l this?" cried Taffy.

"Oh," the old clergyman smiled, "we are not so ignorant up here as
you suppose."

They walked by the river bank, and there Taffy saw the college barges
and was told the name of each. Also he saw a racing eight go by: it
belonged to the Vacation Rowing Club. From the barges they turned
aside and followed the windings of the Cherwell. The clergyman did
most of the talking; but now and then the old gentleman in the velvet
cap interposed a question about the church at home, its architecture,
the materials it was built of, and so forth; or about Taffy's own
work, his carpentry, his apprenticeship with Mendarva the Smith.
And to all these questions the boy found himself replying with an
ease which astonished him.

Suddenly the old clergyman said, "There is your College!"

And unperceived by Taffy a pair of kindly eyes watched his own as
they met the first vision of that lovely tower rising above the trees
and (so like a thing of life it seemed) lifting its pinnacles
exultantly into the blue heaven.

"Well?"

All three had come to a halt. The boy turned, blushing furiously.

"This is the best of all, sir."

"Boy," said old Velvet-cap, "do you know the meaning of
'edification'? There stands your lesson for four years to come, if
you can learn it in that time. Do you think it easy? Come and see
how it has been learnt by men who have spent their lives face to face
with it."

They crossed the street by Magdalen bridge, and passed under Pugin's
gateway, by the Chapel door and into the famous cloisters. All was
quiet here; so quiet that even the voices of the sparrows chattering
in the ivy seemed but a part of the silence. The shadow of the great
tower fell across the grass.

"This is how one generation read the lesson. Come and see how
another, and a later, read it."

A narrow passage led them out of gloom into sudden sunlight; and the
sunlight spread itself on fair grass-plots and gravelled walks,
flower-beds and the pale yellow facade of a block of buildings in the
classical style, stately and elegant, with a colonnade which only
needed a few promenading figures in laced coats and tie-wigs to
complete the agreeable picture.

"What do you make of that?"

As a matter of fact Taffy's thoughts had run back to the theatre at
Plymouth with its sudden changes of scenery. And he stood for a
moment while he collected them.

"It's different: I mean," he added, feeling that this was into