Nicholas Nickleby
have inflicted such punishment on you as--’
‘Punishment!’ interposed Sir Mulberry.
‘I know it has been a severe one,’ said Ralph, wilfully mistaking the
meaning of the interruption, ‘and that has made me the more anxious to
tell you that I disown this vagabond--that I acknowledge him as no kin
of mine--and that I leave him to take his deserts from you, and
every man besides. You may wring his neck if you please. I shall not
interfere.’
‘This story that they tell me here, has got abroad then, has it?’ asked
Sir Mulberry, clenching his hands and teeth.
‘Noised in all directions,’ replied Ralph. ‘Every club and gaming-room
has rung with it. There has been a good song made about it, as I am
told,’ said Ralph, looking eagerly at his questioner. ‘I have not heard
it myself, not being in the way of such things, but I have been told
it’s even printed--for private circulation--but that’s all over town, of
course.’
‘It’s a lie!’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘I tell you it’s all a lie. The mare
took fright.’
‘They SAY he frightened her,’ observed Ralph, in the same unmoved and
quiet manner. ‘Some say he frightened you, but THAT’S a lie, I know. I
have said that boldly--oh, a score of times! I am a peaceable man, but I
can’t hear folks tell that of you. No, no.’
When Sir Mulberry found coherent words to utter, Ralph bent forward
with his hand to his ear, and a face as calm as if its every line of
sternness had been cast in iron.
‘When I am off this cursed bed,’ said the invalid, actually striking at
his broken leg in the ecstasy of his passion, ‘I’ll have such revenge as
never man had yet. By God, I will. Accident favouring him, he has marked
me for a week or two, but I’ll put a mark on him that he shall carry
to his grave. I’ll slit his nose and ears, flog him, maim him for life.
I’ll do more than that; I’ll drag that pattern of chastity, that pink of
prudery, the delicate sister, through--’
It might have been that even Ralph’s cold blood tingled in his cheeks
at that moment. It might have been that Sir Mulberry remembered, that,
knave and usurer as he was, he must, in some early time of infancy, have
twined his arm about her father’s neck. He stopped, and menacing with
his hand, confirmed the unuttered threat with a tremendous oath.
‘It is a galling thing,’ said Ralph, after a short term of silence,
during which he had eyed the sufferer keenly, ‘to think that the man
about town, the rake, the ROUE, the rook of twenty seasons should be
brought to this pass by a mere boy!’
Sir Mulberry darted a wrathful look at him, but Ralph’s eyes were bent
upon the ground, and his face wore no other expression than one of
thoughtfulness.
‘A raw, slight stripling,’ continued Ralph, ‘against a man whose very
weight might crush him; to say nothing of his skill in--I am right, I
think,’ said Ralph, raising his eyes, ‘you WERE a patron of the ring
once, were you not?’
The sick man made an impatient gesture, which Ralph chose to consider as
one of acquiescence.
‘Ha!’ he said, ‘I thought so. That was before I knew you, but I was
pretty sure I couldn’t be mistaken. He is light and active, I suppose.
But those were slight advantages compared with yours. Luck, luck! These
hang-dog outcasts have it.’
‘He’ll need the most he has, when I am well again,’ said Sir Mulberry
Hawk, ‘let him fly where he will.’
‘Oh!’ returned Ralph quickly, ‘he doesn’t dream of that. He is here,
good sir, waiting your pleasure, here in London, walking the streets
at noonday; carrying it off jauntily; looking for you, I swear,’ said
Ralph, his face darkening, and his own hatred getting the upper hand
of him, for the first time, as this gay picture of Nicholas presented
itself; ‘if we were only citizens of a country where it could be safely
done, I’d give good money to have him stabbed to the heart and rolled
into the kennel for the dogs to tear.’
As Ralph, somewhat to the surprise of his old client, vented this
little piece of sound family feeling, and took up his hat preparatory to
departing, Lord Frederick Verisopht looked in.
‘Why what in the deyvle’s name, Hawk, have you and Nickleby been talking
about?’ said the young man. ‘I neyver heard such an insufferable riot.
Croak, croak, croak. Bow, wow, wow. What has it all been about?’
‘Sir Mulberry has been angry, my Lord,’ said Ralph, looking towards the
couch.
‘Not about money, I hope? Nothing has gone wrong in business, has it,
Nickleby?’
‘No, my Lord, no,’ returned Ralph. ‘On that point we always agree. Sir
Mulberry has been calling to mind the cause of--’
There was neither necessity nor opportunity for Ralph to proceed; for
Sir Mulberry took up the theme, and vented his threats and oaths against
Nicholas, almost as ferociously as before.
Ralph, who was no common observer, was surprised to see that as this
tirade proceeded, the manner of Lord Frederick Verisopht, who at the
commencement had been twirling his whiskers with a most dandified
and listless air, underwent a complete alteration. He was still more
surprised when, Sir Mulberry ceasing to speak, the young lord angrily,
and almost unaffectedly, requested never to have the subject renewed in
his presence.
‘Mind that, Hawk!’ he added, with unusual energy. ‘I never will be a
party to, or permit, if I can help it, a cowardly attack upon this young
fellow.’
‘Cowardly!’ interrupted his friend.
‘Ye-es,’ said the other, turning full upon him. ‘If you had told him
who you were; if you had given him your card, and found out, afterwards,
that his station or character prevented your fighting him, it would have
been bad enough then; upon my soul it would have been bad enough then.
