Peter Binney: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

"Ah, you are young!" said Mr. Binney. "You've got your life before you. I shall never get over it."

Nevertheless he did get over it, and the failure did him good. He went to Mrs. Higginbotham and confessed all. He saw now, he said, that he had wasted his time and opportunities. He had consorted with idle and graceless companions, and made himself a reproach to the authorities of the college. He had brought this appalling result on himself, and he deserved it.

Mrs. Higginbotham gave the repentant prodigal full absolution. She advised him to write to Mr. Rimington, and promise full amendment of his ways. Mr. Binney did not take her advice in this particular, but he did summon to his aid the learned Minshull, and set himself steadily to read for several hours a day during the Christmas vacation in order to make up for lost time. Lucius found the house very dull. An unexpected invitation from his cousin John Jermyn's mother came for him to spend the week after Christmas at the Norfolk Rectory, but remembering his cousin John he did not feel attracted, and receiving another invitation the day after to the ancestral home of the Stubbses he accepted that, and refused the other. He went up to Cambridge early, for there was a chance of his rowing in the University boat, and he wanted to keep a term before going to Putney, if he should be fortunate enough to be wanted there; so he saw next to nothing of his father for the remainder of the vacation.

CHAPTER X

"THE NEW COURT CHRONICLE"

Mr. Binney embarked on his second term at Cambridge with the full intention of acquitting himself with credit and freeing his character from the suspicion of unruliness which had unfortunately become attached to it. He was very much in earnest about his work, and mapped out a course of arduous study which was to be continued right up to the following June, when he hoped to make up for his first failure by taking a high class in both parts of the Little-go. The Union he was determined to let severely alone. His pride had had a severe rebuff from the indignity which had been put upon him in the elections. "They can do without me," said Mr. Binney to his fellow-aspirant, M'Gee. "Very well, then, I will show them that I can do without them."

"Toch! man, have another try," said the indomitable M'Gee. "Rome wasn't built in a day." But he said it without enthusiasm, for the path to success, according to his ideas, did not lie through the follies and extravagances to which Mr. Binney had treated his audience during the previous term.

"I shall never speak at the Union again, M'Gee," said Mr. Binney firmly. And he kept his word.

He was a little troubled as to what course he should adopt with Howden and the rest of his athletic friends. He did not want to drop them altogether, but he wanted to make it clearly understood that the open restaurant which he had previously conducted for their benefit was now closed, and he had a suspicion that its closing might mean the discontinuance of their favour, and a consequent loss of prestige to himself. He gave a dinner on the second evening of the term, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that Howden, who professed himself delighted to meet his old friend once more after five weeks' absence, gave it for him in his rooms, and Mr. Binney paid the bill. It was quite as noisy as any that had gone before it, but Mr. Binney did not add to the gaiety. He made a speech in the course of the evening—he was rather fond of making speeches—in which he informed his friends that he was about to embark on a severe course of study and found he would not be able to have the pleasure of entertaining them quite so often as before on account of the time that was thrown away over these festivities. What he said was cheered to the echo, which gratified him not a little, but Howden, who followed him, did not appear to have taken his remarks in the least seriously, and assured him in a voice broken with emotion, that they would all stick by him and never forsake him. This was not quite what Mr. Binney wanted, but Howden's affecting periods caused such an outburst of enthusiasm that he succumbed to the general goodwill and allowed the matter to stand over for the present.