The Vagabond had long since quit his lonely vigil high up amid Mem Hall's cobwebs and dust. The atmosphere there was stifling--stifling, and this was spring. It was spring. But the Vagabond had seen many springs and spring was always the same.

It was spring after the winter that amazed the Vagabond. Why was it that he could not rejoice as others at the greenness of the trees, the mossy crispness of the Yard in the early morning? Perhaps he was tired. Tired because after winter there could be no rest. With spring, he thought, only quiet could live in harmony. And instead there was only haste. Where drowsiness should be he found only excitement.

His drowsy mind (for not of this world is the Vagabond) toyed with the fantasy of peaceful fields, of mountain lakes, disturbed only by the ripple of leaping fish, of shaded paths, of ferns bejewelled with dew at midday. He had often sat on warm rocks after sundown in the spring and listened to the first feeble cheeps of triumphant infant frogs. He remembered that he had thought it the victorious cry of consciousness, the first cry of life, the harbinger of gentle summer evenings.

But in Cambridge there was no rest. The endless parade of trunks and suitcases jarred the heat into shimmering waves. Stillness was not for Cambridge. Somewhere out beyond the destination of the trunks and bundles, there lies the the quiet that the Vagabond sought. This week, he thought, was the end. Then he could seek the rest of the weary. For the Vagabond was weary. He was tired of exams, he was tired of Freshmen packing, he was tired of Seniors bidding hasty goodbyes. He thought again of mountain lakes, of leafy lanes.