Nicholas Nickleby
resting upon anything as they sat, and the little boys’ bodies being
consequently in imminent hazard of being jerked off the coach, Nicholas
had enough to do over the stones to hold them on. Between the manual
exertion and the mental anxiety attendant upon this task, he was not a
little relieved when the coach stopped at the Peacock at Islington. He
was still more relieved when a hearty-looking gentleman, with a very
good-humoured face, and a very fresh colour, got up behind, and proposed
to take the other corner of the seat.
‘If we put some of these youngsters in the middle,’ said the new-comer,
‘they’ll be safer in case of their going to sleep; eh?’
‘If you’ll have the goodness, sir,’ replied Squeers, ‘that’ll be the
very thing. Mr. Nickleby, take three of them boys between you and the
gentleman. Belling and the youngest Snawley can sit between me and the
guard. Three children,’ said Squeers, explaining to the stranger, ‘books
as two.’
‘I have not the least objection I am sure,’ said the fresh-coloured
gentleman; ‘I have a brother who wouldn’t object to book his six
children as two at any butcher’s or baker’s in the kingdom, I dare say.
Far from it.’
‘Six children, sir?’ exclaimed Squeers.
‘Yes, and all boys,’ replied the stranger.
‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said Squeers, in great haste, ‘catch hold of that basket.
Let me give you a card, sir, of an establishment where those six boys
can be brought up in an enlightened, liberal, and moral manner, with no
mistake at all about it, for twenty guineas a year each--twenty guineas,
sir--or I’d take all the boys together upon a average right through, and
say a hundred pound a year for the lot.’
‘Oh!’ said the gentleman, glancing at the card, ‘you are the Mr. Squeers
mentioned here, I presume?’
‘Yes, I am, sir,’ replied the worthy pedagogue; ‘Mr. Wackford Squeers is
my name, and I’m very far from being ashamed of it. These are some of my
boys, sir; that’s one of my assistants, sir--Mr. Nickleby, a gentleman’s
son, and a good scholar, mathematical, classical, and commercial. We
don’t do things by halves at our shop. All manner of learning my boys
take down, sir; the expense is never thought of; and they get paternal
treatment and washing in.’
‘Upon my word,’ said the gentleman, glancing at Nicholas with a
half-smile, and a more than half expression of surprise, ‘these are
advantages indeed.’
‘You may say that, sir,’ rejoined Squeers, thrusting his hands into his
great-coat pockets. ‘The most unexceptionable references are given
and required. I wouldn’t take a reference with any boy, that wasn’t
responsible for the payment of five pound five a quarter, no, not if you
went down on your knees, and asked me, with the tears running down your
face, to do it.’
‘Highly considerate,’ said the passenger.
‘It’s my great aim and end to be considerate, sir,’ rejoined Squeers.
‘Snawley, junior, if you don’t leave off chattering your teeth, and
shaking with the cold, I’ll warm you with a severe thrashing in about
half a minute’s time.’
‘Sit fast here, genelmen,’ said the guard as he clambered up.
‘All right behind there, Dick?’ cried the coachman.
‘All right,’ was the reply. ‘Off she goes!’ And off she did go--if
coaches be feminine--amidst a loud flourish from the guard’s horn,
and the calm approval of all the judges of coaches and coach-horses
congregated at the Peacock, but more especially of the helpers, who
stood, with the cloths over their arms, watching the coach till it
disappeared, and then lounged admiringly stablewards, bestowing various
gruff encomiums on the beauty of the turn-out.
When the guard (who was a stout old Yorkshireman) had blown himself
quite out of breath, he put the horn into a little tunnel of a basket
fastened to the coach-side for the purpose, and giving himself a
plentiful shower of blows on the chest and shoulders, observed it was
uncommon cold; after which, he demanded of every person separately
whether he was going right through, and if not, where he WAS going.
Satisfactory replies being made to these queries, he surmised that the
roads were pretty heavy arter that fall last night, and took the
liberty of asking whether any of them gentlemen carried a snuff-box. It
happening that nobody did, he remarked with a mysterious air that he had
heard a medical gentleman as went down to Grantham last week, say how
that snuff-taking was bad for the eyes; but for his part he had never
found it so, and what he said was, that everybody should speak as they
found. Nobody attempting to controvert this position, he took a small
brown-paper parcel out of his hat, and putting on a pair of horn
spectacles (the writing being crabbed) read the direction half-a-dozen
times over; having done which, he consigned the parcel to its old place,
put up his spectacles again, and stared at everybody in turn. After
this, he took another blow at the horn by way of refreshment; and,
having now exhausted his usual topics of conversation, folded his arms
as well as he could in so many coats, and falling into a solemn silence,
looked carelessly at the familiar objects which met his eye on every
side as the coach rolled on; the only things he seemed to care for,
being horses and droves of cattle, which he scrutinised with a critical
air as they were passed upon the road.
The weather was intensely and bitterly cold; a great deal of snow fell
from time to time; and the wind was intolerably keen. Mr. Squeers got
down at almost every stage--to stretch his legs as he said--and as he
always came back from such excursions with a very red nose, and composed
himself to sleep directly, there is reason to suppose that he derived
great benefit from the process. The little pupils having been stimulated
with the remains of their breakfast, and further invigorated by sundry
small cups of a curious cordial carried by Mr. Squeers, which tasted very
like toast-and-water put into a brandy bottle by mistake, went to sleep,
woke, shivered, and cried, as their feelings prompted. Nicholas and
the good-tempered man found so many things to talk about, that between
conversing together, and cheering up the boys, the time passed with them
as rapidly as it could, under such adverse circumstances.
