Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/107

 gleam and glory that caught his strained gaze in his days of dreaming, so many years ago. They winked their yellow eyes at him dubiously, and as if, though they had been awaiting him all these years, in disappointment at his tarrying, they did not much want him now.

He was a species of Dick Whittington, whose spirit was touched to finer issues than a mere material gain. He went along the outlying streets with the cautious tread of an explorer. He saw nothing of the real city in the suburbs on this side. His first want being a lodging, he scrutinized carefully such localities as seemed to offer on inexpensive terms the modest type of accommodation he demanded; and, after inquiry, took a room in a suburb nick-named "Beersheba," though he did not know this at the time. Here he installed himself, and, having had some tea, sallied forth.

It was a windy, whispering, moonless night. To guide himself he opened under a lamp a map he had brought. The breeze ruffled and fluttered it, but he could see enough to decide on the direction he should take to reach the heart of the place.

After many turnings he came up to the first ancient mediæval pile that he had encountered. It was a college, as he could see by the gateway. He entered it, walked round, and penetrated to dark corners which no lamplight reached. Close to this college was another; and a little farther on another; and then he began to be encircled, as it were, with the breath and sentiment of the venerable city. When he passed objects out of harmony with its general expression he allowed his eyes to slip over them as if he did not see them.

A bell began clanging, and he listened till a hundred and one strokes had sounded. He must have made a mistake, he thought; it was meant for a hundred.

When the gates were shut, and he could no longer get into the quadrangles, he rambled under the walls and doorways, feeling with his fingers the contours of their