Ralph Nickleby, baffled by his Nephew in his late Design, hatches a
Scheme of Retaliation which Accident suggests to him, and takes into his
Counsels a tried Auxiliary
The course which these adventures shape out for themselves, and
imperatively call upon the historian to observe, now demands that they
should revert to the point they attained previously to the commencement
of the last chapter, when Ralph Nickleby and Arthur Gride were left
together in the house where death had so suddenly reared his dark and
heavy banner.
With clenched hands, and teeth ground together so firm and tight that
no locking of the jaws could have fixed and riveted them more securely,
Ralph stood, for some minutes, in the attitude in which he had last
addressed his nephew: breathing heavily, but as rigid and motionless
in other respects as if he had been a brazen statue. After a time, he
began, by slow degrees, as a man rousing himself from heavy slumber, to
relax. For a moment he shook his clasped fist towards the door by which
Nicholas had disappeared; and then thrusting it into his breast, as
if to repress by force even this show of passion, turned round and
confronted the less hardy usurer, who had not yet risen from the ground.
The cowering wretch, who still shook in every limb, and whose few grey
hairs trembled and quivered on his head with abject dismay, tottered to
his feet as he met Ralph’s eye, and, shielding his face with both hands,
protested, while he crept towards the door, that it was no fault of his.
‘Who said it was, man?’ returned Ralph, in a suppressed voice. ‘Who said
it was?’
‘You looked as if you thought I was to blame,’ said Gride, timidly.
‘Pshaw!’ Ralph muttered, forcing a laugh. ‘I blame him for not living an
hour longer. One hour longer would have been long enough. I blame no one
else.’
‘N--n--no one else?’ said Gride.
‘Not for this mischance,’ replied Ralph. ‘I have an old score to clear
with that young fellow who has carried off your mistress; but that has
nothing to do with his blustering just now, for we should soon have been
quit of him, but for this cursed accident.’
There was something so unnatural in the calmness with which Ralph
Nickleby spoke, when coupled with his face, the expression of the
features, to which every nerve and muscle, as it twitched and throbbed
with a spasm whose workings no effort could conceal, gave, every
instant, some new and frightful aspect--there was something so unnatural
and ghastly in the contrast between his harsh, slow, steady voice (only
altered by a certain halting of the breath which made him pause between
almost every word like a drunken man bent upon speaking plainly),
and these evidences of the most intense and violent passion, and the
struggle he made to keep them under; that if the dead body which lay
above had stood, instead of him, before the cowering Gride, it could
scarcely have presented a spectacle which would have terrified him more.
‘The coach,’ said Ralph after a time, during which he had struggled like
some strong man against a fit. ‘We came in a coach. Is it waiting?’
Gride gladly availed himself of the pretext for going to the window to
see. Ralph, keeping his face steadily the other way, tore at his shirt
with the hand which he had thrust into his breast, and muttered in a
hoarse whisper:
‘Ten thousand pounds! He said ten thousand! The precise sum paid in but
yesterday for the two mortgages, and which would have gone out again, at
heavy interest, tomorrow. If that house has failed, and he the first to
bring the news!--Is the coach there?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Gride, startled by the fierce tone of the inquiry.
‘It’s here. Dear, dear, what a fiery man you are!’
‘Come here,’ said Ralph, beckoning to him. ‘We mustn’t make a show of
being disturbed. We’ll go down arm in arm.’
‘But you pinch me black and blue,’ urged Gride.
Ralph let him go impatiently, and descending the stairs with his usual
firm and heavy tread, got into the coach. Arthur Gride followed. After
looking doubtfully at Ralph when the man asked where he was to drive,
and finding that he remained silent, and expressed no wish upon the
subject, Arthur mentioned his own house, and thither they proceeded.
On their way, Ralph sat in the furthest corner with folded arms, and
uttered not a word. With his chin sunk upon his breast, and his downcast
eyes quite hidden by the contraction of his knotted brows, he might
have been asleep for any sign of consciousness he gave until the coach
stopped, when he raised his head, and glancing through the window,
inquired what place that was.
‘My house,’ answered the disconsolate Gride, affected perhaps by its
loneliness. ‘Oh dear! my house.’
‘True,’ said Ralph ‘I have not observed the way we came. I should like a
glass of water. You have that in the house, I suppose?’
