s the least fitted.
With enormous labour he took a very good degree. He carried off besides,
the highest distinctions of the University for English Essays. The
ordinary circles of College life knew nothing of him. Not once in the
whole course of his University career, was he the better for wine. He,
did not hunt; he never talked of women, and none talked of women in his
presence. But now and then he was visited by those gusts which come to
the ascetic, when all life seemed suddenly caught up and devoured by a
flame burning night and day, and going out mercifully, he knew not why,
like a blown candle. However unsocial in the proper sense of the word,
he by no means lacked company in these Oxford days. He knew many, both
dons and undergraduates. His long stride, and determined absence of
direction, had severely tried all those who could stomach so slow a
pastime as walking for the sake of talking. The country knew him--though
he never knew the country--from Abingdon to Bablock Hythe. His name
stood high, too, at the Union, where he made his mark during his first
term in a debate on a 'Censorship of Literature' which he advocated with
gloom, pertinacity, and a certain youthful brilliance that might well
have carried the day, had not an Irishman got up and pointed out the
danger hanging over the Old Testament. To that he had retorted: "Better,
sir, it should run a risk than have no risk to run." From which moment
he was notable.

He stayed up four years, and went down with a sense of bewilderment and
loss. The matured verdict of Oxford on this child of hers, was "Eustace
Miltoun! Ah! Queer bird! Will make his mark!"

He had about this time an interview with his father which confirmed the
impression each had formed of the other. It took place in the library at
Monkland Court, on a late November afternoon.

The light of eight candles in thin silver candlesticks, four on either
side of the carved stone hearth, illumined that room. Their gentle
radiance penetrated but a little way into the great dark space lined
with books, panelled and floored with black oak, where the acrid
fragrance of leather and dried roseleaves seemed to drench the very
soul with the aroma of the past. Above the huge fireplace, with light
falling on one side of his shaven face, hung a portrait--painter
unknown--of that Cardinal Caradoc who suffered for his faith in the
sixteenth century. Ascetic, crucified, with a little smile clinging to
the lips and