Peter Binney: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

CHAPTER XIII

MR. BINNEY GETS INTO TROUBLE

Since the dinner at the beginning of the term Mr. Binney had done nothing further to bring him under the displeasure of the authorities. Howden, in return for the pecuniary assistance he had received, kept his noisy friends away from him almost entirely, and so managed it that none of them considered himself ill-used by the cessation of Mr. Binney's former hospitalities. He worked very hard, and if the absence of his previous amusements did make life rather dull to him, the excitement of the coming Lent races and the probability that the crew he was steering would give a good account of themselves buoyed him up. Everything went well, the men were trained to a nicety, and most of them were confident that their boat would go head of the river. On the morning of the races Mr. Binney was too nervous to work. He attended one lecture, but found himself quite incapable of discovering any meaning in the lecturer's remarks. After that he relinquished the attempt to turn his mind to anything except boat-racing, and wandered about the town, with his hands in his pockets, looking the picture of misery. By-and-bye it occurred to him to pay a visit to his son and to try and extract some consolation from that experienced oarsman. He found Lucius engaged over a game of piquet with the ever-cheerful Dizzy. Lucius looked rather ashamed of himself when his father entered, but Dizzy was not at all put out.

"Ah, Mr. Binney," he exclaimed, "very pleased to see you. We are just unbending our great minds a little. All work and no play, you know, won't do at all."

But reprehensible as card playing at twelve o'clock in the morning undoubtedly is, Mr. Binney made no comment upon his son's occupation.

"I am terribly nervous, Lucius," he said. "I wish this afternoon was well over."

"What! Got the needle!" exclaimed Dizzy, while Lucius cleared away the cards. "Well, I'm not surprised at it. My old governor once had to make a political speech. He don't know anything about politics, but the big man had disappointed 'em, and they couldn't get anybody bigger at a day's notice. I assure you he got so nervous that he lost the use of his limbs and had to be massaged for an hour before he went off to the meeting, and when he got there he made such a hash of it that nobody's ever asked him to talk since, although he frequently obliges when he isn't asked."

"Political speaking is nothing to this," said Mr. Binney. "I know all about that. When I put up for the County Council two years ago, I had to make a speech every night of my life for a fortnight, and I enjoyed it, although I didn't get in; but I feel so nervous now that I really don't know what to do."

"You will be all right, father," said Lucius, "when you find yourself sitting in the boat with the rudder lines in your hand. Make a good lunch and forget all about it till it's time to go down to the river. I should take a glass of brandy if I were you. It'll pull you together, and can't do you any harm as you're not rowing."

"Brandy, Lucy!" echoed Dizzy, "the very worst thing you could possibly take. Don't you remember Dale who coxed the Eight at Eton. When he was in the lower boats he got the needle to such an extent he cried all the morning. Some fellow gave him half a glass of brandy. It made him as merry as a cricket. He said he didn't care for anybody, but he forgot which was his left, and steered 'em into the bank before they had rowed twenty strokes."

"I am not likely to do that, Stubbs," said Mr. Binney, slightly offended. "I'm not a child. I'm a man with a head on my shoulders, as Mirrilees has often told me, but all the same I wish it were all over."

Just then Mirrilees himself came into the room and looked a little disturbed at finding Mr. Binney there. It was quite easy to treat him as a freshman of no importance when he was by himself, but in the presence of his son Mirrilees found the position awkward.

"You're bound to catch Pembroke to-night, I think," he said shyly, "and I should certainly think you will go head on Saturday if everything goes well."

"I feel so nervous, you know, Mirrilees," said poor little Mr. Binney. "It's all very well for you young fellows who are used to it, but it's all new to me, and it's no use pretending I feel at my ease."

"Oh, for heaven's sake don't lose your head," said Mirrilees anxiously, "or Third will bump you to a certainty. They're not so good as you are, but they always go off with a rush, and may hustle you a bit at first. If they don't catch you before Grassy you'll keep away all right, and ought to run into Pembroke at Ditton Corner."

"Third's pretty good," said Lucius. "They're not to be sneezed at. We generally row faster than we are expected to."