‘You shall have a glass of--of anything you like,’ answered Gride, with
a groan. ‘It’s no use knocking, coachman. Ring the bell!’
The man rang, and rang, and rang again; then, knocked until the street
re-echoed with the sounds; then, listened at the keyhole of the door.
Nobody came. The house was silent as the grave.
‘How’s this?’ said Ralph impatiently.
‘Peg is so very deaf,’ answered Gride with a look of anxiety and alarm.
‘Oh dear! Ring again, coachman. She SEES the bell.’
Again the man rang and knocked, and knocked and rang again. Some of the
neighbours threw up their windows, and called across the street to each
other that old Gride’s housekeeper must have dropped down dead. Others
collected round the coach, and gave vent to various surmises; some held
that she had fallen asleep; some, that she had burnt herself to death;
some, that she had got drunk; and one very fat man that she had seen
something to eat which had frightened her so much (not being used to
it) that she had fallen into a fit. This last suggestion particularly
delighted the bystanders, who cheered it rather uproariously, and were,
with some difficulty, deterred from dropping down the area and breaking
open the kitchen door to ascertain the fact. Nor was this all. Rumours
having gone abroad that Arthur was to be married that morning, very
particular inquiries were made after the bride, who was held by the
majority to be disguised in the person of Mr. Ralph Nickleby, which gave
rise to much jocose indignation at the public appearance of a bride in
boots and pantaloons, and called forth a great many hoots and groans.
At length, the two money-lenders obtained shelter in a house next door,
and, being accommodated with a ladder, clambered over the wall of the
back-yard--which was not a high one--and descended in safety on the
other side.
‘I am almost afraid to go in, I declare,’ said Arthur, turning to Ralph
when they were alone. ‘Suppose she should be murdered. Lying with her
brains knocked out by a poker, eh?’
‘Suppose she were,’ said Ralph. ‘I tell you, I wish such things were
more common than they are, and more easily done. You may stare and
shiver. I do!’
He applied himself to a pump in the yard; and, having taken a deep
draught of water and flung a quantity on his head and face, regained his
accustomed manner and led the way into the house: Gride following close
at his heels.
It was the same dark place as ever: every room dismal and silent as it
was wont to be, and every ghostly article of furniture in its customary
place. The iron heart of the grim old clock, undisturbed by all the
noise without, still beat heavily within its dusty case; the tottering
presses slunk from the sight, as usual, in their melancholy corners;
the echoes of footsteps returned the same dreary sound; the long-legged
spider paused in his nimble run, and, scared by the sight of men in that
his dull domain, hung motionless on the wall, counterfeiting death until
they should have passed him by.
From cellar to garret went the two usurers, opening every creaking door
and looking into every deserted room. But no Peg was there. At
last, they sat them down in the apartment which Arthur Gride usually
inhabited, to rest after their search.
‘The hag is out, on some preparation for your wedding festivities, I
suppose,’ said Ralph, preparing to depart. ‘See here! I destroy the
bond; we shall never need it now.’
Gride, who had been peering narrowly about the room, fell, at that
moment, upon his knees before a large chest, and uttered a terrible
yell.
‘How now?’ said Ralph, looking sternly round.
‘Robbed! robbed!’ screamed Arthur Gride.
‘Robbed! of money?’
‘No, no, no. Worse! far worse!’
‘Of what then?’ demanded Ralph.
‘Worse than money, worse than money!’ cried the old man, casting the
papers out of the chest, like some beast tearing up the earth. ‘She had
better have stolen money--all my money--I haven’t much! She had better
have made me a beggar than have done this!’
‘Done what?’ said Ralph. ‘Done what, you devil’s dotard?’
Still Gride made no answer, but tore and scratched among the papers, and
yelled and screeched like a fiend in torment.
‘There is something missing, you say,’ said Ralph, shaking him furiously
by the collar. ‘What is it?’
‘Papers, deeds. I am a ruined man. Lost, lost! I am robbed, I am ruined!
She saw me reading it--reading it of late--I did very often--She watched
me, saw me put it in the box that fitted into this, the box is gone, she
has stolen it. Damnation seize her, she has robbed me!’
‘Of WHAT?’ cried Ralph, on whom a sudden light appeared to break, for
his eyes flashed and his frame trembled with agitation as he clutched
Gride by his bony arm. ‘Of what?’
