And in one solid phalanx, they charged, six or seven strong, up Radowitz’s staircase.  But he was ready for them.  The oak was sported, and they could hear him dragging some heavy chairs against it.  Meanwhile, from the watchers left in the quad, came a loud cough.

“Dons!—­by Jove!  Scatter!” And they rushed further up the staircase, taking refuge in the rooms of two of the “raggers.”  The lookout in the quadrangle turned to walk quietly towards the porter’s lodge.  The Senior Tutor—­a spare tall man with a Jove-like brow—­emerged from the library, and stood on the steps surveying the broken glass.

“All run to cover, of course!” was his reflection, half scornful, half disgusted.  “But I am certain I heard Falloden’s voice.  What a puppy stage it is!  They would be much better employed worrying old boots!”

But philosopher or no, he got no clue.  The quadrangle was absolutely quiet and deserted, save for the cheeping of the swallows flitting across it, and the whistling of a lad in the porter’s lodge.  The Senior Tutor returned to the library, where he was unpacking a box of new books.

The rioters emerged at discreet intervals, and rejoined each other in the broad street outside the college.

“Vengeance is still due!”—­said Falloden, towering among them, always with the faithful and grinning Meyrick at his side—­“and we will repay.  But now, to our tents!  Ta, ta!” And dismissing them all, including Meyrick, he walked off alone in the direction of Holywell.  He was going to look out a horse for Constance Bledlow.

As he walked, he said to himself that he was heartily sick of this Oxford life, ragging and all.  It was a good thing it was so nearly done.  He meant to get his First, because he didn’t choose, having wasted so much time over it, not to get it.  But it wouldn’t give him any particular pleasure to get it.  The only thing that really mattered was that Constance Bledlow was in Oxford, and that when his schools were over, he would have nothing to do but to stay on two or three weeks and force the running with her.  He felt himself immeasurably older than his companions with whom he had just been rioting.  His mind was set upon a man’s interests and aims—­marriage, travel, Parliament; they were still boys, without a mind among them.  None the less, there was an underplot running through his consciousness all the time as to how best to punish Radowitz—­both for his throw, and his impertinence in monopolising a certain lady for at least a quarter of an hour on the preceding evening.

At the well-known livery-stables in Holywell, he found a certain animation.  Horses were in demand, as there were manoeuvres going on in Blenheim Park, and the minds of both dons and undergraduates were drawn thither.  But Falloden succeeded in getting hold of the manager and absorbing his services at once.

“Show you something really good, fit for a lady?”

The manager took him through the stables, and Falloden in the end picked out precisely the beautiful brown mare of which he had spoken to Constance.