'I must go,' she cried. 'You must take me. Is it Miller's? Show me the way, Tom.'
'Of course I can show you the way if you wish it,' said Tom.
He looked even more stupid than usual, but he did not like to refuse. He had to be in Hall by three o'clock, that was why he had hesitated. He had been thinking of his dinner; but Dolly began to tie on her bonnet. She hurried out, and ran downstairs, and he followed her across the court into the street. He was not loth to be seen walking with so pretty a young lady. He nodded to several of his friends with velvet bands upon their gowns; a professor went by, Tom raised his well-worn cap.
Dolly might have been amused at any other time by the quaint mediæval ways of the old place.
It was out of term-time, but there had been some special meeting of the college magnates. Crimson coats and black, square caps and tassels, and quaint old things were passing. The fifteenth century was standing at a street corner. To-day heartily shook hands with 1500 and hurried on. Dolly saw it all without seeing it. Tom Morgan tried to give her the latest news.
'That is Brown,' said he, 'the new Professor of Modern Literature.' Dolly never even turned her head to look after Brown.
'There's Smith,' said Tom: 'they say he will be in the first six for the Mathematical Tripos.'
Then they came out of the busy High Street by a narrow lane, with brick walls on either side. It led to the mill by the river, and beyond the river spread a great country of water-meadows. It was a world, not of to-day or of 1500, but of all times and all hours. Pollards were growing at intervals, the river flowed by dull and sluggish, the land, too, seemed to flow dull and sluggish to meet a grey horizon. There were no animals to be seen, only these pollard-trees at intervals, and the spires of Cambridge crowding in the mist.