Nicholas starts for Yorkshire. Of his Leave-taking and his
Fellow-Travellers, and what befell them on the Road
If tears dropped into a trunk were charms to preserve its owner from
sorrow and misfortune, Nicholas Nickleby would have commenced his
expedition under most happy auspices. There was so much to be done, and
so little time to do it in; so many kind words to be spoken, and such
bitter pain in the hearts in which they rose to impede their utterance;
that the little preparations for his journey were made mournfully
indeed. A hundred things which the anxious care of his mother and sister
deemed indispensable for his comfort, Nicholas insisted on leaving
behind, as they might prove of some after use, or might be convertible
into money if occasion required. A hundred affectionate contests on
such points as these, took place on the sad night which preceded his
departure; and, as the termination of every angerless dispute brought
them nearer and nearer to the close of their slight preparations, Kate
grew busier and busier, and wept more silently.
The box was packed at last, and then there came supper, with some little
delicacy provided for the occasion, and as a set-off against the expense
of which, Kate and her mother had feigned to dine when Nicholas was out.
The poor lad nearly choked himself by attempting to partake of it,
and almost suffocated himself in affecting a jest or two, and forcing a
melancholy laugh. Thus, they lingered on till the hour of separating
for the night was long past; and then they found that they might as
well have given vent to their real feelings before, for they could not
suppress them, do what they would. So, they let them have their way, and
even that was a relief.
Nicholas slept well till six next morning; dreamed of home, or of what
was home once--no matter which, for things that are changed or gone will
come back as they used to be, thank God! in sleep--and rose quite brisk
and gay. He wrote a few lines in pencil, to say the goodbye which he was
afraid to pronounce himself, and laying them, with half his scanty stock
of money, at his sister’s door, shouldered his box and crept softly
downstairs.
‘Is that you, Hannah?’ cried a voice from Miss La Creevy’s sitting-room,
whence shone the light of a feeble candle.
‘It is I, Miss La Creevy,’ said Nicholas, putting down the box and
looking in.
‘Bless us!’ exclaimed Miss La Creevy, starting and putting her hand to
her curl-papers. ‘You’re up very early, Mr. Nickleby.’
‘So are you,’ replied Nicholas.
‘It’s the fine arts that bring me out of bed, Mr. Nickleby,’ returned the
lady. ‘I’m waiting for the light to carry out an idea.’
Miss La Creevy had got up early to put a fancy nose into a miniature of
an ugly little boy, destined for his grandmother in the country, who was
expected to bequeath him property if he was like the family.
‘To carry out an idea,’ repeated Miss La Creevy; ‘and that’s the great
convenience of living in a thoroughfare like the Strand. When I want
a nose or an eye for any particular sitter, I have only to look out of
window and wait till I get one.’
‘Does it take long to get a nose, now?’ inquired Nicholas, smiling.
‘Why, that depends in a great measure on the pattern,’ replied Miss La
Creevy. ‘Snubs and Romans are plentiful enough, and there are flats of
all sorts and sizes when there’s a meeting at Exeter Hall; but perfect
aquilines, I am sorry to say, are scarce, and we generally use them for
uniforms or public characters.’
‘Indeed!’ said Nicholas. ‘If I should meet with any in my travels, I’ll
endeavour to sketch them for you.’
‘You don’t mean to say that you are really going all the way down into
Yorkshire this cold winter’s weather, Mr. Nickleby?’ said Miss La Creevy.
‘I heard something of it last night.’
‘I do, indeed,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Needs must, you know, when somebody
drives. Necessity is my driver, and that is only another name for the
same gentleman.’
‘Well, I am very sorry for it; that’s all I can say,’ said Miss La
Creevy; ‘as much on your mother’s and sister’s account as on yours.
Your sister is a very pretty young lady, Mr. Nickleby, and that is
an additional reason why she should have somebody to protect her. I
persuaded her to give me a sitting or two, for the street-door case.
‘Ah! she’ll make a sweet miniature.’ As Miss La Creevy spoke, she held
up an ivory countenance intersected with very perceptible sky-blue
veins, and regarded it with so much complacency, that Nicholas quite
envied her.
‘If you ever have an opportunity of showing Kate some little kindness,’
said Nicholas, presenting his hand, ‘I think you will.’
‘Depend upon that,’ said the good-natured miniature painter; ‘and God
bless you, Mr. Nickleby; and I wish you well.’
It was very little that Nicholas knew of the world, but he guessed
enough about its ways to think, that if he gave Miss La Creevy one
little kiss, perhaps she might not be the less kindly disposed towards
those he was leaving behind. So, he gave her three or four with a kind
of jocose gallantry, and Miss La Creevy evinced no greater symptoms of
displeasure than declaring, as she adjusted her yellow turban, that she
had never heard of such a thing, and couldn’t have believed it possible.
