Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/421

 the most religious and educational city in the world, what shall we say as to how far we've got?"

"Order!" said one of the policemen, who had been engaged with a comrade in opening the large doors opposite the college. "Keep yer tongue quiet, my man, while the procession passes." The rain came on more heavily, and all who had umbrellas opened them. Jude was not one of these, and Sue only possessed a small one, half sunshade. She had grown pale, though Jude did not notice it then.

"Let us go on, dear," she whispered, endeavoring to shelter him. "We haven't any lodgings yet, remember, and all our things are at the station; and you are by no means well yet. I am afraid this wet will hurt you."

"They are coming now. Just a moment, and I'll go," said he.

A peal of six bells struck out, human faces began to crowd the windows around, and the procession of Heads of Houses and new Doctors emerged, their red-and-black gowned forms passing across the field of Jude's vision like inaccessible planets across an object-glass.

As they went their names were called by knowing informants, and when they reached the old round theatre of Wren a cheer rose high.

"Let's go that way!" cried Jude; and though it now rained steadily he seemed not to know it, and took them round to the Theatre. Here they stood upon the straw that was laid to drown the discordant noise of wheels, where the quaint and frost-eaten stone busts encircling the building looked with pallid grimness on the proceedings, and in particular at the bedraggled Jude, Sue, and their children, as at ludicrous persons who had no business there.

"I wish I could get in," he said to her, fervidly. "Listen—I may catch a few words of the Latin speech by staying here; the windows are open."

However, beyond the peals of the organ and the shouts