I felt strangely forlorn and foolish as I made obeisance to the President and his six venerable colleagues. I had no defence to offer save that of drunkenness, and, being sober now, I was not fool enough to plead that offence in mitigation of an offence still graver: so I held my peace. The Court found me guilty--they could do none other; and in sonorous Latin periods the President delivered sentence. I had no degree of which they could deprive me: they were unwilling, as this was my first appearance before the Court, to pronounce upon me a sentence of permanent expulsion, but my grave offence must be dealt with severely. I must make an apology in person to the Master; and I should be rusticated for one year. I bowed to the Court, and then drew myself up to let these grey-beards, who were shaking their heads together over the moral delinquencies of the rising generation, see that I could take my punishment like a man. The Proctor touched me on the arm; my gown slipped from my shoulders. Then I felt humbled to the dust. I was without the pale. The truth struck home and chilled my heart more than all the ponderous Latin periods which had been pronounced over me. The Court rose and I was free to go. Out in the open, I was assailed by an eager crowd of sympathisers. Youth is the age of generous and unreasoning impulses--and youth tends ever to take the side of the condemned, whatever his offence. Belike it is well for the world. I might have been a hero, rather than a man disgraced. "So they have not hanged, drawn, and quartered you," cried Maltravers, as he slipped his arm through mine. "Nor sent you to the pillory," cried another. I told the crowd what my punishment was to be. "A scurrilous shame," muttered a sympathiser. "What’s the old place coming to? They want younger blood in their Court of Discipline. Sour old kill-joys the whole pack of them: nourished on Latin roots till any milk of human kindness in them has turned to vinegar." I forced a laugh to my lips. "As the culprit," I said, "I think my punishment has been tempered with mercy. I behaved like a zany. I deserve my fate." "Fac bono sis animo: cheer up," cried Maltravers, "the year will soon pass: and we shall speed your departure on the morrow, in the hope that we may hasten your return." I went to my rooms and packed up my belongings, sending them to the inn on the Banbury Road, where on the morrow I should await the coach for Warwick. Then I made my way to the Master and tendered him my apology. He accepted it with a courtly grace that made me feel the more the baseness of my offence. The rest of the day I spent in farewell visits to friends in my own and other colleges--and then I lay down to rest. Little did I think, as I lay and heard the mellow notes of Big Tom throb from Tom Tower, that in a few weeks I should be lying, a fugitive, on a Scottish hill-side. The future hides her secrets from us behind a jealous hand.