t had ever been before. For a
while the battle which had been fought at their doors superseded the
remoter South African warfare as a topic of conversation among the
students. Their sympathies were with Augusta Goold. Even members of the
divinity classes suffered themselves to be lured from their habitual
worship of respectability so far as to express admiration for the
dramatic picturesqueness of the part she played. It is true that the
lady herself was called by names universally resented by women, and that
the broadest slanders were circulated about her character. Still, a halo
of glory hung round her. It was felt that she had done a surprisingly
courageous thing when she faced Mr. O'Rourke on his own platform. Also,
she had behaved with a certain dignity, neither throwing chairs nor
stones at her opponents. Then, she was an undeniably beautiful woman,
a fact which made its inevitable appeal to the young men. The mere
expression of sympathy with this flamboyant and scandal-smeared heroine
brought with it a delightful flavour of gay and worldly vice. It was
pretty well known that Hyacinth was a friend of Miss Goold's, and it
was rumoured that he had earned his piece of sticking-plaster in
her defence. No one knew exactly what he had done or how much he had
suffered, but a great many men were anxious to know. Very much to his
own surprise, he received a number of visitors in his rooms. Men who had
been the foremost of his tormentors came, ostensibly to inquire for his
health, in reality to glean details of the fight at the Rotunda. Certain
medical students of the kind which glory in any kind of row openly
congratulated him on his luck in being present on such an occasion. Men
who claimed to be fast, and tried to impress their acquaintances with
the belief that they indulged habitually in wild scenes of revelry,
courted Hyacinth, and boasted afterwards of their second-hand
acquaintance with Miss Goold. It became the fashion to be seen
arm-in-arm with him in the quadrangle, and to inquire from him in public
for 'Finola.'

This new popularity by no means pleased Hyacinth. He was not at all
proud of his share in the Rotunda meeting, and lived in daily dread of
being recognised as the assailant of Mr. Shea. He knew, too, that he was
making no way with the better class of students. The men whose faces
he liked were more than ever shy of making his acquaintance. The
sub-lecturers and minor professors in the divinity school we