Then followed a long discussion between Lucius and Mirrilees upon the respective merits of the two boats, which was not calculated to allay Mr. Binney's nervousness, so he took his leave, and wandered about again until lunch time, more disconsolate than ever. A hundred times he wished he had never joined a boat club and even that he had never come up to Cambridge.

He passed a very trying few hours until it was time to go down to the boat-house. During the long row down to the starting-point he discovered that he had not entirely forgotten all that he had learnt about the art of steering and felt a little better. But when the crew got out of the boat and waited about in the drizzling rain for the first gun his fears returned and he was unable to take any part in the mild horse-play with which the rest of the crew beguiled the interval. The bustle of getting into the boat again and seeing that everything was right with stretchers, rowlocks, and steering-gear, revived him a little, but during that awful minute before the last gun, when the boat was shoved out and the men sat forward with every nerve on edge, while the coach stood on the bank, watch in hand, telling off the relentless seconds, Mr. Binney's face of gloom and despair was a picture to behold. He was convinced that he was going to drop the chain so that it would foul the rudder lines, or not drop it at all, or pull the wrong string, or perform one of those mistakes to which the best of coxswains are liable at these terrible moments.

But the gun went off at last, and before Mr. Binney had time to realise that they were fairly off, the boat was swinging down the river and he himself was steering as straight as an arrow towards the vivid blue of the Pembroke cox's blazer, feeling as capable and clear-headed as he had ever done in his life.

At first it seemed almost impossible to believe that they would ever make up the distance which lay between them and the boat which was moving along so steadily in front of them. But they had not rowed twenty strokes before Mr. Binney realised that they were slowly creeping up.

A wild exultation took hold of him. "We're gaining!" he cried.

Stroke's face was immovable, but he quickened up slightly. Another thirty strokes and there was only a length between the two boats. Then Pembroke spurted and began to draw away.

Mr. Binney's face fell. "We're losing ground!" he said, but Stroke made no answer. His eyes were fixed upon something past Mr. Binney's head, and our hero suddenly woke up to the fact that the cries of: "Third! Third!" which came from the bank behind him, were now much nearer and almost as loud as those of "First! First!" from their own supporters alongside.

A panic seized him, and he quickly turned his head and saw the nose of the Third Trinity boat within six feet of his own. As he did so, he unconsciously pulled one of his strings and the pursuing boat shot up to within two feet.

"Steady, there, steady!" growled Stroke, with an awful frown.

Mr. Binney pulled himself together and set his teeth, determined to think of nothing but the Pembroke boat, which had now increased its lead to a length and a half.

"How far are they ahead?" asked Stroke, in a low voice.

Mr. Binney told him. Stroke quickened up and Mr. Binney had the delight of feeling the boat shoot away under him, while a tremendous roar from the men on the bank told him that Third Trinity was being left behind and that all danger of being bumped by them was over for the present.

Up and up went the boat; the length and a half was lessened to a length, then to half a length, then to a few feet. The Pembroke stroke quickened, and drew away for a few seconds, but the spurt soon died down. First Trinity went on gaining. The Pembroke cox began to wash them off with his rudder.

They had now reached the Red Grind, and Ditton Corner was close ahead. Mr. Binney bided his time and crept in a trifle closer to the bank. The nose of his boat began to dance up alongside the stern of the one in front. Then the Pembroke cox made a mistake and steered into the river. "We've got them," yelled Mr. Binney.

Stroke made a mighty effort, which was answered by Pembroke, too late, for the Trinity boat was shaving the corner, while they were right out in the river. Mr. Binney held his course until the nose of his boat was level with No. 5's rigger. Then he pulled his left string sharply and ran into them just behind their coxswain's seat.

"Well steered," said Stroke quietly, as he rested on his oar. "Couldn't have been done better." And Mr. Binney tasted the joys of paradise.