Having terminated the unexpected interview in this satisfactory manner,
Nicholas hastily withdrew himself from the house. By the time he had
found a man to carry his box it was only seven o’clock, so he walked
slowly on, a little in advance of the porter, and very probably with not
half as light a heart in his breast as the man had, although he had no
waistcoat to cover it with, and had evidently, from the appearance of
his other garments, been spending the night in a stable, and taking his
breakfast at a pump.
Regarding, with no small curiosity and interest, all the busy
preparations for the coming day which every street and almost every
house displayed; and thinking, now and then, that it seemed rather hard
that so many people of all ranks and stations could earn a livelihood in
London, and that he should be compelled to journey so far in search of
one; Nicholas speedily arrived at the Saracen’s Head, Snow Hill. Having
dismissed his attendant, and seen the box safely deposited in the
coach-office, he looked into the coffee-room in search of Mr. Squeers.
He found that learned gentleman sitting at breakfast, with the three
little boys before noticed, and two others who had turned up by some
lucky chance since the interview of the previous day, ranged in a row on
the opposite seat. Mr. Squeers had before him a small measure of coffee,
a plate of hot toast, and a cold round of beef; but he was at that
moment intent on preparing breakfast for the little boys.
‘This is twopenn’orth of milk, is it, waiter?’ said Mr. Squeers, looking
down into a large blue mug, and slanting it gently, so as to get an
accurate view of the quantity of liquid contained in it.
‘That’s twopenn’orth, sir,’ replied the waiter.
‘What a rare article milk is, to be sure, in London!’ said Mr. Squeers,
with a sigh. ‘Just fill that mug up with lukewarm water, William, will
you?’
‘To the wery top, sir?’ inquired the waiter. ‘Why, the milk will be
drownded.’
‘Never you mind that,’ replied Mr. Squeers. ‘Serve it right for being so
dear. You ordered that thick bread and butter for three, did you?’
‘Coming directly, sir.’
‘You needn’t hurry yourself,’ said Squeers; ‘there’s plenty of time.
Conquer your passions, boys, and don’t be eager after vittles.’ As he
uttered this moral precept, Mr. Squeers took a large bite out of the cold
beef, and recognised Nicholas.
‘Sit down, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Squeers. ‘Here we are, a breakfasting you
see!’
Nicholas did NOT see that anybody was breakfasting, except Mr. Squeers;
but he bowed with all becoming reverence, and looked as cheerful as he
could.
‘Oh! that’s the milk and water, is it, William?’ said Squeers. ‘Very
good; don’t forget the bread and butter presently.’
At this fresh mention of the bread and butter, the five little boys
looked very eager, and followed the waiter out, with their eyes;
meanwhile Mr. Squeers tasted the milk and water.
‘Ah!’ said that gentleman, smacking his lips, ‘here’s richness! Think of
the many beggars and orphans in the streets that would be glad of this,
little boys. A shocking thing hunger, isn’t it, Mr. Nickleby?’
‘Very shocking, sir,’ said Nicholas.
‘When I say number one,’ pursued Mr. Squeers, putting the mug before the
children, ‘the boy on the left hand nearest the window may take a drink;
and when I say number two, the boy next him will go in, and so till we
come to number five, which is the last boy. Are you ready?’
‘Yes, sir,’ cried all the little boys with great eagerness.
‘That’s right,’ said Squeers, calmly getting on with his breakfast;
‘keep ready till I tell you to begin. Subdue your appetites, my dears,
and you’ve conquered human natur. This is the way we inculcate strength
of mind, Mr. Nickleby,’ said the schoolmaster, turning to Nicholas, and
speaking with his mouth very full of beef and toast.
Nicholas murmured something--he knew not what--in reply; and the little
boys, dividing their gaze between the mug, the bread and butter (which
had by this time arrived), and every morsel which Mr. Squeers took into
his mouth, remained with strained eyes in torments of expectation.
‘Thank God for a good breakfast,’ said Squeers, when he had finished.
‘Number one may take a drink.’
Number one seized the mug ravenously, and had just drunk enough to make
him wish for more, when Mr. Squeers gave the signal for number two, who
gave up at the same interesting moment to number three; and the process
was repeated until the milk and water terminated with number five.
‘And now,’ said the schoolmaster, dividing the bread and butter for
three into as many portions as there were children, ‘you had better look
sharp with your breakfast, for the horn will blow in a minute or two,
and then every boy leaves off.’
Permission being thus given to fall to, the boys began to eat
voraciously, and in desperate haste: while the schoolmaster (who was
in high good humour after his meal) picked his teeth with a fork, and
looked smilingly on. In a very short time, the horn was heard.
‘I thought it wouldn’t be long,’ said Squeers, jumping up and producing
a little basket from under the seat; ‘put what you haven’t had time to
eat, in here, boys! You’ll want it on the road!’
