About nine o'clock I went out with another man to get some fresh air,
and something I wanted in the town. At the corner of every street there
was a group of heavy, sullen faces, looking viciously ready for a row,
while out of the windows of the frequent public houses gushed bursts of
revelry hideously discordant, from the low-browed rooms where the wild
Irish sat howling and wrangling over their liquor. However, we got what
we wanted, and were returning, when, in a street on our left, we heard
cries and a trampling of many feet. Two figures, looking like University
men, passed us at speed, and, throwing something down before us, dived
into an alley opposite, and were lost to sight. My companion picked up
the object; and we had just time to make out that it was a bell-handle
and name-plate, when the pursuers came up--six or seven "peelers" and
specials, with a ruck of men and boys. We were collared on the instant.
The fact of the property being found in our possession constituted a
_flagrans delictum_--we were caught "red-handed." It was vain to argue
that, had we been the delinquents, we should scarcely have been standing
there still, awaiting discovery. The idea of arguing with a rural
policeman, when, by a rare coincidence, popular feeling is with him! The
mob regarded our capture, exulting like the Romans over Jugurtha in
chains. It was decided "we were to go before the Inspector." We were
placed in the centre of a phalanx of specials, each guarded by two
regulars; and so the triumph, followed by a train that swelled at every
turning, moved slowly along the Sacred Way toward the temple of the
station-house, where the municipal Jupiter Capitolinus sat in his glory.

Before we had proceeded three hundred yards there was a shout from the
crowd, "Look out! here come the 'Varsity!" and down a cross street
leading from the inn, two hundred gownsmen, wild with wrath and wassail,
came leaping to the rescue.