The next day Mr. Binney's nervousness had vanished entirely. He thirsted to be again in the fray, and looked forward keenly to repeating the triumph of the previous afternoon. Needless to say he wrote a long, exultant letter to Mrs. Higginbotham, recounting his success and the honour it had brought him. Lucius and Dizzy came round in the morning to congratulate him and to wish him luck in the coming race.

"Of course I wish Third had bumped them," said Lucius, as they walked down Jesus Lane together, "but still the governor would have been so sorry for himself that it's just as well they didn't."

"You would have had your screw docked, Lucy, if Third had caught them," said Dizzy, "so you may consider yourself jolly lucky they kept away."

"Oh, that's all over now," said Lucius. "The Governor behaves much more respectably than he did last term. If that business had gone on I really don't think I could have stopped up here."

Mr. Binney received their congratulations with equanimity. He had jumped from the depths of self-distrust to the height of complaisance, and now felt that if he had gone to Putney with the University crew the victory of Cambridge over Oxford would have been assured.

"Oh, it's as simple as anything," he said, in answer to their congratulations. "I can't think what ever can have made me feel so nervous yesterday."

"Don't you be too cocksure about it, Mr. Binney," said Dizzy. "I knew a fellow once who rode in a steeple-chase. He'd got by far the best nag, and the odds were four to one on him. But he was so certain of winning that he forgot he was riding in a race at all, and got off to pick a flower after he had jumped the first hurdle. By the time he remembered where he was and got on again, the other fellows had reached the winning post. The bookies nearly murdered him."

Mr. Binney was not in a frame of mind to take warning by this awful example of forgetfulness. He was so talkative in the changing room that he was severely snubbed by the Captain of the boat. Jesus, the boat in front of them this evening, ought to have presented no difficulties and would certainly have been caught by Pembroke in the long reach the night before if First Trinity had not made their bump at Ditton. Mr. Binney steered very badly at Grassy and lost a lot of ground. His steering round Ditton Corner was a little better, but nothing like so good as on the previous evening, and again Jesus got away. First Trinity made their bump at the railway bridge, but the men had had a hard race instead of a very easy one, and some unpleasant things were said to our hero when the race was at last over.

The next day Mr. Binney had learned a lesson, steered well, and caught Lady Margaret at Ditton much in the same way as Pembroke had been bumped on the first night.

First Trinity were now in the second place on the river, and had their work cut out for them to bump Trinity Hall on the last night.

It was generally agreed that they were slightly the better boat, but whether they were good enough to overcome the advantage that the head boat always has in rowing in clear water, was a disputed point. They had at any rate nothing to fear from the boat behind them. Mr. Binney's previous experience had brought him into the right state of mind to enable him to do his best. The three bumps he had already made had given him confidence, and his mistakes of the second night preserved him from being over-confident.

First Trinity made up their distance by the time they had reached the Red Grind, and from that time there was never more than a few feet of daylight between the two boats until the end of the race. At Ditton they overlapped, but Mr. Binney made his shot too early, and the Hall just managed to keep away. The enthusiasm from the supporters of the Crescent, standing or running on the banks, had the effect of steadying Mr. Binney's nerves. A ding-dong race ensued, right up the Long Reach, but with all their exertion the First Trinity men were unable to increase their distance. At the railway bridge the nose of the pursuing boat was a foot past the rudder of the other. But Mr. Binney knew that if he made a shot at them now all was lost.

"Plug it in," he said in a low voice to Stroke, "and we've got them."

Stroke did plug it in. He was nobly seconded in one last despairing effort by the men behind him. The nose of the First Trinity boat crept slowly but surely up, Mr. Binney pulled his left line just in the nick of time, and First Trinity bumped the head boat not a dozen yards from the winning post.

A very proud man was Mr. Binney that evening when everything was over, when they had rowed back to the boat-house with the heavy flag flapping behind them and the cheering crowd of men accompanying them on the bank. When he had changed and gone home to his rooms with the pleasures of an amusing bump supper in the hall before him, he sat down in front of his fire and went over in his mind the causes for self-congratulation. At last he had done something which raised him out of the common ruck of University men, something that could never be taken away from him. He saw in imagination his rudder with the Trinity coat-of-arms, the names and weights of the crew and the cox, and the conquered colleges emblazoned upon it hanging up in his hall in Russell Square. His imagination did not stop there. He saw other rudders nailed up by its side, of which at least one should bear the combined arms of Oxford and Cambridge. He felt that he had acquitted himself so as to earn him Mrs. Higginbotham's undying admiration, and visited a telegraph office immediately upon his return in order to send that excellent woman the earliest information of his brilliant achievement.