So the day wore on. At Eton Slocomb there was a good coach dinner, of
which the box, the four front outsides, the one inside, Nicholas, the
good-tempered man, and Mr. Squeers, partook; while the five little boys
were put to thaw by the fire, and regaled with sandwiches. A stage or
two further on, the lamps were lighted, and a great to-do occasioned
by the taking up, at a roadside inn, of a very fastidious lady with an
infinite variety of cloaks and small parcels, who loudly lamented, for
the behoof of the outsides, the non-arrival of her own carriage which
was to have taken her on, and made the guard solemnly promise to stop
every green chariot he saw coming; which, as it was a dark night and he
was sitting with his face the other way, that officer undertook, with
many fervent asseverations, to do. Lastly, the fastidious lady, finding
there was a solitary gentleman inside, had a small lamp lighted which
she carried in reticule, and being after much trouble shut in, the
horses were put into a brisk canter and the coach was once more in rapid
motion.
The night and the snow came on together, and dismal enough they were.
There was no sound to be heard but the howling of the wind; for the
noise of the wheels, and the tread of the horses’ feet, were rendered
inaudible by the thick coating of snow which covered the ground, and was
fast increasing every moment. The streets of Stamford were deserted as
they passed through the town; and its old churches rose, frowning and
dark, from the whitened ground. Twenty miles further on, two of the
front outside passengers, wisely availing themselves of their arrival at
one of the best inns in England, turned in, for the night, at the George
at Grantham. The remainder wrapped themselves more closely in their
coats and cloaks, and leaving the light and warmth of the town behind
them, pillowed themselves against the luggage, and prepared, with many
half-suppressed moans, again to encounter the piercing blast which swept
across the open country.
They were little more than a stage out of Grantham, or about halfway
between it and Newark, when Nicholas, who had been asleep for a short
time, was suddenly roused by a violent jerk which nearly threw him from
his seat. Grasping the rail, he found that the coach had sunk greatly
on one side, though it was still dragged forward by the horses; and
while--confused by their plunging and the loud screams of the lady
inside--he hesitated, for an instant, whether to jump off or not,
the vehicle turned easily over, and relieved him from all further
uncertainty by flinging him into the road.
CHAPTER 6
In which the Occurrence of the Accident mentioned in the last Chapter,
affords an Opportunity to a couple of Gentlemen to tell Stories against
each other
‘Wo ho!’ cried the guard, on his legs in a minute, and running to the
leaders’ heads. ‘Is there ony genelmen there as can len’ a hond here?
Keep quiet, dang ye! Wo ho!’
‘What’s the matter?’ demanded Nicholas, looking sleepily up.
‘Matther mun, matter eneaf for one neight,’ replied the guard; ‘dang the
wall-eyed bay, he’s gane mad wi’ glory I think, carse t’coorch is over.
Here, can’t ye len’ a hond? Dom it, I’d ha’ dean it if all my boans were
brokken.’
‘Here!’ cried Nicholas, staggering to his feet, ‘I’m ready. I’m only a
little abroad, that’s all.’
‘Hoold ‘em toight,’ cried the guard, ‘while ar coot treaces. Hang on
tiv’em sumhoo. Well deane, my lod. That’s it. Let’em goa noo. Dang ‘em,
they’ll gang whoam fast eneaf!’
In truth, the animals were no sooner released than they trotted back,
with much deliberation, to the stable they had just left, which was
distant not a mile behind.
‘Can you blo’ a harn?’ asked the guard, disengaging one of the
coach-lamps.
‘I dare say I can,’ replied Nicholas.
‘Then just blo’ away into that ‘un as lies on the grund, fit to wakken
the deead, will’ee,’ said the man, ‘while I stop sum o’ this here
squealing inside. Cumin’, cumin’. Dean’t make that noise, wooman.’
As the man spoke, he proceeded to wrench open the uppermost door of the
coach, while Nicholas, seizing the horn, awoke the echoes far and wide
with one of the most extraordinary performances on that instrument ever
heard by mortal ears. It had its effect, however, not only in rousing
such of their fall, but in summoning assistance to their relief; for
lights gleamed in the distance, and people were already astir.
In fact, a man on horseback galloped down, before the passengers were
well collected together; and a careful investigation being instituted,
it appeared that the lady inside had broken her lamp, and the gentleman
his head; that the two front outsides had escaped with black eyes; the
box with a bloody nose; the coachman with a contusion on the temple;
Mr. Squeers with a portmanteau bruise on his back; and the remaining
passengers without any injury at all--thanks to the softness of the
snow-drift in which they had been overturned. These facts were no
sooner thoroughly ascertained, than the lady gave several indications of
fainting, but being forewarned that if she did, she must be carried on
some gentleman’s shoulders to the nearest public-house, she prudently
thought better of it, and walked back with the rest.
They found on reaching it, that it was a lonely place with no very great
accommodation in the way of apartments--that portion of its resources
being all comprised in one public room with a sanded floor, and a chair
or two. However, a large faggot and a plentiful supply of coals being