The veil of night was more than half drawn, ere the youthful inmates of the Mitre retired to rest; and many of the party were compelled to put up with sorry accommodation, such was the influx of ~267~~gownsmen who, shut out of lodging and college, had sought this refuge to wait the approaching morn;--a morn big with the fate of many a scholastic woe--of lectures and reprovals from tutors, and fines and impositions and denunciations from principals, of proctorial reports to the vice-chancellor, and examinations before the _big wigs_, and sentences of expulsion 268~~and rustication: coming evils which, by anticipation, kept many a man awake upon his pillow, spite of the perilous fatigue which weighed so heavy upon the exhausted frame. The freshman had little to fear: he could plead his ignorance of college rules, or escape notice altogether, from not having yet domiciled within the walls of a college. Although I had little to expect from the apprehension of any of these troubles, as my person was, from my short residence, most likely unknown to any of the authorities--yet did Morpheus refuse his soporific balsam to the mind--I could not help thinking of my young and giddy companions, of the kind-hearted Eglantine, immured within the walls of a dungeon; of the noble-spirited Echo, maltreated and disfigured by the temporary loss of an eye; of the facetious Bob Transit, so bruised and exhausted, that a long illness might be expected; and, lastly, of our Eton sextile, the incomparable exquisite Lionise, who, if discovered in his dangerous frolic, would, perhaps, have to leap out of a first floor window at the risk of his neck, sustain an action for damages, and his expulsion from college at the same time. Little Dick Gradus, with his usual cunning, had shirked us at the commencement of hostilities; and the Honourable Mr. Sparkle had been carried home to his lodging, early in the fray, more overcome by hard drinking than hard fighting, and there safely put to bed by the indefatigable Mark Supple, to whose friendly zeal and more effective arm we were all much indebted. In this reflective mood, I had watched the retiring shadows of the night gradually disperse before the gray-eyed morn, and had just caught a glimpse of the golden streaks which illumine the face of day, when my o'er-wearied spirit sank to rest. [Illustration: page269]