At the bump supper that evening Mr. Binney was the gayest of the gay. He did not exceed his usual allowance of wine. This, in spite of the unmannerly taunts of the New Court Chronicle, he had never yet done and would have been ashamed of doing. But he was so excited by his success that other members of the party who had not been so careful as himself gave him full credit for having done so, and laughed uproariously at his sallies of wit, clapped him vigorously on the back, and displayed all the usual signs of the best of good fellowship.

Mr. Binney made a speech. He always did make a speech whenever there was an opportunity. He said that this was the proudest moment of his life. (Cheers.) He should despise himself if he thought otherwise. (Cheers.) He thought that the cox was the most important man in a boat. (Loud cries of "No! No!" and laughter.) Well, if he wasn't the most important, at any rate, they couldn't get on without him, and he was very proud to find himself in a position of that sort. He had had triumphs in his life before now (cheers and laughter), but they were as nothing to this. He didn't know how to say enough about it, although he was used to public speaking. (Laughter, cries of "Union.") Some gentleman had mentioned the word "Union." Well, he had thought at one time that success at the Union was the best sort of success that Cambridge could afford. He didn't think so now. Give him success on the river—he would leave all the rest to gentlemen not so fortunate as himself. (Loud applause and cries of "Sit down.") He saw around him a great many friends. (Laughter.) He hoped he might call them friends. (Cries of "Certainly," "By all means.") They were all jolly good fellows, and so say all of us. (Cheers.) He had said before that this was the proudest moment of his life. He would say it again. (Laughter, and the rest of Mr. Binney's speech, which he appeared to be about to begin all over again, was drowned by vociferous cheers which were gradually rounded off into "For he's a jolly good fellow," sung in chorus by everyone present.)

At the close of the evening, just before twelve o'clock, as Mr. Binney was going out of college, arm-in-arm with two jovial companions, the gate was opened to admit Piper and one or two more football players who had gained a great victory over Dublin University that afternoon in the last match of the season, and had since celebrated the occasion by a more protracted dinner than was good for them.

Piper was, in fact, very drunk, and his potations always had the effect of making him extremely quarrelsome. At this particular juncture he was, in American phraseology, "looking for trouble." He found it in the obnoxious person of his late butt, Mr. Binney, who came towards him smiling, his gown put on inside out, over his somewhat disordered evening clothes.

The sight of Mr. Binney roused Piper's smouldering ill-humour to the point of frenzy. With a muttered execration he went for our hero. Mr. Binney saw him coming, and with a shriek of terror, turned round, loosening his hold upon his two companions, and fled terrified back towards the hall.

Piper gave a yell, and started off in chase, but lost his footing at the two steps leading into the Court, and enabled Mr. Binney to get a clear start as far as the fountain, before his pursuer was up and after him again.

His two friends made no attempt to protect him. They shrieked with laughter at the ridiculous spectacle, and rolled about doubled up in their ecstasy of amusement.

But fortunately for Mr. Binney the Great Court was full of his late companions of the feast. "Save me, save me!" cried the poor little man, as he ran towards a group of them near the kitchen staircase. Piper was still a bête noir to a great many of the rowing men, although with his exception the feud between oarsmen and footballers was now quite healed. Mr. Binney ran through the astonished group, down the narrow passage leading into the Hostels. They closed up their ranks and let Piper run into them. There was great confusion for the moment, and cries of "Now then, sir, where are you coming to?" and the like. Piper forgot for the moment where he was going to, and in the meantime his companions came up. One of them was Howden, who was in the effusive after-dinner stage.

