He matriculated in Trinity College when he was eighteen, and, as is often done by poorer students, remained at home, merely passing the required examinations, until he took his degree, and the time came for his entering the divinity school.

Then it became necessary for him to reside in Dublin, and the first great change in his life took place.
The night before he left home he and his father sat together in the kitchen after they had finished their evening meal.

For a long time neither of them spoke.

Hyacinth held a book in his hand, but scarcely attempted to read it.

His thoughts wandered from hopeful expectation of what the future was to bring him and the new life was to mean, to vague regrets, weighted with misgivings, which would take no certain shape.
There crowded upon him recollections of busy autumn days when the grain harvest overtook the belated hay-making, and men toiled till late in the fields; of long nights in the springtime when he tugged at the fishing-nets, and felt the mackerel slipping and flapping past his feet in the darkness; of the longer winter nights when he joined the gatherings of the boys and girls to dance jigs and reels on the earthen floor of some kitchen.