Jude the Obsure

By this time the horses had recovered breath and bent to their

collars again. Jude, throwing a last adoring look at the distant

halo, turned and walked beside his remarkably well-informed friend,

who had no objection to telling him as they moved on more yet of

the city--its towers and halls and churches. The waggon turned

into a cross-road, whereupon Jude thanked the carter warmly for his

information, and said he only wished he could talk half as well about

Christminster as he.

"Well, 'tis oonly what has come in my way," said the carter

unboastfully. "I've never been there, no more than you; but I've

picked up the knowledge here and there, and you be welcome to it.

A-getting about the world as I do, and mixing with all classes of

society, one can't help hearing of things. A friend o' mine, that

used to clane the boots at the Crozier Hotel in Christminster when he

was in his prime, why, I knowed un as well as my own brother in his

later years."

Jude continued his walk homeward alone, pondering so deeply that

he forgot to feel timid. He suddenly grew older. It had been the

yearning of his heart to find something to anchor on, to cling

to--for some place which he could call admirable. Should he find

that place in this city if he could get there? Would it be a spot in

which, without fear of farmers, or hindrance, or ridicule, he could

watch and wait, and set himself to some mighty undertaking like the

men of old of whom he had heard? As the halo had been to his eyes

when gazing at it a quarter of an hour earlier, so was the spot

mentally to him as he pursued his dark way.

"It is a city of light," he said to himself.

"The tree of knowledge grows there," he added a few steps further on.

"It is a place that teachers of men spring from and go to."

"It is what you may call a castle, manned by scholarship and

religion."

After this figure he was silent a long while, till he added: "It would just suit me."

IV

Walking somewhat slowly by reason of his concentration, the boy--an

ancient man in some phases of thought, much younger than his years

in others--was overtaken by a light-footed pedestrian, whom,

notwithstanding the gloom, he could perceive to be wearing an

extraordinarily tall hat, a swallow-tailed coat, and a watch-chain

that danced madly and threw around scintillations of sky-light as

its owner swung along upon a pair of thin legs and noiseless boots.

Jude, beginning to feel lonely, endeavoured to keep up with him.