"You're the fellows who went head of the river, aren't you?" he cried. "You're jolly noble fellows all the lot of you, and I shall be proud to shake hands with you all round. We're the fellows who have beaten the Irishmen by two goals and a try to nothing. And that's all right, isn't it?"

It appeared to be all right, certainly, for the two groups immediately fraternised with mutual expressions of admiration. And even Piper was so overborne by the general good feeling that he relinquished his intention of spilling Mr. Binney's blood, and allowed himself to be drawn off, while our hero crept round by Neville's Court, through the screens and out again through the Great Gate, still somewhat frightened, and by no means so hilarious as he had been five minutes before.

The next morning Mr. Binney woke up feeling rather cheap, but not without a thrill of pride when he recalled the glorious achievements of the last four days. He went to the chapel which he was accustomed to attend twice on a Sunday, and thought that every member of the congregation must have heard of his prowess on the river, and be eyeing him with admiration as he handed round the plate at the close of the service, clad in his undergraduate's gown. As he sat at his solitary lunch Howden came in.

"Hullo, Binney, old chap," he said, "here you are at last. I've been in once or twice to try and find you this morning. You did jolly well in the races. I was there on Friday and saw you make your bump."

"It's a splendid thing, you know, Howden," said Mr. Binney, "taking part in a great contest like that. You know what it is, for you're a celebrated athlete yourself. It makes you feel warm all over, doesn't it?"

"It makes you feel black and blue all over," said Howden, "after a game like yesterday. We didn't do so badly, Binney, did we? We never expected to beat them like that. Look here, I've got some of the fellows who were playing yesterday coming to supper with me this evening, and two of the Irish chaps who are staying here over Sunday are coming as well. You come too, Binney. We shall have a jolly rowdy evening, quite like old times. You're out of training now, and you haven't had a bust since the beginning of the term. Eight o'clock in my rooms."

Mr. Binney looked shocked.

"What, on Sunday evening?" he exclaimed. "My dear Howden, I couldn't entertain the idea for a moment."

"Oh, well," said Howden, somewhat abashed, "we shan't be doing any harm. You must feed somewhere even if it is Sunday."

"I always dine in hall on Sunday," said Mr. Binney, "and go to church afterwards. I am sorry I can't join you, Howden, although, if it had been on any other night in the week, I should have been delighted. Those dinners we used to have were rather good fun, weren't they? I shouldn't mind another one now if we could keep it a bit quieter. I'll tell you what, Howden, we will have another dinner in my rooms to-morrow night; just to celebrate our going head."

"What, the old lot!" exclaimed Howden. "That will be ripping, Binney. I've never had such jolly dinners since I've been up here as yours were. You're such a capital good host, you know."

"Well, I like entertaining my friends," said Mr. Binney, much gratified. "I used to enjoy those dinners myself, but they certainly were getting rather too rowdy. We must keep a bit quieter to-morrow."

"Right you are," said Howden, and he and Mr. Binney drew out a list of half a dozen constellations of the athletic world, who had already had experience of Mr. Binney's hospitality in days gone by, and might be supposed to be willing to partake of it again.

Mr. Binney's dinner was a repetition of those which had brought him into disrepute during the previous term, only, instead of being quieter than had been customary with those entertainments, it was a noisier revel than any of them. Bumpers had to be drunk to the First Trinity Boat Club, and to the cox of its first Lent boat. This was done before the fish came on. By the time the entrée had made its appearance success to the University Rugby Football Club had been duly honoured, and the healths of the various members of it there present brought them to dessert in a state of hilarious good fellowship. Mr. Binney usually objected to bumpers, but it was pointed out to him that his refusal to empty them would be considered a cowardly insult to his guests in whose honour they were proposed.

