Chapter 64

Nicholas Nickleby

by Charles Dickens

An old Acquaintance is recognised under melancholy Circumstances,
and Dotheboys Hall breaks up for ever

Nicholas was one of those whose joy is incomplete unless it is
shared by the friends of adverse and less fortunate days. Surrounded
by every fascination of love and hope, his warm heart yearned towards
plain John Browdie. He remembered their first meeting with a smile,
and their second with a tear; saw poor Smike once again with the
bundle on his shoulder trudging patiently by his side; and heard the
honest Yorkshireman's rough words of encouragement as he left them on
their road to London.

Madeline and he sat down, very many times, jointly to produce a
letter which should acquaint John at full length with his altered
fortunes, and assure him of his friendship and gratitude. It so
happened, however, that the letter could never be written. Although
they applied themselves to it with the best intentions in the world,
it chanced that they always fell to talking about something else, and
when Nicholas tried it by himself, he found it impossible to write
one-half of what he wished to say, or to pen anything, indeed, which
on reperusal did not appear cold and unsatisfactory compared with
what he had in his mind. At last, after going on thus from day to
day, and reproaching himself more and more, he resolved (the more
readily as Madeline strongly urged him) to make a hasty trip into
Yorkshire, and present himself before Mr and Mrs Browdie without a
word of notice.

Thus it was that between seven and eight o'clock one evening, he
and Kate found themselves in the Saracen's Head booking-office,
securing a place to Greta Bridge by the next morning's coach. They
had to go westward, to procure some little necessaries for his
journey, and, as it was a fine night, they agreed to walk there, and
ride home.

The place they had just been in called up so many recollections,
and Kate had so many anecdotes of Madeline, and Nicholas so many
anecdotes of Frank, and each was so interested in what the other
said, and both were so happy and confiding, and had so much to talk
about, that it was not until they had plunged for a full half-hour
into that labyrinth of streets which lies between Seven Dials and
Soho, without emerging into any large thoroughfare, that Nicholas
began to think it just possible they might have lost their way.

The possibility was soon converted into a certainty; for, on
looking about, and walking first to one end of the street and then to
the other, he could find no landmark he could recognise, and was fain
to turn back again in quest of some place at which he could seek a
direction.

It was a by-street, and there was nobody about, or in the few
wretched shops they passed. Making towards a faint gleam of light
which streamed across the pavement from a cellar, Nicholas was about
to descend two or three steps so as to render himself visible to
those below and make his inquiry, when he was arrested by a loud
noise of scolding in a woman's voice.

'Oh come away!' said Kate, 'they are quarrelling. You'll be
hurt.'

'Wait one instant, Kate. Let us hear if there's anything the
matter,' returned her brother. 'Hush!'

'You nasty, idle, vicious, good-for-nothing brute,' cried the
woman, stamping on the ground, 'why don't you turn the mangle?'

'So I am, my life and soul!' replied the man's voice. 'I am
always turning. I am perpetually turning, like a demd old horse in a
demnition mill. My life is one demd horrid grind!'

'Then why don't you go and list for a soldier?' retorted the
woman; 'you're welcome to.'

'For a soldier!' cried the man. 'For a soldier! Would his joy
and gladness see him in a coarse red coat with a little tail? Would
she hear of his being slapped and beat by drummers demnebly? Would
she have him fire off real guns, and have his hair cut, and his
whiskers shaved, and his eyes turned right and left, and his trousers
pipeclayed?'

'Dear Nicholas,' whispered Kate, 'you don't know who that is.
It's Mr Mantalini I am confident.'

'Do make sure! Peep at him while I ask the way,' said Nicholas.
'Come down a step or two. Come!'