Nicholas was considerably startled by these very economical
arrangements; but he had no time to reflect upon them, for the little
boys had to be got up to the top of the coach, and their boxes had to
be brought out and put in, and Mr. Squeers’s luggage was to be seen
carefully deposited in the boot, and all these offices were in his
department. He was in the full heat and bustle of concluding these
operations, when his uncle, Mr. Ralph Nickleby, accosted him.
‘Oh! here you are, sir!’ said Ralph. ‘Here are your mother and sister,
sir.’
‘Where?’ cried Nicholas, looking hastily round.
‘Here!’ replied his uncle. ‘Having too much money and nothing at all to
do with it, they were paying a hackney coach as I came up, sir.’
‘We were afraid of being too late to see him before he went away from
us,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, embracing her son, heedless of the unconcerned
lookers-on in the coach-yard.
‘Very good, ma’am,’ returned Ralph, ‘you’re the best judge of course. I
merely said that you were paying a hackney coach. I never pay a hackney
coach, ma’am; I never hire one. I haven’t been in a hackney coach of my
own hiring, for thirty years, and I hope I shan’t be for thirty more, if
I live as long.’
‘I should never have forgiven myself if I had not seen him,’ said Mrs
Nickleby. ‘Poor dear boy--going away without his breakfast too, because
he feared to distress us!’
‘Mighty fine certainly,’ said Ralph, with great testiness. ‘When I first
went to business, ma’am, I took a penny loaf and a ha’porth of milk for
my breakfast as I walked to the city every morning; what do you say to
that, ma’am? Breakfast! Bah!’
‘Now, Nickleby,’ said Squeers, coming up at the moment buttoning his
greatcoat; ‘I think you’d better get up behind. I’m afraid of one of
them boys falling off and then there’s twenty pound a year gone.’
‘Dear Nicholas,’ whispered Kate, touching her brother’s arm, ‘who is
that vulgar man?’
‘Eh!’ growled Ralph, whose quick ears had caught the inquiry. ‘Do you
wish to be introduced to Mr. Squeers, my dear?’
‘That the schoolmaster! No, uncle. Oh no!’ replied Kate, shrinking back.
‘I’m sure I heard you say as much, my dear,’ retorted Ralph in his cold
sarcastic manner. ‘Mr. Squeers, here’s my niece: Nicholas’s sister!’
‘Very glad to make your acquaintance, miss,’ said Squeers, raising his
hat an inch or two. ‘I wish Mrs. Squeers took gals, and we had you for a
teacher. I don’t know, though, whether she mightn’t grow jealous if we
had. Ha! ha! ha!’
If the proprietor of Dotheboys Hall could have known what was passing
in his assistant’s breast at that moment, he would have discovered, with
some surprise, that he was as near being soundly pummelled as he had
ever been in his life. Kate Nickleby, having a quicker perception of her
brother’s emotions, led him gently aside, and thus prevented Mr. Squeers
from being impressed with the fact in a peculiarly disagreeable manner.
‘My dear Nicholas,’ said the young lady, ‘who is this man? What kind of
place can it be that you are going to?’
‘I hardly know, Kate,’ replied Nicholas, pressing his sister’s hand. ‘I
suppose the Yorkshire folks are rather rough and uncultivated; that’s
all.’
‘But this person,’ urged Kate.
‘Is my employer, or master, or whatever the proper name may be,’ replied
Nicholas quickly; ‘and I was an ass to take his coarseness ill. They are
looking this way, and it is time I was in my place. Bless you, love,
and goodbye! Mother, look forward to our meeting again someday! Uncle,
farewell! Thank you heartily for all you have done and all you mean to
do. Quite ready, sir!’
With these hasty adieux, Nicholas mounted nimbly to his seat, and waved
his hand as gallantly as if his heart went with it.
At this moment, when the coachman and guard were comparing notes for the
last time before starting, on the subject of the way-bill; when porters
were screwing out the last reluctant sixpences, itinerant newsmen
making the last offer of a morning paper, and the horses giving the last
impatient rattle to their harness; Nicholas felt somebody pulling softly
at his leg. He looked down, and there stood Newman Noggs, who pushed up
into his hand a dirty letter.
‘What’s this?’ inquired Nicholas.
‘Hush!’ rejoined Noggs, pointing to Mr. Ralph Nickleby, who was saying a
few earnest words to Squeers, a short distance off: ‘Take it. Read it.
Nobody knows. That’s all.’
‘Stop!’ cried Nicholas.
‘No,’ replied Noggs.
Nicholas cried stop, again, but Newman Noggs was gone.
A minute’s bustle, a banging of the coach doors, a swaying of the
vehicle to one side, as the heavy coachman, and still heavier guard,
climbed into their seats; a cry of all right, a few notes from the horn,
a hasty glance of two sorrowful faces below, and the hard features of Mr
Ralph Nickleby--and the coach was gone too, and rattling over the stones
of Smithfield.
The little boys’ legs being too short to admit of their feet
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.