Chronicles the further proceedings of the Nickleby family, and
the sequel of the adventure of the gentleman in the small-clothes
While Nicholas, absorbed in the one engrossing subject of interest which had
recently opened upon him, occupied his leisure hours with thoughts of Madeline
Bray, and in execution of the commissions which the anxiety of brother Charles
in her behalf imposed upon him, saw her again and again, and each time with
greater danger to his peace of mind and a more weakening effect upon the lofty
resolutions he had formed, Mrs Nickleby and Kate continued to live in peace and
quiet, agitated by no other cares than those which were connected with certain
harassing proceedings taken by Mr Snawley for the recovery of his son, and their
anxiety for Smike himself, whose health, long upon the wane, began to be so much
affected by apprehension and uncertainty as sometimes to occasion both them and
Nicholas considerable uneasiness, and even alarm.
It was no complaint or murmur on the part of the poor fellow himself that
thus disturbed them. Ever eager to be employed in such slight services as he
could render, and always anxious to repay his benefactors with cheerful and
happy looks, less friendly eyes might have seen in him no cause for any
misgiving. But there were times -- and often too -- when the sunken eye was too
bright, the hollow cheek too flushed, the breath too thick and heavy in its
course, the frame too feeble and exhausted, to escape their regard and notice.
There is a dread disease which so prepares its victim, as it were, for death;
which so refines it of its grosser aspect, and throws around familiar looks
unearthly indications of the coming change -- a dread disease, in which the
struggle between soul and body is so gradual, quiet, and solemn, and the result
so sure, that day by day, and grain by grain, the mortal part wastes and withers
away, so that the spirit grows light and sanguine with its lightening load, and,
feeling immortality at hand, deems it but a new term of mortal life -- a disease
in which death and life are so strangely blended, that death takes the glow and
hue of life, and life the gaunt and grisly form of death -- a disease which
medicine never cured, wealth warded off, or poverty could boast exemption from
-- which sometimes moves in giant strides, and sometimes at a tardy sluggish
pace, but, slow or quick, is ever sure and certain.
It was with some faint reference in his own mind to this disorder, though he
would by no means admit it, even to himself, that Nicholas had already carried
his faithful companion to a physician of great repute. There was no cause for
immediate alarm, he said. There were no present symptoms which could be deemed
conclusive. The constitution had been greatly tried and injured in childhood,
but still it might not be -- and that was all.
But he seemed to grow no worse, and as it was not difficult to find a reason
for these symptoms of illness in the shock and agitation he had recently
undergone, Nicholas comforted himself with the hope that his poor friend would
soon recover. This hope his mother and sister shared with him; and as the object
of their joint solicitude seemed to have no uneasiness or despondency for
himself, but each day answered with a quiet smile that he felt better than he
had upon the day before, their fears abated, and the general happiness was by
degrees restored.
Many and many a time in after years did Nicholas look back to this period of
his life, and tread again the humble quiet homely scenes that rose up as of old
before him. Many and many a time, in the twilight of a summer evening, or beside
the flickering winter's fire -- but not so often or so sadly then -- would his
thoughts wander back to these old days, and dwell with a pleasant sorrow upon
every slight remembrance which they brought crowding home. The little room in
which they had so often sat long after it was dark, figuring such happy futures
-- Kate's cheerful voice and merry laugh; and how, if she were from home, they
used to sit and watch for her return scarcely breaking silence but to say how
dull it seemed without her -- the glee with which poor Smike would start from
the darkened corner where he used to sit, and hurry to admit her, and the tears
they often saw upon his face, half wondering to see them too, and he so pleased
and happy -- every little incident, and even slight words and looks of those old
days little heeded then, but well remembered when busy cares and trials were
quite forgotten, came fresh and thick before him many and many a time, and,
rustling above the dusty growth of years, came back green boughs of yesterday.
But there were other persons associated with these recollections, and many
changes came about before they had being -- a necessary reflection for the
purposes of these adventures, which at once subside into their accustomed train,
and shunning all flighty anticipations or wayward wanderings, pursue their
steady and decorous course.