‘She don’t know what it is; she can’t read!’ shrieked Gride, not heeding
the inquiry. ‘There’s only one way in which money can be made of it, and
that is by taking it to her. Somebody will read it for her, and tell her
what to do. She and her accomplice will get money for it and be let off
besides; they’ll make a merit of it--say they found it--knew it--and be
evidence against me. The only person it will fall upon is me, me, me!’
‘Patience!’ said Ralph, clutching him still tighter and eyeing him with
a sidelong look, so fixed and eager as sufficiently to denote that he
had some hidden purpose in what he was about to say. ‘Hear reason.
She can’t have been gone long. I’ll call the police. Do you but give
information of what she has stolen, and they’ll lay hands upon her,
trust me. Here! Help!’
‘No, no, no!’ screamed the old man, putting his hand on Ralph’s mouth.
‘I can’t, I daren’t.’
‘Help! help!’ cried Ralph.
‘No, no, no!’ shrieked the other, stamping on the ground with the energy
of a madman. ‘I tell you no. I daren’t, I daren’t!’
‘Daren’t make this robbery public?’ said Ralph.
‘No!’ rejoined Gride, wringing his hands. ‘Hush! Hush! Not a word of
this; not a word must be said. I am undone. Whichever way I turn, I am
undone. I am betrayed. I shall be given up. I shall die in Newgate!’
With frantic exclamations such as these, and with many others in which
fear, grief, and rage, were strangely blended, the panic-stricken wretch
gradually subdued his first loud outcry, until it had softened down into
a low despairing moan, chequered now and then by a howl, as, going over
such papers as were left in the chest, he discovered some new loss.
With very little excuse for departing so abruptly, Ralph left him, and,
greatly disappointing the loiterers outside the house by telling them
there was nothing the matter, got into the coach, and was driven to his
own home.
A letter lay on his table. He let it lie there for some time, as if he
had not the courage to open it, but at length did so and turned deadly
pale.
‘The worst has happened,’ he said; ‘the house has failed. I see. The
rumour was abroad in the city last night, and reached the ears of those
merchants. Well, well!’
He strode violently up and down the room and stopped again.
‘Ten thousand pounds! And only lying there for a day--for one day! How
many anxious years, how many pinching days and sleepless nights, before
I scraped together that ten thousand pounds!--Ten thousand pounds! How
many proud painted dames would have fawned and smiled, and how many
spendthrift blockheads done me lip-service to my face and cursed me in
their hearts, while I turned that ten thousand pounds into twenty! While
I ground, and pinched, and used these needy borrowers for my pleasure
and profit, what smooth-tongued speeches, and courteous looks, and civil
letters, they would have given me! The cant of the lying world is,
that men like me compass our riches by dissimulation and treachery:
by fawning, cringing, and stooping. Why, how many lies, what mean and
abject evasions, what humbled behaviour from upstarts who, but for my
money, would spurn me aside as they do their betters every day, would
that ten thousand pounds have brought me in! Grant that I had doubled
it--made cent. per cent.--for every sovereign told another--there would
not be one piece of money in all the heap which wouldn’t represent ten
thousand mean and paltry lies, told, not by the money-lender, oh no!
but by the money-borrowers, your liberal, thoughtless, generous, dashing
folks, who wouldn’t be so mean as save a sixpence for the world!’
Striving, as it would seem, to lose part of the bitterness of his
regrets in the bitterness of these other thoughts, Ralph continued to
pace the room. There was less and less of resolution in his manner as
his mind gradually reverted to his loss; at length, dropping into his
elbow-chair and grasping its sides so firmly that they creaked again, he
said:
‘The time has been when nothing could have moved me like the loss of
this great sum. Nothing. For births, deaths, marriages, and all
the events which are of interest to most men, have (unless they are
connected with gain or loss of money) no interest for me. But now, I
swear, I mix up with the loss, his triumph in telling it. If he had
brought it about,--I almost feel as if he had,--I couldn’t hate him
more. Let me but retaliate upon him, by degrees, however slow--let me
but begin to get the better of him, let me but turn the scale--and I can
bear it.’
His meditations were long and deep. They terminated in his dispatching
a letter by Newman, addressed to Mr. Squeers at the Saracen’s Head, with
instructions to inquire whether he had arrived in town, and, if so, to
wait an answer. Newman brought back the information that Mr. Squeers had
come by mail that morning, and had received the letter in bed; but
that he sent his duty, and word that he would get up and wait upon Mr
Nickleby directly.