Drawing her after him, Nicholas crept down the steps and looked
into a small boarded cellar. There, amidst clothes-baskets and
clothes, stripped up to his shirt-sleeves, but wearing still an old
patched pair of pantaloons of superlative make, a once brilliant
waistcoat, and moustache and whiskers as of yore, but lacking their
lustrous dye--there, endeavouring to mollify the wrath of a buxom
female--not the lawful Madame Mantalini, but the proprietress of the
concern-- and grinding meanwhile as if for very life at the mangle,
whose creaking noise, mingled with her shrill tones, appeared almost
to deafen him--there was the graceful, elegant, fascinating, and once
dashing Mantalini.

'Oh you false traitor!' cried the lady, threatening personal
violence on Mr Mantalini's face.

'False! Oh dem! Now my soul, my gentle, captivating,
bewitching, and most demnebly enslaving chick-a-biddy, be calm,' said
Mr Mantalini, humbly.

'I won't!' screamed the woman. 'I'll tear your eyes out!'

'Oh! What a demd savage lamb!' cried Mr Mantalini.

'You're never to be trusted,' screamed the woman; 'you were out
all day yesterday, and gallivanting somewhere I know. You know you
were! Isn't it enough that I paid two pound fourteen for you, and
took you out of prison and let you live here like a gentleman, but
must you go on like this: breaking, my heart besides?'

'I will never break its heart, I will be a good boy, and never
do so any more; I will never be naughty again; I beg its little
pardon,' said Mr Mantalini, dropping the handle of the mangle, and
folding his palms together; 'it is all up with its handsome friend!
He has gone to the demnition bow-wows. It will have pity? It will
not scratch and claw, but pet and comfort? Oh, demmit!'

Very little affected, to judge from her action, by this tender
appeal, the lady was on the point of returning some angry reply, when
Nicholas, raising his voice, asked his way to Piccadilly.

Mr Mantalini turned round, caught sight of Kate, and, without
another word, leapt at one bound into a bed which stood behind the
door, and drew the counterpane over his face: kicking meanwhile
convulsively.

'Demmit,' he cried, in a suffocating voice, 'it's little
Nickleby! Shut the door, put out the candle, turn me up in the
bedstead! Oh, dem, dem, dem!'

The woman looked, first at Nicholas, and then at Mr Mantalini,
as if uncertain on whom to visit this extraordinary behaviour; but Mr
Mantalini happening by ill-luck to thrust his nose from under the
bedclothes, in his anxiety to ascertain whether the visitors were
gone, she suddenly, and with a dexterity which could only have been
acquired by long practice, flung a pretty heavy clothes-basket at
him, with so good an aim that he kicked more violently than before,
though without venturing to make any effort to disengage his head,
which was quite extinguished. Thinking this a favourable opportunity
for departing before any of the torrent of her wrath discharged
itself upon him, Nicholas hurried Kate off, and left the unfortunate
subject of this unexpected recognition to explain his conduct as he
best could.

The next morning he began his journey. It was now cold, winter
weather: forcibly recalling to his mind under what circumstances he
had first travelled that road, and how many vicissitudes and changes
he had since undergone. He was alone inside the greater part of the
way, and sometimes, when he had fallen into a doze, and, rousing
himself, looked out of the window, and recognised some place which he
well remembered as having passed, either on his journey down, or in
the long walk back with poor Smike, he could hardly believe but that
all which had since happened had been a dream, and that they were
still plodding wearily on towards London, with the world before
them.

To render these recollections the more vivid, it came on to snow
as night set in; and, passing through Stamford and Grantham, and by
the little alehouse where he had heard the story of the bold Baron of
Grogzwig, everything looked as if he had seen it but yesterday, and
not even a flake of the white crust on the roofs had melted away.
Encouraging the train of ideas which flocked upon him, he could
almost persuade himself that he sat again outside the coach, with
Squeers and the boys; that he heard their voices in the air; and that
he felt again, but with a mingled sensation of pain and pleasure now,
that old sinking of the heart, and longing after home. While he was
yet yielding himself up to these fancies he fell asleep, and,
dreaming of Madeline, forgot them.