Alas! before dinner was well over, Mr. Binney was in a state the mere imagination of which would have made him blush with shame in his more collected moments. His face was flushed, his speech thick, and his laughter meaningless but incessant. His guests were, most of them, in a similar state, and the unhappy little man, instead of mildly rebuking them for their excesses, as he had been accustomed to do, encouraged them to further libations, and filled their glasses himself with an unsteady hand, and giggling exhortations to make a night of it. At a later stage of the evening Mr. Binney was on his legs making the inevitable speech. It was an entirely incoherent speech, but his hearers applauded it no less for that. When a gleam of intelligence did detach itself from Mr. Binney's rambling procession of verbiage and pierce their heated brains, the cheers and hammerings on the table rose to fever pitch, and spurred on the poor little object to still greater exertions. During one of these interludes, when the applause was at its height and Mr. Binney stood leaning against the table with glassy eye and fatuous smile waiting for the din to subside, and bracing himself up for a further attempt, the door of the room opened, and a tall black figure, its face wearing an expression of scandalised amazement, stood framed in the door-way. It was the Reverend Dr. Toller come to expostulate with the wandering sheep of his otherwise irreproachable flock.

Mr. Binney was the first to notice him. He frowned slightly in a determined effort to regain his scattered senses. Then the amiable smile spread once more over his face as he recognised his friend.

"Dorrertoller!" he cried, in a delighted impulse of hospitable welcome. "Come in, my dear sir, and dring a glass o' wine. You see me, Dorrertoller, s'rounded by m' friends, celebrelating merrificent vickery, boclub. Genelmel, 'low me, ole friend, Dorrertoller. Come in, ole boy. Mayself tome. Siddown."

"Mr. Binney!" said the good doctor in an awful tone. "Are you aware, sir, of the terrible scandal you are bringing upon yourself and your friends by this unseemly—this disgraceful conduct?"

"Thashalri, Dorrertoll," said the unhappy Mr. Binney. "Siddow. All ole frells here."

It would ill become us to protract the account of this shameful scene. Dr. Toller, shocked and horrified beyond all bounds, lifted up his voice in expostulation and reproof to the best of his ability, but all in vain. Mr. Binney was past taking heed of rebukes, and wandered foolishly along, pressing the doctor to make one of the party, and drink the health of some of the best fellows he was ever likely to meet. That at least was the intention of his invitation, but his enunciation not being so clear as could be wished, the warmth of his welcome could only be gathered from his engaging smile and his ineffectual attempts to drag a chair up to the table, a chair on which one of his guests happened already to be sitting. Most of the other men took Dr. Toller for a Proctor and kept quiet, while Mr. Binney used his utmost endeavours to induce him to join them. They returned again to their previous state of merriment when the Doctor had left the room, having perceived that anything that he might have to say to Mr. Binney would have to be kept until the next morning.

Later on in the evening, a Proctor did pay them a visit, the noise having become so insistent that it was bound to attract the attention of any one passing down Jesus Lane. He took the names of all the party, but Mr. Binney went to bed in happy oblivion of the event, as well as of the advent of his pastor, and woke up in the morning with a bad headache and a dim impression that something had happened the night before which would cause him great uneasiness if only he could remember what it was.

As he sat with throbbing head and smarting eyeballs over a late cup of tea, which he dignified by the name of breakfast, a "bull-dog" was announced, who brought him a slip of paper requesting him to call on the Junior Proctor at a stated time.

Mr. Binney groaned. He had a dim idea that he had had an unfinished conversation with a Proctor at some previous state of his existence, but he could not remember when. He supposed it must have been during the previous evening, but he could not remember having gone out after dinner.

A little later on, a similar notice was brought to him from his Tutor. Mr. Binney was in such a low state that he actually shed tears at this fresh misfortune. He must have done something very bad indeed. If only he could remember what it was! But he couldn't, and his head was too painful to allow him to exert it to any great extent. All he knew was that he would never be able to hold up that head again. He would be sent down for a certainty. He would be eternally disgraced in the eyes of all his friends, before whom he had been used to bear himself so proudly. He grew cold when he thought of what Mrs. Higginbotham would say to him. Then his thoughts flew with a deadly sinking of heart to Dr. Toller and his fellow-officers in the congregation of which Dr. Toller was the shining leader. At this moment there was a ring at the bell, and in a few moments Dr. Toller himself was announced. Mr. Binney buried his head in the cushions of his armchair and wept aloud.