All these coloured crests seemed to have something oddly
individual and significant about them, like crests of famous
knights pointed out in a pageant or a battlefield: they each
arrested the eye, especially the rolling eye of Emerson Eames
as he looked round on the morning and accepted it as his last.
Through a narrow chink between a black timber tavern and a big
gray college he could see a clock with gilt hands which the
sunshine set on fire. He stared at it as though hypnotized;
and suddenly the clock began to strike, as if in personal reply.
As if at a signal, clock after clock took up the cry:
all the churches awoke like chickens at cockcrow.
The birds were already noisy in the trees behind the college.
The sun rose, gathering glory that seemed too full for the deep
skies to hold, and the shallow waters beneath them seemed golden
and brimming and deep enough for the thirst of the gods.
Just round the corner of the College, and visible from his crazy perch,
were the brightest specks on that bright landscape, the villa
with the spotted blinds which he had made his text that night.
He wondered for the first time what people lived in them.
"Suddenly he called out with mere querulous authority,
as he might have called to a student to shut a door.
Pages:
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156