If the brothers Cheeryble, as they found Nicholas worthy of trust and
confidence, bestowed upon him every day some new and substantial mark of
kindness, they were not less mindful of those who depended on him. Various
little presents to Mrs Nickleby -- always of the very things they most required
-- tended in no slight degree to the improvement and embellishment of the
cottage. Kate's little store of trinkets became quite dazzling; and for company
-- ! If brother Charles and brother Ned failed to look in for at least a few
minutes every Sunday, or one evening in the week, there was Mr Tim Linkinwater
(who had never made half-a-dozen other acquaintances in all his life, and who
took such delight in his new friends as no words can express) constantly coming
and going in his evening walks, and stopping to rest; while Mr Frank Cheeryble
happened, by some strange conjunction of circumstances, to be passing the door
on some business or other at least three nights in the week.
`He is the most attentive young man I ever saw, Kate,' said Mrs Nickleby to
her daughter one evening, when this last-named gentleman had been the subject of
the worthy lady's eulogium for some time, and Kate had sat perfectly silent.
`Attentive, mamma!' rejoined Kate.
`Bless my heart, Kate!' cried Mrs Nickleby, with her wonted suddenness, `what
a colour you have got; why, you're quite flushed!'
`Oh, mamma! what strange things you fancy!'
`It wasn't fancy, Kate, my dear, I'm certain of that,' returned her mother.
`However, it's gone now at any rate, so it don't much matter whether it was or
not. What was it we were talking about? Oh! Mr Frank. I never saw such attention
in my life, never.'
`Surely you are not serious,' returned Kate, colouring again; and this time
beyond all dispute.
`Not serious!' returned Mrs Nickleby; `why shouldn't I be serious? I'm sure I
never was more serious. I will say that his politeness and attention to me is
one of the most becoming, gratifying, pleasant things I have seen for a very
long time. You don't often meet with such behaviour in young men, and it strikes
one more when one does meet with it.'
`Oh! attention to you, mamma,' rejoined Kate quickly -- `oh yes.'
`Dear me, Kate,' retorted Mrs Nickleby, `what an extraordinary girl you are!
Was it likely I should be talking of his attention to anybody else? I declare
I'm quite sorry to think he should be in love with a German lady, that I am.'
`He said very positively that it was no such thing, mamma,' returned Kate.
`Don't you remember his saying so that very first night he came here? Besides,'
she added, in a more gentle tone, `why should we be sorry if it is the case?
What is it to us, mamma?'
`Nothing to us, Kate, perhaps,' said Mrs Nickleby, emphatically; `but
something to me, I confess. I like English people to be thorough English people,
and not half English and half I don't know what. I shall tell him point-blank
next time he comes, that I wish he would marry one of his own country-women; and
see what he says to that.'
`Pray don't think of such a thing, mamma,' returned Kate, hastily; `not for
the world. Consider -- how very --'
`Well, my dear, how very what?' said Mrs Nickleby, opening her eyes in great
astonishment.
Before Kate had returned any reply, a queer little double knock announced
that Miss La Creevy had called to see them; and when Miss La Creevy presented
herself, Mrs Nickleby, though strongly disposed to be argumentative on the
previous question, forgot all about it in a gush of supposes about the coach she
had come by; supposing that the man who drove must have been either the man in
the shirt-sleeves or the man with the black eye; that whoever he was, he hadn't
found that parasol she left inside last week; that no doubt they had stopped a
long while at the Halfway House, coming down; or that perhaps being full, they
had come straight on; and, lastly, that they, surely, must have passed Nicholas
on the road.
`I saw nothing of him,' answered Miss La Creevy; `but I saw that dear old
soul Mr Linkinwater.'
`Taking his evening walk, and coming on to rest here, before he turns back to
the City, I'll be bound!' said Mrs Nickleby.
`I should think he was,' returned Miss La Creevy; `especially as young Mr
Cheeryble was with him.'
`Surely that is no reason why Mr Linkinwater should be coming here,' said
Kate.
`Why I think it is, my dear,' said Miss La Creevy. `For a young man, Mr Frank
is not a very great walker; and I observe that he generally falls tired, and
requires a good long rest, when he has come as far as this. But where is my
friend?' said the little woman, looking about, after having glanced slily at
Kate. `He has not been run away with again, has he?'
`Ah! where is Mr Smike?' said Mrs Nickleby; `he was here this instant.'
Upon further inquiry, it turned out, to the good lady's unbounded
astonishment, that Smike had, that moment, gone upstairs to bed.
