirty sharp."
"Then I'll get my lunch out of college," said Taffy, wondering who Teddy
Hall might be.
"I thank you, sir. I had, indeed, took the liberty of telling the manciple
that you was not a gentleman to give more trouble than you could 'elp.
Fried sole, pot of tea, toast, pot of blackberry jam, commons of bread—"
Mr. Blenkiron disappeared.
Taffy sprang out of bed and ran to the open window in the next room. The
gardens lay below him—smooth turf flanked with a border of gay flowers,
flanked on the other side with yews; and beyond the yews, with an avenue
of limes; and beyond these, with tall elms. A straight gravelled walk
divided the turf. At the end of it two yews of magnificent spread guarded
a great iron gate. Beyond these the chimneys and battlements of Wadham
College stood gray against the pale eastern sky, and over them the larks
were singing.
So this was Oxford; more beautiful than all his dreams. And since his
examination would not begin until to-morrow, he had a whole long day to
make acquaintance with her. Half a dozen times he had to interrupt his
dressing to run and gaze out of the window, skipping back when he heard
Blenkiron's tread on the staircase. And at breakfast again he must jump
up and examine the door. Yes, there was a second door outside—a heavy
_oak_—just as his father had described. What stories had he not heard
about these oaks! He was handling this one almost idolatrously when
Blenkiron appeared suddenly at the head of the stairs. Blenkiron was
good enough to explain at some length how the door worked; while Taffy,
who did not need his instruction in the least, blushed to the roots of
his hair.
For, indeed, it was like first love, this adoration of Oxford; shamefast,
shy of its own raptures; so shy, indeed, that when he put on his hat
and walked out into the streets he could not pluck up courage to ask his
way. Some of the colleges he recognized from his father's description:
of one or two he discovered the names by peeping through their gateways
and reading the notices pinned up by the porters' lodges: for it never
occurred to him that he was free to step inside and ramble through the
quadrangles. He wondered where the river lay, and where Magdalen, and
where Christ Church. He passed along the Turl, and down Brasenose Lane;
and at the foot of it, beyond the great chestnut-tree leaning over Exeter
wall, the vision of noble square, the dome of the Radcliffe, and St.
Mary's spire caught his breath and held him gasping.
His feet took him by the gate of Brasenose and across the High. On the
farther pavement he halted, round-eyed, held at gaze by the beauty of the
Virgin's Porch with the creeper drooping like a veil over its twisted
pillars. High up, white pigeons wheeled round the spire, or fluttered
from niche to niche, and a queer fancy took him that they were the souls
of the carved saints, up there, talking to one another above the city's
traffic. At length he withdrew his eyes, and reading the name "Oriel
Street" on an angle of the wall above him, passed down a narrow by-lane
in search of further wonders.
The clocks were striking three when, after regaining the High and lunching
at a pastry-cook's, Taffy turned down into St. Aldates and recognized
Tom Tower ahead of him. The great gates were closed. Through the open
wicket he had a glimpse of green turf and an idle fountain; and while he
peered in a jolly-looking porter stepped out of the lodge for a breath
of air and nodded in the friendliest manner.
"You can walk through, if you want to. Were you looking for anyone?"
"No," said Taffy; and explained, proudly, "My father used to be at Christ
Church."
The porter seemed interested. "What name?" he asked.
"Raymond."
"That must have been before my time. I suppose you'll be wanting to see
the Cathedral. That's the door—right opposite."
Taffy thanked him, and walked across the great empty quadrangle. Within
the Cathedral the organ was sounding and pausing; and from time to time
a boy's voice broke in upon the music like a flute, the pure treble
rising to the roof as though it were the very voice of the building
and every pillar sustained its petition, "_Lord have mercy upon us, and
incline our hearts to keep this law!_" Neither organist nor chorister
was visible, and Taffy tiptoed along the aisles in dread of disturbing
them. For the moment this voice adoring in the noble building expressed
to him the completest, the most perfect thing in life. All his own boyish
handiwork, remember, had been guided under his father's eye toward the
worship of God.
"_... and incline our hearts to keep this law._" The music ceased. He
heard the organist speaking, up in the loft; criticising, no doubt:
and it reminded him somehow of the small sounds of home and his mother
moving about her house-work in the hush between breakfast and noon.
He stepped out into the sunlight again, and wandering through archway
and cloister found himself at length beyond the college walls and at the
junction of two avenues of elms, between the trunks of which shone the
acres of a noble meadow, level and green. The avenues ran at a right
angle, east and south; the one old, with trees of magnificent girth,
the other new and interset with poplars.
Taffy stood irresolute. One of these avenues, he felt sure, must lead
to the river; but which?
Two old gentlemen stepped out from the wicket of the Meadow Buildings, and
passed him, talking together. The taller—a lean man, with a stoop—was
clearly a clergyman. The other wore cap and gown, and Taffy remarked,
as he went by, that his cap was of velvet; and also that he walked with
his arms crossed just above the wrists, his right hand clutching his
left cuff, and his left hand his right cuff, his elbows hugged close to
his sides.
After a few paces the clergyman paused, said something to his companion,
and the two turned back toward the boy.
"Were you wanting to know your way?"
"I was looking for the river," Taffy answered. He was thinking that he
had never in his life seen a face so full of goodness.
"Then this is your first visit to Oxford? Suppose, now, you come with
us? and we will take you by the river and tell you the names of the
barges. There is not much else to see, I'm afraid, in Vacation time."
He glanced at his companion in the velvet cap, who drew down an
extraordinarily bushy pair of eyebrows (yet he, too, had a beautiful
face) and seemed to come out of a dream.
"So much the better, boy, if you come up to Oxford to worship false gods."
Taffy was taken aback.
"Eight false gods in little blue caps, seated in a trough and tugging at
eight poles: and all to discover if they can get from Putney to Mortlake
sooner than eight other false gods in little blue caps of a lighter
shade! What do they do at Mortlake when they get there in such a hurry?
Eh, boy?"
"I—I'm sure I don't know," stammered Taffy.
The clergyman broke out laughing, and turned to him. "Are you going to
tell us your name?"
"Raymond, sir. My father used to be at Christ Church."
"What? Are you Sam Raymond's son?"
"You knew my father?"
"A very little. I was his senior by a year or two. But I know something
about him." He turned to the other. "Let me introduce the son of a man
after your own heart—of a man fighting for God in the wilds, and building
an altar there with his own hands and by the lamp of sacrifice."
"But how do you know all this?" cried Taffy.
"Oh," the old clergyman smiled, "we are not so ignorant up here as you
suppose."
They walked by the river-bank, and there Taffy saw the college barges
and was told the name of each. Also he saw a racing eight go by: it
belonged to the Vacation Rowing Club. From the barges they turned aside
and followed the windings of the Cherwell. The clergyman did most of the
talking; but now and then the old gentleman in the velvet cap interposed
a question about the church at home, its architecture, the materials it
was built of, and so forth; or about Taffy's own work, his carpentry,
his apprenticeship with Mendarva the smith. And to all these questions
the boy found himself replying with an ease which astonished him.