He slept at the inn at Greta Bridge on the night of his arrival,
and, rising at a very early hour next morning, walked to the market
town, and inquired for John Browdie's house. John lived in the
outskirts, now he was a family man; and as everbody knew him,
Nicholas had no difficulty in finding a boy who undertook to guide
him to his residence.

Dismissing his guide at the gate, and in his impatience not even
stopping to admire the thriving look of cottage or garden either,
Nicholas made his way to the kitchen door, and knocked lustily with
his stick.

'Halloa!' cried a voice inside. 'Wa'et be the matther noo? Be
the toon a-fire? Ding, but thou mak'st noise eneaf!'

With these words, John Browdie opened the door himself, and
opening his eyes too to their utmost width, cried, as he clapped his
hands together, and burst into a hearty roar:

'Ecod, it be the godfeyther, it be the godfeyther! Tilly, here
be Misther Nickleby. Gi' us thee hond, mun. Coom awa', coom awa'.
In wi 'un, doon beside the fire; tak' a soop o' thot. Dinnot say a
word till thou'st droonk it a'! Oop wi' it, mun. Ding! but I'm
reeght glod to see thee.'

Adapting his action to his text, John dragged Nicholas into the
kitchen, forced him down upon a huge settle beside a blazing fire,
poured out from an enormous bottle about a quarter of a pint of
spirits, thrust it into his hand, opened his mouth and threw back his
head as a sign to him to drink it instantly, and stood with a broad
grin of welcome overspreading his great red face like a jolly
giant.

'I might ha' knowa'd,' said John,;' that nobody but thou would
ha' coom wi' sike a knock as you. Thot was the wa' thou knocked at
schoolmeasther's door, eh? Ha, ha, ha! But I say; wa'at be a' this
aboot schoolmeasther?'

'You know it then?' said Nicholas.

'They were talking aboot it, doon toon, last neeght,' replied
John, 'but neane on 'em seemed quite to un'erstan' it, loike.'

'After various shiftings and delays,' said Nicholas, 'he has
been sentenced to be transported for seven years, for being in the
unlawful possession of a stolen will; and, after that, he has to
suffer the consequence of a conspiracy.'

'Whew!' cried John, 'a conspiracy! Soom'at in the pooder-plot
wa'? Eh? Soom'at in the Guy Faux line?'

'No, no, no, a conspiracy connected with his school; I'll
explain it presently.'

'Thot's reeght!' said John, 'explain it arter breakfast, not
noo, for thou be'est hoongry, and so am I; and Tilly she mun' be at
the bottom o' a' explanations, for she says thot's the mutual
confidence. Ha, ha, ha! Ecod, it's a room start, is the mutual
confidence!'

The entrance of Mrs Browdie, with a smart cap on, and very many
apologies for their having been detected in the act of breakfasting
in the kitchen, stopped John in his discussion of this grave subject,
and hastened the breakfast: which, being composed of vast mounds of
toast, new-laid eggs, boiled ham, Yorkshire pie, and other cold
substantials (of which heavy relays were constantly appearing from
another kitchen under the direction of a very plump servant), was
admirably adapted to the cold bleak morning, and received the utmost
justice from all parties. At last, it came to a close; and the fire
which had been lighted in the best parlour having by this time burnt
up, they adjourned thither, to hear what Nicholas had to tell.

Nicholas told them all, and never was there a story which
awakened so many emotions in the breasts of two eager listeners. At
one time, honest John groaned in sympathy, and at another roared with
joy; at one time he vowed to go up to London on purpose to get a
sight of the brothers Cheeryble; and, at another, swore that Tim
Linkinwater should receive such a ham by coach, and carriage free, as
mortal knife had never carved. When Nicholas began to describe
Madeline, he sat with his mouth wide open, nudging Mrs Browdie from
time to time, and exclaiming under his breath that she must be
'raa'ther a tidy sart,' and when he heard at last that his young
friend had come down purposely to communicate his good fortune, and
to convey to him all those assurances of friendship which he could
not state with sufficient warmth in writing--that the only object of
his journey was to share his happiness with them, and to tell them
that when he was married they must come up to see him, and that
Madeline insisted on it as well as he--John could hold out no longer,
but after looking indignantly at his wife, and demanding to know what
she was whimpering for, drew his coat sleeve over his eyes and
blubbered outright.

