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Arthur Pendennis
by
During the latter part of Pen’s university career the Major had become very proud of Arthur on account of his high spirits, frank manners, and high, gentleman-like bearing. He made more than one visit to Oxbridge and had an almost paternal fondness for Pen, whom he bragged about at his clubs, and introduced with pleasure into his conversation. He boasted everywhere of the boy’s great talents and of the brilliant degree he was going to take as he wrote over and over again to Pen’s mother, who for her part was ready to believe anything that anybody chose to say in favour of her son.
And all this pride and affection of uncle and mother had been trampled down by Pen’s wicked extravagance and idleness. I don’t envy Pen’s feelings as he thought of what he had done. He had marred at its outset what might have been a brilliant career. He had dipped ungenerously into a generous mother’s purse, and basely and recklessly spent her little income. Poor Arthur Pendennis felt perfectly convinced that all England would remark the absence of his name from the examination lists and talk about his misfortune. His wounded tutor, his many duns, the undergraduates–how could he bear to look any of them in the face now? After receiving the news of his disgrace he rushed to his rooms and there penned a letter to his tutor full of thanks, regards, remorse and despair, requesting that his name might be taken off the college books, and intimating a wish that death might speedily end the woes of the disgraced Arthur Pendennis. Then he slunk out, scarcely knowing where he went, taking the unfrequented little lanes at the backs of the college buildings until he found himself some miles distant from Oxbridge. As he went up a hill, a drizzling January rain beating in his face and his ragged gown flying behind him, for he had not taken it off since the morning, a post-chaise came rattling up the road with a young gentleman in it who caught sight of poor Pen’s pale face, jumped out of the carriage and ran towards him, exclaiming, “I say,–Hello, old boy, where are you going, and what’s the row now?”
“I am going where I deserve to go,” said Pen.
“This ain’t the way,” said his friend Spavin, smiling. “I say, Pen, don’t take on because you are plucked. It is nothing when you are used to it. I’ve been plucked three times, old boy, and after the first time I didn’t care. You’ll have better luck next time.”
Pen looked at his early acquaintance who had been plucked, who had been rusticated, who had only after repeated failures learned to read and write correctly, but who, in spite of all these drawbacks had attained the honour of a degree.
“This man has passed,” he thought, “and I have failed.” It was almost too much for him to bear.
“Good-bye,” said he; “I am very glad you are through. Don’t let me keep you. I am in a hurry–I am going to town to-night.”
“Gammon!” said his friend, “this ain’t the way to town; this is the Fenbury road, I tell you.”
“I was just going to turn back,” Pen said.
“All the coaches are full with the men going down,” Spavin said. Pen winced. “You’d not get a place for a ten-pound note. Get in here. I’ll drop you where you have a chance of the Fenbury mail. I’ll lend you a hat and coat; I’ve got lots. Come along; jump in, old boy–go it, leathers!”
And in this way Pen found himself in Mr. Spavin’s post-chaise and rode with that gentleman as far as the Ram Inn at Mudford, fifteen miles from Oxbridge, where the Fenbury mail changed horses, and where Pen got a place on to London.
The next day there was an immense excitement at Oxbridge, where, for some time, a rumour prevailed, to the terror of Pen’s tutor and tradesmen, that Pendennis, maddened at losing his degree, had made away with himself. A battered cap, in which his name was almost discernible, together with a seal bearing his crest of an eagle looking at a now extinct sun, had been found three miles on the Fenbury road, near a mill stream; and for four-and-twenty hours it was supposed that poor Pen had flung himself into the stream, until letters arrived from him, bearing the London post-mark.