All this Hyacinth came to feel afterwards, and learnt in bitterness of spirit to be angry at the University’s isolation from Irish life. At first quite other thoughts crowded upon his mind. He felt a rebellion against his father’s estimate of what he was to learn. It seemed to him that he had come into vital touch with the greatest life of all. He was to join the ranks of those who besieged the ears of God for knowledge, and left behind them to successors yet unborn great traditions of the enigmas they had guessed. In entering upon the study of theology he seemed to become a soldier in the sacred band, the élite of the army which won and guarded truth. Already he was convinced that there could be no greater science than the Divine one, no more inspiring moment in life than this one when he took his first step towards the knowledge of God. He crossed the quadrangle with his mind full of such thoughts, and joined a group of students round the door of one of the examination-halls. It did not shock his sense of fitness that some of his fellow-students in the great science wore shabby clothes, or that others scorned the use of a razor. Bred as he had been at home, he felt no incongruity between dirty collars and the study of divinity. It was not until he caught scraps of conversation that he experienced an awakening from his dream. One eager group surrounded a foreseeing youth who had written the dates of the first four General Councils of the Church upon his shirt-cuff. ‘Read them out, like a good man,’ said one. ‘Hold on a minute,’ said another, ‘till I see if I have got them right. I ground them up specially this morning. Nicæa, 318--no, hang it! that’s the number of Bishops who were present; 325 was the date, wasn’t it?’ ‘What was the row about at Chalcedon?’ asked a tall, pale youth. ‘Didn’t some monk or other go for Cyril of Alexandria?’ ‘You’ll be stuck anyhow, Tommy,’ said a neat, dapper little man with a very ragged gown. Hyacinth slipped past the group, and approached two better dressed students who stood apart from the others. ‘Is this,’ he asked, ‘where the entrance examination to the divinity school is to be held?’ For answer he received a curt ‘Yes’ and a stare. Apparently his suit of brown Connemara homespun did not commend him to these aristocrats. They turned their backs on him, and resumed their conversation. ‘She was walking up and down the pier listening to the band with two of the rankest outsiders you ever set eyes on--medicals out of Paddy Dunn’s. Of course I could do nothing else but break it off.’ ‘Oh, you were engaged to her, then? I didn’t know.’