As it is, you did wrong. I did wrong too, not to interfere, and I
am sorry for it. What happened to you afterwards, was as much the
consequence of accident as design, and more your fault than his; and it
shall not, with my knowledge, be cruelly visited upon him, it shall not
indeed.’
With this emphatic repetition of his concluding words, the young lord
turned upon his heel; but before he had reached the adjoining room he
turned back again, and said, with even greater vehemence than he had
displayed before,
‘I do believe, now; upon my honour I do believe, that the sister is as
virtuous and modest a young lady as she is a handsome one; and of the
brother, I say this, that he acted as her brother should, and in a manly
and spirited manner. And I only wish, with all my heart and soul, that
any one of us came out of this matter half as well as he does.’
So saying, Lord Frederick Verisopht walked out of the room, leaving
Ralph Nickleby and Sir Mulberry in most unpleasant astonishment.
‘Is this your pupil?’ asked Ralph, softly, ‘or has he come fresh from
some country parson?’
‘Green fools take these fits sometimes,’ replied Sir Mulberry Hawk,
biting his lip, and pointing to the door. ‘Leave him to me.’
Ralph exchanged a familiar look with his old acquaintance; for they had
suddenly grown confidential again in this alarming surprise; and took
his way home, thoughtfully and slowly.
While these things were being said and done, and long before they were
concluded, the omnibus had disgorged Miss La Creevy and her escort, and
they had arrived at her own door. Now, the good-nature of the little
miniature painter would by no means allow of Smike’s walking back again,
until he had been previously refreshed with just a sip of something
comfortable and a mixed biscuit or so; and Smike, entertaining no
objection either to the sip of something comfortable, or the mixed
biscuit, but, considering on the contrary that they would be a very
pleasant preparation for a walk to Bow, it fell out that he delayed much
longer than he originally intended, and that it was some half-hour after
dusk when he set forth on his journey home.
There was no likelihood of his losing his way, for it lay quite straight
before him, and he had walked into town with Nicholas, and back alone,
almost every day. So, Miss La Creevy and he shook hands with mutual
confidence, and, being charged with more kind remembrances to Mrs. and
Miss Nickleby, Smike started off.
At the foot of Ludgate Hill, he turned a little out of the road to
satisfy his curiosity by having a look at Newgate. After staring up at
the sombre walls, from the opposite side of the way, with great care
and dread for some minutes, he turned back again into the old track, and
walked briskly through the city; stopping now and then to gaze in at the
window of some particularly attractive shop, then running for a little
way, then stopping again, and so on, as any other country lad might do.
He had been gazing for a long time through a jeweller’s window, wishing
he could take some of the beautiful trinkets home as a present, and
imagining what delight they would afford if he could, when the clocks
struck three-quarters past eight; roused by the sound, he hurried on at
a very quick pace, and was crossing the corner of a by-street when he
felt himself violently brought to, with a jerk so sudden that he was
obliged to cling to a lamp-post to save himself from falling. At the
same moment, a small boy clung tight round his leg, and a shrill cry of
‘Here he is, father! Hooray!’ vibrated in his ears.
Smike knew that voice too well. He cast his despairing eyes downward
towards the form from which it had proceeded, and, shuddering from head
to foot, looked round. Mr. Squeers had hooked him in the coat collar with
the handle of his umbrella, and was hanging on at the other end with all
his might and main. The cry of triumph proceeded from Master Wackford,
who, regardless of all his kicks and struggles, clung to him with the
tenacity of a bull-dog!
One glance showed him this; and in that one glance the terrified
creature became utterly powerless and unable to utter a sound.
‘Here’s a go!’ cried Mr. Squeers, gradually coming hand-over-hand down
the umbrella, and only unhooking it when he had got tight hold of the
victim’s collar. ‘Here’s a delicious go! Wackford, my boy, call up one
of them coaches.’
‘A coach, father!’ cried little Wackford.
‘Yes, a coach, sir,’ replied Squeers, feasting his eyes upon the
countenance of Smike. ‘Damn the expense. Let’s have him in a coach.’
‘What’s he been a doing of?’ asked a labourer with a hod of bricks,
against whom and a fellow-labourer Mr. Squeers had backed, on the first
jerk of the umbrella.
‘Everything!’ replied Mr. Squeers, looking fixedly at his old pupil in
a sort of rapturous trance. ‘Everything--running away, sir--joining in
bloodthirsty attacks upon his master--there’s nothing that’s bad that he
hasn’t done. Oh, what a delicious go is this here, good Lord!’
The man looked from Squeers to Smike; but such mental faculties as the
poor fellow possessed, had utterly deserted him. The coach came up;
Master Wackford entered; Squeers pushed in his prize, and following
close at his heels, pulled up the glasses. The coachman mounted his
box and drove slowly off, leaving the two bricklayers, and an old
apple-woman, and a town-made little boy returning from an evening
school, who had been the only witnesses of the scene, to meditate upon
it at their leisure.
Mr. Squeers sat himself down on the opposite seat to the unfortunate
Smike, and, planting his hands firmly on his knees, looked at him for
some five minutes, when, seeming to recover from his trance, he uttered
a loud laugh, and slapped his old pupil’s face several times--taking the
right and left sides alternately.
‘It isn’t a dream!’ said Squeers. ‘That’s real flesh and blood! I know
the feel of it!’ and being quite assured of his good fortune by these
experiments, Mr. Squeers administered a few boxes on the ear, lest the
entertainments should seem to partake of sameness, and laughed louder