"The youngest Dean that ever lived in Silchester, you ass," interposed Edwy with a gruff squeak.
"Oh well, it's all the same, and ass yourself!"
Jasmine, who feared the effect of another fight in the cart, changed the subject with an enquiry about Oxford.
"I can't remember being there," said Ethelred proudly. And his elder brothers appeared quite jealous of what was evidently a family distinction.
"Last lap!" Edwy shouted. "Don't go on jabbering about Oxford."
They were driving along a quiet road of decorous Georgian houses, at the end of which was a castellated gateway.
"Here's the Close," Edred cried as they passed under the arch into a green and grey world. "Blue leads! Blue leads!"
"Shut up, you fool, I'm Blue!" yelled the youngest.
While the rival charioteers punched each other behind their brother's back, Purple in the personification of Edwy pulled up at the Deanery and claimed to be the victor. The serenity of the Close after that break-neck drive from the station was complete. The voices of the charioteers arguing about their race blended with the chatter of the jackdaws speckling the great west front of the Cathedral in a pleasant enough discordancy of sound that only accentuated the surrounding peacefulness. Upon the steps that led up to the west door the figures of tourists or worshippers appeared against the legended background no larger than birds. At no point did the world intrude, for the houses of the dignitaries round their quadrangle of grass had nothing to do with the world, and if a town of Silchester existed, it was hidden as completely by the massed elm trees that rose up behind the low houses of the Dean and Chapter as the ancient Roman city was hidden in the grass that now waved above its buried pavements and long lost porticoes.
"It really is glorious here, isn't it?" Jasmine exclaimed.