Nicholas Nickleby
and longer at every one.
‘Your mother will be fit to jump out of her skin, my boy, when she hears
of this,’ said Squeers to his son.
‘Oh, won’t she though, father?’ replied Master Wackford.
‘To think,’ said Squeers, ‘that you and me should be turning out of a
street, and come upon him at the very nick; and that I should have him
tight, at only one cast of the umbrella, as if I had hooked him with a
grappling-iron! Ha, ha!’
‘Didn’t I catch hold of his leg, neither, father?’ said little Wackford.
‘You did; like a good ‘un, my boy,’ said Mr. Squeers, patting his son’s
head, ‘and you shall have the best button-over jacket and waistcoat
that the next new boy brings down, as a reward of merit. Mind that. You
always keep on in the same path, and do them things that you see your
father do, and when you die you’ll go right slap to Heaven and no
questions asked.’
Improving the occasion in these words, Mr. Squeers patted his son’s head
again, and then patted Smike’s--but harder; and inquired in a bantering
tone how he found himself by this time.
‘I must go home,’ replied Smike, looking wildly round.
‘To be sure you must. You’re about right there,’ replied Mr. Squeers.
‘You’ll go home very soon, you will. You’ll find yourself at the
peaceful village of Dotheboys, in Yorkshire, in something under a week’s
time, my young friend; and the next time you get away from there, I
give you leave to keep away. Where’s the clothes you run off in, you
ungrateful robber?’ said Mr. Squeers, in a severe voice.
Smike glanced at the neat attire which the care of Nicholas had provided
for him; and wrung his hands.
‘Do you know that I could hang you up, outside of the Old Bailey, for
making away with them articles of property?’ said Squeers. ‘Do you know
that it’s a hanging matter--and I an’t quite certain whether it an’t
an anatomy one besides--to walk off with up’ards of the valley of five
pound from a dwelling-house? Eh? Do you know that? What do you suppose
was the worth of them clothes you had? Do you know that that Wellington
boot you wore, cost eight-and-twenty shillings when it was a pair, and
the shoe seven-and-six? But you came to the right shop for mercy when
you came to me, and thank your stars that it IS me as has got to serve
you with the article.’
Anybody not in Mr. Squeers’s confidence would have supposed that he was
quite out of the article in question, instead of having a large stock
on hand ready for all comers; nor would the opinion of sceptical persons
have undergone much alteration when he followed up the remark by poking
Smike in the chest with the ferrule of his umbrella, and dealing a smart
shower of blows, with the ribs of the same instrument, upon his head and
shoulders.
‘I never threshed a boy in a hackney coach before,’ said Mr. Squeers,
when he stopped to rest. ‘There’s inconveniency in it, but the novelty
gives it a sort of relish, too!’
Poor Smike! He warded off the blows, as well as he could, and now shrunk
into a corner of the coach, with his head resting on his hands, and his
elbows on his knees; he was stunned and stupefied, and had no more idea
that any act of his, would enable him to escape from the all-powerful
Squeers, now that he had no friend to speak to or to advise with, than
he had had in all the weary years of his Yorkshire life which preceded
the arrival of Nicholas.
The journey seemed endless; street after street was entered and left
behind; and still they went jolting on. At last Mr. Squeers began to
thrust his head out of the widow every half-minute, and to bawl a
variety of directions to the coachman; and after passing, with some
difficulty, through several mean streets which the appearance of the
houses and the bad state of the road denoted to have been recently
built, Mr. Squeers suddenly tugged at the check string with all his
might, and cried, ‘Stop!’
‘What are you pulling a man’s arm off for?’ said the coachman looking
angrily down.
‘That’s the house,’ replied Squeers. ‘The second of them four little
houses, one story high, with the green shutters. There’s brass plate on
the door, with the name of Snawley.’
‘Couldn’t you say that without wrenching a man’s limbs off his body?’
inquired the coachman.
‘No!’ bawled Mr. Squeers. ‘Say another word, and I’ll summons you for
having a broken winder. Stop!’
Obedient to this direction, the coach stopped at Mr. Snawley’s door.
Mr. Snawley may be remembered as the sleek and sanctified gentleman
who confided two sons (in law) to the parental care of Mr. Squeers, as
narrated in the fourth chapter of this history. Mr. Snawley’s house was
on the extreme borders of some new settlements adjoining Somers Town,
and Mr. Squeers had taken lodgings therein for a short time, as his stay
was longer than usual, and the Saracen, having experience of Master
Wackford’s appetite, had declined to receive him on any other terms than
as a full-grown customer.
‘Here we are!’ said Squeers, hurrying Smike into the little parlour,
where Mr. Snawley and his wife were taking a lobster supper. ‘Here’s the
vagrant--the felon--the rebel--the monster of unthankfulness.’
‘What! The boy that run away!’ cried Snawley, resting his knife and fork
upright on the table, and opening his eyes to their full width.
‘The very boy’, said Squeers, putting his fist close to Smike’s nose,
and drawing it away again, and repeating the process several times, with
a vicious aspect. ‘If there wasn’t a lady present, I’d fetch him such
a--: never mind, I’ll owe it him.’
And here Mr. Squeers related how, and in what manner, and when and where,
he had picked up the runaway.
‘It’s clear that there has been a Providence in it, sir,’ said Mr
Snawley, casting down his eyes with an air of humility, and elevating
his fork, with a bit of lobster on the top of it, towards the ceiling.