`Well now,' said Mrs Nickleby, `he is the strangest creature! Last Tuesday --
was it Tuesday? Yes, to be sure it was; you recollect, Kate, my dear, the very
last time young Mr Cheeryble was here -- last Tuesday night he went off in just
the same strange way, at the very moment the knock came to the door. It cannot
be that he don't like company, because he is always fond of people who are fond
of Nicholas, and I am sure young Mr Cheeryble is. And the strangest thing is,
that he does not go to bed; therefore it cannot be because he is tired. I know
he doesn't go to bed, because my room is the next one, and when I went upstairs
last Tuesday, hours after him, I found that he had not even taken his shoes off;
and he had no candle, so he must have sat moping in the dark all the time. Now,
upon my word,' said Mrs Nickleby, `when I come to think of it, that's very
extraordinary!'
As the hearers did not echo this sentiment, but remained profoundly silent,
either as not knowing what to say, or as being unwilling to interrupt, Mrs
Nickleby pursued the thread of her discourse after her own fashion.
`I hope,' said that lady, `that this unaccountable conduct may not be the
beginning of his taking to his bed and living there all his life, like the
Thirsty Woman of Tutbury, or the Cock Lane Ghost, or some of those extraordinary
creatures. One of them had some connection with our family. I forget, without
looking back to some old letters I have upstairs, whether it was my
great-grandfather who went to school with the Cock Lane Ghost, or the Thirsty
Woman of Tutbury who went to school with my grandmother. Miss La Creevy, you
know, of course. Which was it that didn't mind what the clergyman said? The Cock
Lane Ghost or the Thirsty Woman of Tutbury?'
`The Cock Lane Ghost, I believe.'
`Then I have no doubt,' said Mrs Nickleby, `that it was with him my
great-grandfather went to school; for I know the master of his school was a
Dissenter, and that would, in a great measure, account for the Cock Lane Ghost's
behaving in such an improper manner to the clergyman when he grew up. Ah! Train
up a Ghost -- child, I mean --'
Any further reflections on this fruitful theme were abruptly cut short by the
arrival of Tim Linkinwater and Mr Frank Cheeryble; in the hurry of receiving
whom, Mrs Nickleby speedily lost sight of everything else.
`I am so sorry Nicholas is not at home,' said Mrs Nickleby. `Kate, my dear,
you must be both Nicholas and yourself.'
`Miss Nickleby need be but herself,' said Frank. `I--if I may venture to say
so--oppose all change in her.'
`Then at all events she shall press you to stay,' returned Mrs Nickleby. `Mr
Linkinwater says ten minutes, but I cannot let you go so soon; Nicholas would be
very much vexed, I am sure. `Kate, my dear--'
In obedience to a great number of nods, and winks, and frowns of extra
significance, Kate added her entreaties that the visitors would remain; but it
was observable that she addressed them exclusively to Tim Linkinwater; and there
was, besides, a certain embarrassment in her manner, which, although it was as
far from impairing its graceful character as the tinge it communicated to her
cheek was from diminishing her beauty, was obvious at a glance even to Mrs
Nickleby. Not being of a very speculative character, however, save under
circumstances when her speculations could be put into words and uttered aloud,
that discreet matron attributed the emotion to the circumstance of her
daughter's not happening to have her best frock on--`though I never saw her look
better, certainly,' she reflected at the same time. Having settled the question
in this way, and being most complacently satisfied that in this, and in all
other instances, her conjecture could not fail to be the right one, Mrs Nickleby
dismissed it from her thoughts, and inwardly congratulated herself on being so
shrewd and knowing.
Nicholas did not come home nor did Smike reappear; but neither circumstance,
to say the truth, had any great effect upon the little party, who were all in
the best humour possible. Indeed, there sprung up quite a flirtation between
Miss La Creevy and Tim Linkinwater, who said a thousand jocose and facetious
things, and became, by degrees, quite gallant, not to say tender. Little Miss La
Creevy, on her part, was in high spirits, and rallied Tim on having remained a
bachelor all his life with so much success, that Tim was actually induced to
declare, that if he could get anybody to have him, he didn't know but what he
might change his condition even yet. Miss La Creevy earnestly recommended a lady
she knew, who would exactly suit Mr Linkinwater, and had a very comfortable
property of her own; but this latter qualification had very little effect upon
Tim, who manfully protested that fortune would be no object with him, but that
true worth and cheerfulness of disposition were what a man should look for in a
wife, and that if he had these, he could find money enough for the moderate
wants of both. This avowal was considered so honourable to Tim, that neither Mrs
Nickleby nor Miss La Creevy could sufficiently extol it; and stimulated by their
praises, Tim launched out into several other declarations also manifesting the
disinterestedness of his heart, and a great devotion to the fair sex: which were
received with no less approbation. This was done and said with a comical mixture
of jest and earnest, and, leading to a great amount of laughter, made them very
merry indeed.