The interval between the delivery of this message, and the arrival of Mr
Squeers, was very short; but, before he came, Ralph had suppressed every
sign of emotion, and once more regained the hard, immovable, inflexible
manner which was habitual to him, and to which, perhaps, was ascribable
no small part of the influence which, over many men of no very strong
prejudices on the score of morality, he could exert, almost at will.
‘Well, Mr. Squeers,’ he said, welcoming that worthy with his accustomed
smile, of which a sharp look and a thoughtful frown were part and
parcel: ‘how do YOU do?’
‘Why, sir,’ said Mr. Squeers, ‘I’m pretty well. So’s the family, and so’s
the boys, except for a sort of rash as is a running through the school,
and rather puts ‘em off their feed. But it’s a ill wind as blows no good
to nobody; that’s what I always say when them lads has a wisitation. A
wisitation, sir, is the lot of mortality. Mortality itself, sir, is a
wisitation. The world is chock full of wisitations; and if a boy repines
at a wisitation and makes you uncomfortable with his noise, he must have
his head punched. That’s going according to the Scripter, that is.’
‘Mr. Squeers,’ said Ralph, drily.
‘Sir.’
‘We’ll avoid these precious morsels of morality if you please, and talk
of business.’
‘With all my heart, sir,’ rejoined Squeers, ‘and first let me say--’
‘First let ME say, if you please.--Noggs!’
Newman presented himself when the summons had been twice or thrice
repeated, and asked if his master called.
‘I did. Go to your dinner. And go at once. Do you hear?’
‘It an’t time,’ said Newman, doggedly.
‘My time is yours, and I say it is,’ returned Ralph.
‘You alter it every day,’ said Newman. ‘It isn’t fair.’
‘You don’t keep many cooks, and can easily apologise to them for the
trouble,’ retorted Ralph. ‘Begone, sir!’
Ralph not only issued this order in his most peremptory manner, but,
under pretence of fetching some papers from the little office, saw
it obeyed, and, when Newman had left the house, chained the door, to
prevent the possibility of his returning secretly, by means of his
latch-key.
‘I have reason to suspect that fellow,’ said Ralph, when he returned
to his own office. ‘Therefore, until I have thought of the shortest and
least troublesome way of ruining him, I hold it best to keep him at a
distance.’
‘It wouldn’t take much to ruin him, I should think,’ said Squeers, with
a grin.
‘Perhaps not,’ answered Ralph. ‘Nor to ruin a great many people whom I
know. You were going to say--?’
Ralph’s summary and matter-of-course way of holding up this example,
and throwing out the hint that followed it, had evidently an effect (as
doubtless it was designed to have) upon Mr. Squeers, who said, after a
little hesitation and in a much more subdued tone:
‘Why, what I was a-going to say, sir, is, that this here business
regarding of that ungrateful and hard-hearted chap, Snawley senior,
puts me out of my way, and occasions a inconveniency quite unparalleled,
besides, as I may say, making, for whole weeks together, Mrs. Squeers a
perfect widder. It’s a pleasure to me to act with you, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Ralph, drily.
‘Yes, I say of course,’ resumed Mr. Squeers, rubbing his knees, ‘but at
the same time, when one comes, as I do now, better than two hundred
and fifty mile to take a afferdavid, it does put a man out a good deal,
letting alone the risk.’
‘And where may the risk be, Mr. Squeers?’ said Ralph.
‘I said, letting alone the risk,’ replied Squeers, evasively.
‘And I said, where was the risk?’
‘I wasn’t complaining, you know, Mr. Nickleby,’ pleaded Squeers. ‘Upon my
word I never see such a--’
‘I ask you where is the risk?’ repeated Ralph, emphatically.
‘Where the risk?’ returned Squeers, rubbing his knees still harder.
‘Why, it an’t necessary to mention. Certain subjects is best awoided.
Oh, you know what risk I mean.’
‘How often have I told you,’ said Ralph, ‘and how often am I to tell
you, that you run no risk? What have you sworn, or what are you asked to
swear, but that at such and such a time a boy was left with you in the
name of Smike; that he was at your school for a given number of years,
was lost under such and such circumstances, is now found, and has been
identified by you in such and such keeping? This is all true; is it
not?’