‘Providence is against him, no doubt,’ replied Mr. Squeers, scratching
his nose. ‘Of course; that was to be expected. Anybody might have known
that.’
‘Hard-heartedness and evil-doing will never prosper, sir,’ said Mr
Snawley.
‘Never was such a thing known,’ rejoined Squeers, taking a little roll
of notes from his pocket-book, to see that they were all safe.
‘I have been, Mr. Snawley,’ said Mr. Squeers, when he had satisfied
himself upon this point, ‘I have been that chap’s benefactor, feeder,
teacher, and clother. I have been that chap’s classical, commercial,
mathematical, philosophical, and trigonomical friend. My son--my only
son, Wackford--has been his brother; Mrs. Squeers has been his mother,
grandmother, aunt,--ah! and I may say uncle too, all in one. She never
cottoned to anybody, except them two engaging and delightful boys of
yours, as she cottoned to this chap. What’s my return? What’s come of
my milk of human kindness? It turns into curds and whey when I look at
him.’
‘Well it may, sir,’ said Mrs. Snawley. ‘Oh! Well it may, sir.’
‘Where has he been all this time?’ inquired Snawley. ‘Has he been living
with--?’
‘Ah, sir!’ interposed Squeers, confronting him again. ‘Have you been a
living with that there devilish Nickleby, sir?’
But no threats or cuffs could elicit from Smike one word of reply to
this question; for he had internally resolved that he would rather
perish in the wretched prison to which he was again about to be
consigned, than utter one syllable which could involve his first and
true friend. He had already called to mind the strict injunctions of
secrecy as to his past life, which Nicholas had laid upon him when they
travelled from Yorkshire; and a confused and perplexed idea that his
benefactor might have committed some terrible crime in bringing him
away, which would render him liable to heavy punishment if detected,
had contributed, in some degree, to reduce him to his present state of
apathy and terror.
Such were the thoughts--if to visions so imperfect and undefined as
those which wandered through his enfeebled brain, the term can be
applied--which were present to the mind of Smike, and rendered him deaf
alike to intimidation and persuasion. Finding every effort useless, Mr
Squeers conducted him to a little back room up-stairs, where he was to
pass the night; and, taking the precaution of removing his shoes, and
coat and waistcoat, and also of locking the door on the outside, lest
he should muster up sufficient energy to make an attempt at escape, that
worthy gentleman left him to his meditations.
What those meditations were, and how the poor creature’s heart sunk
within him when he thought--when did he, for a moment, cease to
think?--of his late home, and the dear friends and familiar faces with
which it was associated, cannot be told. To prepare the mind for such
a heavy sleep, its growth must be stopped by rigour and cruelty in
childhood; there must be years of misery and suffering, lightened by no
ray of hope; the chords of the heart, which beat a quick response to the
voice of gentleness and affection, must have rusted and broken in their
secret places, and bear the lingering echo of no old word of love or
kindness. Gloomy, indeed, must have been the short day, and dull the
long, long twilight, preceding such a night of intellect as his.
There were voices which would have roused him, even then; but their
welcome tones could not penetrate there; and he crept to bed the same
listless, hopeless, blighted creature, that Nicholas had first found him
at the Yorkshire school.
CHAPTER 39
In which another old Friend encounters Smike, very opportunely and to
some Purpose
The night, fraught with so much bitterness to one poor soul, had given
place to a bright and cloudless summer morning, when a north-country
mail-coach traversed, with cheerful noise, the yet silent streets
of Islington, and, giving brisk note of its approach with the lively
winding of the guard’s horn, clattered onward to its halting-place hard
by the Post Office.
The only outside passenger was a burly, honest-looking countryman on
the box, who, with his eyes fixed upon the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral,
appeared so wrapt in admiring wonder, as to be quite insensible to all
the bustle of getting out the bags and parcels, until one of the coach
windows being let sharply down, he looked round, and encountered a
pretty female face which was just then thrust out.
‘See there, lass!’ bawled the countryman, pointing towards the object of
his admiration. ‘There be Paul’s Church. ‘Ecod, he be a soizable ‘un, he
be.’
‘Goodness, John! I shouldn’t have thought it could have been half the
size. What a monster!’
‘Monsther!--Ye’re aboot right theer, I reckon, Mrs. Browdie,’ said the
countryman good-humouredly, as he came slowly down in his huge top-coat;
‘and wa’at dost thee tak yon place to be noo--thot’un owor the wa’? Ye’d
never coom near it ‘gin you thried for twolve moonths. It’s na’ but a
Poast Office! Ho! ho! They need to charge for dooble-latthers. A Poast
Office! Wa’at dost thee think o’ thot? ‘Ecod, if thot’s on’y a Poast
Office, I’d loike to see where the Lord Mayor o’ Lunnun lives.’
So saying, John Browdie--for he it was--opened the coach-door, and
tapping Mrs. Browdie, late Miss Price, on the cheek as he looked in,
burst into a boisterous fit of laughter.
‘Weel!’ said John. ‘Dang my bootuns if she bean’t asleep agean!’
‘She’s been asleep all night, and was, all yesterday, except for a
minute or two now and then,’ replied John Browdie’s choice, ‘and I was
very sorry when she woke, for she has been SO cross!’
The subject of these remarks was a slumbering figure, so muffled in
shawl and cloak, that it would have been matter of impossibility to
guess at its sex but for a brown beaver bonnet and green veil which
ornamented the head, and which, having been crushed and flattened, for