Kate was commonly the life and soul of the conversation at home; but she was
more silent than usual upon this occasion--perhaps because Tim and Miss La
Creevy engrossed so much of it--and, keeping aloof from the talkers, sat at the
window watching the shadows as the evening closed in, and enjoying the quiet
beauty of the night, which seemed to have scarcely less attractions to Frank,
who first lingered near, and then sat down beside, her. No doubt, there are a
great many things to be said appropriate to a summer evening, and no doubt they
are best said in a low voice, as being most suitable to the peace and serenity
of the hour; long pauses, too, at times, and then an earnest word or so, and
then another interval of silence which, somehow, does not seem like silence
either, and perhaps now and then a hasty turning away of the head, or drooping
of the eyes towards the ground--all these minor circumstances, with a
disinclination to have candles introduced and a tendency to confuse hours with
minutes, are doubtless mere influences of the time, as many lovely lips can
clearly testify. Neither is there the slightest reason why Mrs Nickleby should
have expressed surprise when--candles being at length brought in--Kate's bright
eyes were unable to bear the light which obliged her to avert her face, and even
to leave the room for some short time; because, when one has sat in the dark so
long, candles are dazzling, and nothing can be more strictly natural than that
such results should be produced, as all well-informed young people know. For
that matter, old people know it too, or did know it once, but they forget these
things sometimes, and more's the pity.
The good lady's surprise, however, did not end here. It was greatly increased
when it was discovered that Kate had not the least appetite for supper: a
discovery so alarming that there is no knowing in what unaccountable efforts of
oratory Mrs Nickleby's apprehensions might have been vented, if the general
attention had not been attracted, at the moment, by a very strange and uncommon
noise, proceeding, as the pale and trembling servant girl affirmed, and as
everybody's sense of hearing seemed to affirm also, `right down' the chimney of
the adjoining room.
It being quite plain to the comprehension of all present that, however
extraordinary and improbable it might appear, the noise did nevertheless proceed
from the chimney in question; and the noise (which was a strange compound of
various shuffling, sliding, rumbling, and struggling sounds, all muffled by the
chimney) still continuing, Frank Cheeryble caught up a candle, and Tim
Linkinwater the tongs, and they would have very quickly ascertained the cause of
this disturbance if Mrs Nickleby had not been taken very faint, and declined
being left behind, on any account. This produced a short remonstrance, which
terminated in their all proceeding to the troubled chamber in a body, excepting
only Miss La Creevy, who--as the servant girl volunteered a confession of having
been subject to fits in her infancy--remained with her to give the alarm and
apply restoratives, in case of extremity.
Advancing to the door of the mysterious apartment, they were not a little
surprised to hear a human voice, chanting with a highly elaborated expression of
melancholy, and in tones of suffocation which a human voice might have produced
from under five or six feather-beds of the best quality, the once popular air of
`Has she then failed in her truth, the beautiful maid I adore?' Nor, on bursting
into the room without demanding a parley, was their astonishment lessened by the
discovery that these romantic sounds certainly proceeded from the throat of some
man up the chimney, of whom nothing was visible but a pair of legs, which were
dangling above the grate; apparently feeling, with extreme anxiety, for the top
bar whereon to effect a landing.
A sight so unusual and unbusiness-like as this, completely paralysed Tim
Linkinwater, who, after one or two gentle pinches at the stranger's ankles,
which were productive of no effect, stood clapping the tongs together, as if he
were sharpening them for another assault, and did nothing else.
`This must be some drunken fellow,' said Frank. `No thief would announce his
presence thus.'
As he said this, with great indignation, he raised the candle to obtain a
better view of the legs, and was darting forward to pull them down with very
little ceremony, when Mrs Nickleby, clasping her hands, uttered a sharp sound,
something between a scream and an exclamation, and demanded to know whether the
mysterious limbs were not clad in small-clothes and grey worsted stockings, or
whether her eyes had deceived her.