‘Yes,’ replied Squeers, ‘that’s all true.’
‘Well, then,’ said Ralph, ‘what risk do you run? Who swears to a lie but
Snawley; a man whom I have paid much less than I have you?’
‘He certainly did it cheap, did Snawley,’ observed Squeers.
‘He did it cheap!’ retorted Ralph, testily; ‘yes, and he did it well,
and carries it off with a hypocritical face and a sanctified air, but
you! Risk! What do you mean by risk? The certificates are all genuine,
Snawley HAD another son, he HAS been married twice, his first wife IS
dead, none but her ghost could tell that she didn’t write that letter,
none but Snawley himself can tell that this is not his son, and that his
son is food for worms! The only perjury is Snawley’s, and I fancy he is
pretty well used to it. Where’s your risk?’
‘Why, you know,’ said Squeers, fidgeting in his chair, ‘if you come to
that, I might say where’s yours?’
‘You might say where’s mine!’ returned Ralph; ‘you may say where’s mine.
I don’t appear in the business, neither do you. All Snawley’s interest
is to stick well to the story he has told; and all his risk is, to
depart from it in the least. Talk of YOUR risk in the conspiracy!’
‘I say,’ remonstrated Squeers, looking uneasily round: ‘don’t call it
that! Just as a favour, don’t.’
‘Call it what you like,’ said Ralph, irritably, ‘but attend to me. This
tale was originally fabricated as a means of annoyance against one who
hurt your trade and half cudgelled you to death, and to enable you to
obtain repossession of a half-dead drudge, whom you wished to regain,
because, while you wreaked your vengeance on him for his share in the
business, you knew that the knowledge that he was again in your power
would be the best punishment you could inflict upon your enemy. Is that
so, Mr. Squeers?’
‘Why, sir,’ returned Squeers, almost overpowered by the determination
which Ralph displayed to make everything tell against him, and by his
stern unyielding manner, ‘in a measure it was.’
‘What does that mean?’ said Ralph.
‘Why, in a measure means,’ returned Squeers, ‘as it may be, that it
wasn’t all on my account, because you had some old grudge to satisfy,
too.’
‘If I had not had,’ said Ralph, in no way abashed by the reminder, ‘do
you think I should have helped you?’
‘Why no, I don’t suppose you would,’ Squeers replied. ‘I only wanted
that point to be all square and straight between us.’
‘How can it ever be otherwise?’ retorted Ralph. ‘Except that the account
is against me, for I spend money to gratify my hatred, and you pocket
it, and gratify yours at the same time. You are, at least, as avaricious
as you are revengeful. So am I. Which is best off? You, who win money
and revenge, at the same time and by the same process, and who are, at
all events, sure of money, if not of revenge; or I, who am only sure of
spending money in any case, and can but win bare revenge at last?’
As Mr. Squeers could only answer this proposition by shrugs and smiles,
Ralph bade him be silent, and thankful that he was so well off; and
then, fixing his eyes steadily upon him, proceeded to say:
First, that Nicholas had thwarted him in a plan he had formed for the
disposal in marriage of a certain young lady, and had, in the confusion
attendant on her father’s sudden death, secured that lady himself, and
borne her off in triumph.
Secondly, that by some will or settlement--certainly by some instrument
in writing, which must contain the young lady’s name, and could be,
therefore, easily selected from others, if access to the place where it
was deposited were once secured--she was entitled to property which,
if the existence of this deed ever became known to her, would make her
husband (and Ralph represented that Nicholas was certain to marry her) a
rich and prosperous man, and most formidable enemy.
Thirdly, that this deed had been, with others, stolen from one who had
himself obtained or concealed it fraudulently, and who feared to take
any steps for its recovery; and that he (Ralph) knew the thief.
To all this Mr. Squeers listened, with greedy ears that devoured every
syllable, and with his one eye and his mouth wide open: marvelling for
what special reason he was honoured with so much of Ralph’s confidence,
and to what it all tended.
‘Now,’ said Ralph, leaning forward, and placing his hand on Squeers’s
arm, ‘hear the design which I have conceived, and which I must--I say,
must, if I can ripen it--have carried into execution. No advantage can
be reaped from this deed, whatever it is, save by the girl herself, or
her husband; and the possession of this deed by one or other of them
is indispensable to any advantage being gained. THAT I have discovered
beyond the possibility of doubt. I want that deed brought here, that
I may give the man who brings it fifty pounds in gold, and burn it to
ashes before his face.’
