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290
Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
257
As
the
Fellows
passed
out
on
their
way
to
Common
Room,
there
to
tackle
with
a
fresh
appetite
Pedby’s
grace,
they
paused,
as
was
their
wont,
on
the
steps
of
the
Hall,
looking
up
at
the
sky,
envisaging
the
weather.
The
wind
had
dropped.
There
was
even
a
glimpse
of
the
moon
riding
behind
the
clouds.
And
now,
a
solemn
and
plangent
token
of
Oxford’s
perpetuity,
the
first
stroke
of
Great
Tom
sounded.
XXII
Stroke
by
stroke,
the
great
familiar
monody
of
that
incomparable
curfew
rose
and
fell
in
the
stillness.
Nothing
of
Oxford
lingers
more
surely
than
it
in
the
memory
of
Oxford
men;
and
to
one
revisiting
these
groves
nothing
is
more
eloquent
of
that
scrupulous
historic
economy
whereby
his
own
particular
past
is
utilised
as
the
general
present
and
future.
“All’s
as
it
was,
all’s
as
it
will
be,”
says
Great
Tom;
and
that
is
what
he
stubbornly
said
on
the
evening
I
here
record.
Stroke
by
measured
and
leisured
stroke,
the
old
euphonious
clangour
pervaded
Oxford,
spreading
out
over
the
meadows,
along
the
river,
audible
in
Iffley.
But
to
the
dim
groups
gathering
and
dispersing
on
either
bank,
and
to
the
silent
workers
in
the
boats,
the
bell’s
message
came
softened,
equivocal;
came
as
a
requiem
for
these
dead.
Over
the
closed
gates
of
Iffley
lock,
the
water
gushed
down,
eager
for
the
sacrament
of
the
sea.
Among
the
supine
in
the
field
hard
by,
there
was
one
whose
breast
bore
a
faint-gleaming
star.
And
bending
over
him,
looking
down
at
him
with
much
love
and
pity
in
her
eyes,
was
the
shade
of
Nellie
O’Mora,
that
“fairest
witch,”
to
whose
memory
he
had
to-day
atoned.
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