For years it had not sent any first-rate man either to boat-race, or cricket-ground, or senate-house.

Lately, however, it had boasted one, quite an Admirable Crichton in his way, who, had his moral equaled his mental qualities, would have carried all before him.

As it was, being discovered in offenses not merely against University authority, but obnoxious to society at large, he had been rusticated.

Though the matter was kept as private as possible, its details being known only to the master, dean and tutor, still it made a nine-day's talk, not only in the college, but in the town--until the remorseless wave of daily life, which so quickly closes over the head of either ill-doer or well-doer, closed completely over that of Edwin Uniacke.
Recovering from the shock of his turpitude, the college now reposed in peace upon its slender list of well-conducted and harmless undergraduates, its two or three tutors, and its dozen or so of gray old fellows, who dozed away their evenings in combination-room.

Even such an event as the master's second marriage had scarcely power to stir Saint Bede's from its sleepy equanimity.
It was, indeed, a peaceful place.