Mr. Squeers, after following with his eye the action of Ralph’s hand
towards the fire-place as if he were at that moment consuming the paper,
drew a long breath, and said:
‘Yes; but who’s to bring it?’
‘Nobody, perhaps, for much is to be done before it can be got at,’ said
Ralph. ‘But if anybody--you!’
Mr. Squeers’s first tokens of consternation, and his flat relinquishment
of the task, would have staggered most men, if they had not immediately
occasioned an utter abandonment of the proposition. On Ralph they
produced not the slightest effect. Resuming, when the schoolmaster had
quite talked himself out of breath, as coolly as if he had never been
interrupted, Ralph proceeded to expatiate on such features of the case
as he deemed it most advisable to lay the greatest stress on.
These were, the age, decrepitude, and weakness of Mrs. Sliderskew; the
great improbability of her having any accomplice or even acquaintance:
taking into account her secluded habits, and her long residence in such
a house as Gride’s; the strong reason there was to suppose that the
robbery was not the result of a concerted plan: otherwise she would have
watched an opportunity of carrying off a sum of money; the difficulty
she would be placed in when she began to think on what she had done, and
found herself encumbered with documents of whose nature she was utterly
ignorant; and the comparative ease with which somebody, with a full
knowledge of her position, obtaining access to her, and working on her
fears, if necessary, might worm himself into her confidence and obtain,
under one pretence or another, free possession of the deed. To these
were added such considerations as the constant residence of Mr. Squeers
at a long distance from London, which rendered his association with Mrs
Sliderskew a mere masquerading frolic, in which nobody was likely to
recognise him, either at the time or afterwards; the impossibility of
Ralph’s undertaking the task himself, he being already known to her by
sight; and various comments on the uncommon tact and experience of Mr
Squeers: which would make his overreaching one old woman a mere matter
of child’s play and amusement. In addition to these influences and
persuasions, Ralph drew, with his utmost skill and power, a vivid
picture of the defeat which Nicholas would sustain, should they
succeed, in linking himself to a beggar, where he expected to wed an
heiress--glanced at the immeasurable importance it must be to a man
situated as Squeers, to preserve such a friend as himself--dwelt on a
long train of benefits, conferred since their first acquaintance, when
he had reported favourably of his treatment of a sickly boy who had died
under his hands (and whose death was very convenient to Ralph and his
clients, but this he did NOT say), and finally hinted that the fifty
pounds might be increased to seventy-five, or, in the event of very
great success, even to a hundred.
These arguments at length concluded, Mr. Squeers crossed his legs,
uncrossed them, scratched his head, rubbed his eye, examined the palms
of his hands, and bit his nails, and after exhibiting many other signs
of restlessness and indecision, asked ‘whether one hundred pound was the
highest that Mr. Nickleby could go.’ Being answered in the affirmative,
he became restless again, and, after some thought, and an unsuccessful
inquiry ‘whether he couldn’t go another fifty,’ said he supposed he must
try and do the most he could for a friend: which was always his maxim,
and therefore he undertook the job.
‘But how are you to get at the woman?’ he said; ‘that’s what it is as
puzzles me.’
‘I may not get at her at all,’ replied Ralph, ‘but I’ll try. I have
hunted people in this city, before now, who have been better hid than
she; and I know quarters in which a guinea or two, carefully spent, will
often solve darker riddles than this. Ay, and keep them close too, if
need be! I hear my man ringing at the door. We may as well part. You had
better not come to and fro, but wait till you hear from me.’
‘Good!’ returned Squeers. ‘I say! If you shouldn’t find her out, you’ll
pay expenses at the Saracen, and something for loss of time?’
‘Well,’ said Ralph, testily; ‘yes! You have nothing more to say?’
Squeers shaking his head, Ralph accompanied him to the streetdoor, and
audibly wondering, for the edification of Newman, why it was fastened
as if it were night, let him in and Squeers out, and returned to his own
room.
‘Now!’ he muttered, ‘come what come may, for the present I am firm and
unshaken. Let me but retrieve this one small portion of my loss and
disgrace; let me but defeat him in this one hope, dear to his heart as
I know it must be; let me but do this; and it shall be the first link in
such a chain which I will wind about him, as never man forged yet.’