e rooks. The bells incredibly loud here on the
tower's top crashed out so ardently that every stone seemed to nod in
time as the tower trembled and swayed backward and forward while the sun
mounted into the day.

Michael leaned over the parapet and saw the little people busy as emmets
at the base of the tower on whose summit he had the right to stand.
Intoxicated with repressed adoration, the undergraduates sent hurtling
outward into the air their caps, and down below the boys of the town
scrambled and fought for these trophies of May Morning.

Michael through all the length of that May day dreamed himself into the
heart of England. He had refused Maurice's invitation to a somewhat
mannered breakfast-party at Sandford Lasher, though when he saw the
almost defiantly jolly party ride off on bicycles from the lodge, he was
inclined to regret his refusal. He wished he had persuaded Alan, now
sleeping in the stillness of the House unmoved by May Morning
celebrations, to rise early and come with him on some daylong jaunt far
afield. It was a little dull to sit down to breakfast in the college
shorn of revelers, and for another two hours unlikely to show any sign
of life on the part of those who had declined for sleep the excitement
of eating dressed crab and playing bridge through the vigil. After
breakfast it would still be only about seven o'clock with a hot-eyed
languor to anticipate during the rest of the morning. Michael almost
decided to go to bed. He turned disconsolately out of the lodge and
walked round Cloisters, out through one of the dark entries on to the
lawns of New Quad gold-washed in the morning stillness. It seemed
incredible that no sign should remain here of that festal life which had
so lately thronged the scene. Michael went up to the J.C.R. and ate a
much larger breakfast than usual, after which, feeling refreshed, he
extracted his bicycle from the shed and at the bidding of a momentary
impulse rode out of Oxford toward Lechlade.

It had been an early spring that year, and the country was far more
typical than usual of old May Morning. Michael nowadays disliked the
sensation of riding a bicycle, and though gradually the double
irritation of no sleep and a long ride unaccompanied wore off, he was
glad to see Lechlade spire and most glad of all to find himself deep in
the grass by the edge of the river. Lying on his back and staring up at
the slow clouds, he was glad he had refused to attend Maurice's