'Tell'ee wa'at though,' said John seriously, when a great deal
had been said on both sides, 'to return to schoolmeasther. If this
news aboot 'un has reached school today, the old 'ooman wean't have a
whole boan in her boddy, nor Fanny neither.'

'Oh, John!' cried Mrs Browdie.

'Ah! and Oh, John agean,' replied the Yorkshireman. 'I dinnot
know what they lads mightn't do. When it first got aboot that
schoolmeasther was in trouble, some feythers and moothers sent and
took their young chaps awa'. If them as is left, should know waat's
coom tiv'un, there'll be sike a revolution and rebel!--Ding! But I
think they'll a' gang daft, and spill bluid like wather!'

In fact, John Browdie's apprehensions were so strong that he
determined to ride over to the school without delay, and invited
Nicholas to accompany him, which, however, he declined, pleading that
his presence might perhaps aggravate the bitterness of their
adversity.

'Thot's true!' said John; 'I should ne'er ha' thought o'
thot.'

'I must return tomorrow,' said Nicholas, 'but I mean to dine
with you today, and if Mrs Browdie can give me a bed--'

'Bed!' cried John, 'I wish thou couldst sleep in fower beds at
once. Ecod, thou shouldst have 'em a'. Bide till I coom back; on'y
bide till I coom back, and ecod we'll make a day of it.'

Giving his wife a hearty kiss, and Nicholas a no less hearty
shake of the hand, John mounted his horse and rode off: leaving Mrs
Browdie to apply herself to hospitable preparations, and his young
friend to stroll about the neighbourhood, and revisit spots which
were rendered familiar to him by many a miserable association.

John cantered away, and arriving at Dotheboys Hall, tied his
horse to a gate and made his way to the schoolroom door, which he
found locked on the inside. A tremendous noise and riot arose from
within, and, applying his eye to a convenient crevice in the wall, he
did not remain long in ignorance of its meaning.

The news of Mr Squeers's downfall had reached Dotheboys; that
was quite clear. To all appearance, it had very recently become
known to the young gentlemen; for the rebellion had just broken
out.

It was one of the brimstone-and-treacle mornings, and Mrs
Squeers had entered school according to custom with the large bowl
and spoon, followed by Miss Squeers and the amiable Wackford: who,
during his father's absence, had taken upon him such minor branches
of the executive as kicking the pupils with his nailed boots, pulling
the hair of some of the smaller boys, pinching the others in
aggravating places, and rendering himself, in various similar ways, a
great comfort and happiness to his mother. Their entrance, whether
by premeditation or a simultaneous impulse, was the signal of revolt.
While one detachment rushed to the door and locked it, and another
mounted on the desks and forms, the stoutest (and consequently the
newest) boy seized the cane, and confronting Mrs Squeers with a stern
countenance, snatched off her cap and beaver bonnet, put them on his
own head, armed himself with the wooden spoon, and bade her, on pain
of death, go down upon her knees and take a dose directly. Before
that estimable lady could recover herself, or offer the slightest
retaliation, she was forced into a kneeling posture by a crowd of
shouting tormentors, and compelled to swallow a spoonful of the
odious mixture, rendered more than usually savoury by the immersion
in the bowl of Master Wackford's head, whose ducking was intrusted to
another rebel. The success of this first achievement prompted the
malicious crowd, whose faces were clustered together in every variety
of lank and half-starved ugliness, to further acts of outrage. The
leader was insisting upon Mrs Squeers repeating her dose, Master
Squeers was undergoing another dip in the treacle, and a violent
assault had been commenced on Miss Squeers, when John Browdie,
bursting open the door with a vigorous kick, rushed to the rescue.
The shouts, screams, groans, hoots, and clapping of hands, suddenly
ceased, and a dead silence ensued.

