LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

can be justly called a poet. Compare his thoughts with those of our own immortal Shakespeare—the Swan of Avon—or even with Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, if you must have matters of ancient history treated in poetry. And what is the use of puzzling over the Acts of the Apostles in the Original Greek, when that book, as well as the rest of the New Testament, has been so admirably translated in the Revised Version? What the authorities of our Universities entirely fail to grasp is that Latin and Greek are not spoken nowadays. How much better young men would be fitted for the business of life if they were trained to speak and write French and German fluently! This is so obvious to a man of experience that I seriously thought of writing to the Chancellor of the University, the Duke of Devonshire, and laying my views before him, but Minshull dissuaded me, saying that I should be in a better position to bring to bear any influence I might possess after I have taken my degree, which is perfectly true. But the truth of it is there are too many old women at the head of the Universities. What you want are keen-headed men, men of experience in the world, who would move with the times, and get Oxford and Cambridge to move with them. I am so convinced I am right in this opinion, that if it were not for the cares of business, to which I must return when I have finished with Cambridge, I should apply for a Trinity fellowship after I have taken my degree, and try to infuse a little spirit into the counsels of the college and through it into the University.

      "I must now draw to a close and return to my studies. I feel that they are beneath my powers, but at the same time I must not grumble at having to begin at the bottom rung of the ladder. 'Thorough' has always been my motto and will continue so. No more at present, from your affectionate father,—PETER BINNEY."

      Mr. Binney's letters as the time went on became more and more sprightly in tone. With the cares of business he seemed to have finally laid aside all the interests commonly felt by gentlemen who have reached middle age. He relapsed into slang. Minshull, he said, was a "jolly good sort," only you had to work. It was no good trying to "kid him." The subjects for examination he now found "beastly stiff," and it was an "awful sap" getting them up, but he quite expected to have "bowled them over" by the time the examination was due. He mentioned Mrs. Higginbotham once or twice as one on whose approval of the course he was pursuing he greatly relied.

      "Confound that old woman," said Lucius when he read this. "She's backing him up in all this nonsense. She's a sentimental old donkey. Well, he can't do it in time, that's one comfort;" and Lucius would encourage himself by dwelling on this conviction, and then tear up his father's letters.

      He came up to town for two nights about the end of June on his long leave. Mr. Binney, of course, was full of his work. He wished to be treated just like any other youth with the ordeal of an examination before him, and itched to talk over his chances. But Lucius retired into his shell whenever Cambridge was mentioned. Mr. Binney, of course, noticed this and began to get his back up about it. At last he tackled his son in the most effectual way as they sat together in the library at Russell Square after dinner.

      "Look here, young man," he said, "you may as well get used to this idea. You and I are going up to Trinity together, and I want to do the thing fairly and squarely. I shall put us both on an allowance, and at present I intend to make them equal. But if you're going to be sulky about it, they won't be equal, or anything like it. So put that in your pipe and smoke it."

      "What allowance?" inquired Lucius with some interest. His father had always refused to come to the point when he had asked him the same question before.

      "Well, I thought of £300 a year," said Mr. Binney. "Minshull did it on £200, and did it very well, but, as he says, Trinity is the college where all the swells go, and if you want to live up to 'em you might have to spend a bit more. As I say, I want to do the thing well."

      "I don't suppose Minshull knows much about it," said Lucius. "Most of the chaps I know are going to have about four hundred, and hardly any of them less than three. You have to be jolly careful on three hundred a year at Trinity."

      "Ah, well," said Mr. Binney, "I won't let a hundred a year, or even two, stand in the way, and we'll share alike if you're sensible about it. But I'm not going to pay you four hundred a year to look down on your father, so you had better make up your mind how you're going to behave before October comes."

      Lucius sat silent with a gloomy countenance and his hands in his pockets. When he was at school the idea of his father accompanying him to Cambridge as a freshman seemed so absurd that he was sometimes surprised to find that he was enjoying life much as usual, without being very much burdened by it. When he was at home and realised how very much in earnest Mr. Binney was, the dark fate that hung over him became less remote, and filled him with gloomy forebodings. But youth is elastic. It seemed almost out of the question that Mr. Binney would succeed in passing the entrance examination, while Lucius himself was already admitted a member of Trinity College. The allowance his father had named seemed to him quite adequate, and he allowed himself to cheer up a little and inquire after the health of Mrs. Higginbotham.

      Mr. Binney coughed in some little embarrassment.

      "Mrs. Higginbotham has a bad cold," he said, "and is confined to the house. I hope she will be well enough to accompany me to Lord's for the Eton and Harrow match, if the state of her bronchial tubes, which are giving her a lot of trouble just now, permit of it. You will be able to introduce us to some of your friends and future companions at Cambridge."

      "I'm very sorry," said Lucius, "but I shan't be there. Henley comes in the same week."

      "I shall be at Henley as well," said Mr. Binney, "and Mrs. Higginbotham has kindly consented to accompany me. She takes a great interest in your rowing career, Lucius, as she does in every other manly sport. Ah! I hope the day may come when I myself—but we mustn't count our chickens before they are hatched, must we? With regard to Henley, you will be able to go about with us, I suppose, and see that——"

      "Very sorry, father," interrupted Lucius hastily, "I shall be rowing nearly all day long. We're in for the Grand and the Ladies' Plate. Besides, the captain of the boats is a terrible fellow. If he caught one of us so much as speaking to a lady he'd cut up very rough."

      "Why is that, pray?" inquired Mr. Binney.

      "Oh, I don't know. They might offer us an ice or something. We have to be awfully strict, you know, over training."

      "Ah, well, that's a pity. Mrs. Higginbotham would like to meet a few of the young fellows who will be my companions for the next three years. She said so. Perhaps you might get one of your cricketing friends who would be unoccupied to look after us."

      "I'm afraid most of them will have people of their own to look after. However, if any of them happens to lose his father and mother between now and Henley, I'll see what can be done."

      "And now I must go to bed," said Mr. Binney, "so as to begin work early to-morrow morning. I don't want to lose a minute more than I can help. I'm not getting on terms with Mr. Plato as quickly as I should like. I shall be able to introduce you to Minshull before you start, Lucius. He's a good chap, and not a bit stand-offish as you might expect, considering he's a B.A., and I'm not even a freshman yet. You'll find him quite easy to get on with."

      Minshull was one of those people in whose eyes a three years' residence at Oxford or Cambridge is such a glorious thing, that if they have gone through it themselves they can talk or think of nothing else throughout their lives. The healthy pleasant life of the average undergraduate is idealised into a sort of seventh heaven, and a "blue" takes his place immediately below the archangels and considerably above any mere mortal. Seniority of residence forms an almost complete bar to social intercourse with undergraduates of lower standing, and the little code of etiquette invented to enliven proceedings in the lesser colleges is as the laws of the Medes and Persians. To be or to have been "a 'Varsity man" was the only thing quite necessary in Minshull's eyes, if you were to call yourself a gentleman, and he therefore saw nothing that was not entirely laudable in Mr. Binney's determination to acquire this hall-mark of superiority, however late in life. While trying to instil into his pupil the requisite amount of Latin and Greek, he imparted to him at the same time his own particular point of view in matters of undergraduate custom, taught him what to admire and what to avoid, until Mr.

Скачать книгу