College stories; College students -- Fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Trinity College (University of Cambridge) -- Fiction
"See what an interest the world takes in this historic contest," Mr.
Binney is saying, waving his hand round towards the river dotted with
craft all moving the same way, and the banks lined with a dense,
holiday-making mass. "It makes you proud of being able to call
yourself a 'Varsity man."
"Yes, indeed," answers his wife. "And to think of Lucius actually
taking part in it! I feel as proud as anything of the dear boy."
"So do I," says Mr. Binney heartily. "There was a time when I should
have been jealous of him. But that is all over and done with. I've
put such things behind me. Here am I, settled down comfortably with a
devoted and charming wife. I can take life gratefully now as it comes,
and be just as proud of my boy distinguishing himself as if I had done
it myself."
"That's the way to look at it, Peter," says Mrs. Binney. "We made a
mistake in thinking it was necessary for you to go to Cambridge in
order to keep young. It's love that keeps the heart young, and so
we've found, haven't we?"
"Indeed we have, Martha," says Mr. Binney. "Ah! Shall I ever forget
what you did for me in that dark time of illness and remorse? Shall I
ever forget reaching home that morning, racked with anguish at the
thought of the ingratitude I had displayed towards my noble-hearted
son, and the remembrance of the awful punishment I had received for my
rash folly? How I sat indoors brooding over the past, feeling wretched
and miserable, without hope or comfort. How the next day I was too ill
to get up, and by night time was mercifully beyond the reach of my
remorseful thoughts, because of the severe attack of pneumonia, which
the exposure and distress I had gone through had brought on. How I lay
for days, tossing and burning on a couch of misery, and woke at last to
find your cool hand stilling the throbbing of my burning brain, and
your angel voice falling in words of balm on my distressed and fevered
spirit.
"Yes, dear," says his wife as Mr. Binney pauses for breath, "and then
you soon got better, didn't you?"
"Shall I ever forget," pursues Mr. Binney more energetically than ever,
"how, when I came again to the realisation of all the many follies I
had committed, you soothed and consoled me, how you brought my boy to
me, and neither of you would listen to my broken cries of repentance,
but gave me calves' foot jelly and grapes instead, and insisted upon
carrying on a cheerful conversation? How you brought me the news of my
success in the Little-go, which was greater than I deserved, but less
than I expected; and finally, Martha, how you made me the happy man I
am to-day by promising to become mine when I had sufficiently
recovered, on the condition that I should leave Cambridge and settle
down once more to my business."
"Yes, dear, and now we're all comfortable and happy," says Mrs. Binney.
"I made mistakes too, Peter, as well as you, but they're all over now.
And----"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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