'Ye be noice chaps,' said John, looking steadily round. 'What's
to do here, thou yoong dogs?'

'Squeers is in prison, and we are going to run away!' cried a
score of shrill voices. 'We won't stop, we won't stop!'

'Weel then, dinnot stop,' replied John; 'who waants thee to
stop? Roon awa' loike men, but dinnot hurt the women.'

'Hurrah!' cried the shrill voices, more shrilly still.

'Hurrah?' repeated John. 'Weel, hurrah loike men too. Noo
then, look out. Hip--hip,--hip--hurrah!'

'Hurrah!' cried the voices.

'Hurrah! Agean;' said John. 'Looder still.'

The boys obeyed.

'Anoother!' said John. 'Dinnot be afeared on it. Let's have a
good 'un!'

'Hurrah!'

'Noo then,' said John, 'let's have yan more to end wi', and then
coot off as quick as you loike. Tak'a good breath noo--Squeers be in
jail--the school's brokken oop--it's a' ower--past and gane-- think
o' thot, and let it be a hearty 'un! Hurrah!'

Such a cheer arose as the walls of Dotheboys Hall had never
echoed before, and were destined never to respond to again. When the
sound had died away, the school was empty; and of the busy noisy
crowd which had peopled it but five minutes before, not one
remained.

'Very well, Mr Browdie!' said Miss Squeers, hot and flushed from
the recent encounter, but vixenish to the last; 'you've been and
excited our boys to run away. Now see if we don't pay you out for
that, sir! If my pa is unfortunate and trod down by henemies, we're
not going to be basely crowed and conquered over by you and
'Tilda.'

'Noa!' replied John bluntly, 'thou bean't. Tak' thy oath o'
thot. Think betther o' us, Fanny. I tell 'ee both, that I'm glod the
auld man has been caught out at last--dom'd glod--but ye'll sooffer
eneaf wi'out any crowin' fra' me, and I be not the mun to crow, nor
be Tilly the lass, so I tell 'ee flat. More than thot, I tell 'ee
noo, that if thou need'st friends to help thee awa' from this place--
dinnot turn up thy nose, Fanny, thou may'st--thou'lt foind Tilly and
I wi' a thout o' old times aboot us, ready to lend thee a hond. And
when I say thot, dinnot think I be asheamed of waa't I've deane, for
I say again, Hurrah! and dom the schoolmeasther. There!'

His parting words concluded, John Browdie strode heavily out,
remounted his nag, put him once more into a smart canter, and,
carolling lustily forth some fragments of an old song, to which the
horse's hoofs rang a merry accompaniment, sped back to his pretty
wife and to Nicholas.

For some days afterwards, the neighbouring country was overrun
with boys, who, the report went, had been secretly furnished by Mr
and Mrs Browdie, not only with a hearty meal of bread and meat, but
with sundry shillings and sixpences to help them on their way. To
this rumour John always returned a stout denial, which he
accompanied, however, with a lurking grin, that rendered the
suspicious doubtful, and fully confirmed all previous believers.

There were a few timid young children, who, miserable as they
had been, and many as were the tears they had shed in the wretched
school, still knew no other home, and had formed for it a sort of
attachment, which made them weep when the bolder spirits fled, and
cling to it as a refuge. Of these, some were found crying under
hedges and in such places, frightened at the solitude. One had a
dead bird in a little cage; he had wandered nearly twenty miles, and
when his poor favourite died, lost courage, and lay down beside him.
Another was discovered in a yard hard by the school, sleeping with a
dog, who bit at those who came to remove him, and licked the sleeping
child's pale face.

They were taken back, and some other stragglers were recovered,
but by degrees they were claimed, or lost again; and, in course of
time, Dotheboys Hall and its last breaking-up began to be forgotten
by the neighbours, or to be only spoken of as among the things that
had been.