OLD MEMORIES 



taking him also by the hand and showing him the 

 sights most worth observing in the University 

 City. So all went merry as a marriage bell. 



When we had aU been sorted out and mar- 

 shalled in due form and order we moved forward 

 to the Cathedral. What a flood of old memories 

 this let loose ! The Town Hall, whence we started, 

 was next door to the old house, still standing, 

 though with remodelled first floor, where my 

 earlier lif e was passed and where I first embarked 

 upon a showman's career. We trod with slow 

 and dignified steps the, to me, familiar road adown 

 which day after day I used to hurry, helter-skelter, 

 to the Cathedral School, for in the golden age of 

 youth, when sound in wind and limb, one could 

 afford to run closer to time than I should have 

 cared to have done on that Millenary day, ham- 

 pered, too, by garments somewhat unsuitable for 

 rapid pedestrianism. 



From the street we passed beneath the fine 

 old tower, where dwelleth his resounding mighti- 

 ness, the great bell, which, until the war, had 

 nightly at nine o'clock sounded its hundred and 

 one warnings that it w r as time for all well-regulated 

 folk, students especially, to be within doors. As 

 we emerged into Tom Quad and wended our way 

 across it with a solemn dignity befitting the 

 occasion, I saw myself in early youth rushing over 

 that same gravelled road on the way to school, 

 pausing only for a moment to doff my cap to the 

 heir-apparent going home to breakfast after early 

 morning chapel. How astounded I should have 

 been in those days had a seer of the period, 

 bidding me gaze into the crystal, visualized for me 



299 