`Yes,' cried Frank, looking a little closer. `Small-clothes certainly,
and--and rough grey stockings, too. Do you know him, ma'am?'
`Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, deliberately sitting herself down in a
chair with that sort of desperate resignation which seemed to imply that now
matters had come to a crisis, and all disguise was useless, `you will have the
goodness, my love, to explain precisely how this matter stands. I have given him
no encouragement--none whatever--not the least in the world. You know that, my
dear, perfectly well. He was very respectful--exceedingly respectful--when he
declared, as you were a witness to; still at the same time, if I am to be
persecuted in this way, if vegetable what's-his-names and all kinds of
garden-stuff are to strew my path out of doors, and gentlemen are to come
choking up our chimneys at home, I really don't know--upon my word I do not
know--what is to become of me. It's a very hard case--harder than anything I was
ever exposed to, before I married your poor dear papa, though I suffered a good
deal of annoyance then--but that, of course, I expected, and made up my mind
for. When I was not nearly so old as you, my dear, there was a young gentleman
who sat next us at church, who used, almost every Sunday, to cut my name in
large letters in the front of his pew while the sermon was going on. It was
gratifying, of course, naturally so, but still it was an annoyance, because the
pew was in a very conspicuous place, and he was several times publicly taken out
by the beadle for doing it. But that was nothing to this. This is a great deal
worse, and a great deal more embarrassing. I would rather, Kate, my dear,' said
Mrs Nickleby, with great solemnity, and an effusion of tears--`I would rather, I
declare, have been a pig-faced lady, than be exposed to such a life as this!'
Frank Cheeryble and Tim Linkinwater looked, in irrepressible astonishment,
first at each other and then at Kate, who felt that some explanation was
necessary, but who, between her terror at the apparition of the legs, her fear
lest their owner should be smothered, and her anxiety to give the least
ridiculous solution of the mystery that it was capable of bearing, was quite
unable to utter a single word.
`He gives me great pain,' continued Mrs Nickleby, drying her eyes--`great
pain; but don't hurt a hair of his head, I beg. On no account hurt a hair of his
head.'
It would not, under existing circumstances, have been quite so easy to hurt a
hair of the gentleman's head as Mrs Nickleby seemed to imagine, inasmuch as that
part of his person was some feet up the chimney, which was by no means a wide
one. But, as all this time he had never left off singing about the bankruptcy of
the beautiful maid in respect of truth, and now began not only to croak very
feebly, but to kick with great violence as if respiration became a task of
difficulty, Frank Cheeryble, without further hesitation, pulled at the shorts
and worsteds with such heartiness as to bring him floundering into the room with
greater precipitation than he had quite calculated upon.
`Oh! yes, yes,' said Kate, directly the whole figure of this singular visitor
appeared in this abrupt manner. `I know who it is. Pray don't be rough with him.
Is he hurt? I hope not--oh, pray see if he is hurt.'
`He is not, I assure you,' replied Frank, handling the object of his
surprise, after this appeal, with sudden tenderness and respect. `He is not hurt
in the least.'
`Don't let him come any nearer,' said Kate, retiring as far as she could.
`Oh, no, he shall not,' rejoined Frank. `You see I have him secure here. But
may I ask you what this means, and whether you expected, this old gentleman?'
`Oh, no,' said Kate, `of course not; but he--mamma does not think so, I
believe--but he is a mad gentleman who has escaped from the next house, and must
have found an opportunity of secreting himself here.'
`Kate,' interposed Mrs Nickleby with severe dignity, `I am surprised at you.'
`Dear mamma--' Kate gently remonstrated.
`I am surprised at you,' repeated Mrs Nickleby; `upon my word, Kate, I am
quite astonished that you should join the persecutors of this unfortunate
gentleman, when you know very well that they have the basest designs upon his
property, and that that is the whole secret of it. It would be much kinder of
you, Kate, to ask Mr Linkinwater or Mr Cheeryble to interfere in his behalf, and
see him righted. You ought not to allow your feelings to influence you; it's not
right--very far from it. What should my feelings be, do you suppose? If anybody
ought to be indignant, who is it? I, of course, and very properly so. Still, at
the same time, I wouldn't commit such an injustice for the world. No,' continued
Mrs Nickleby, drawing herself up, and looking another way with a kind of bashful
stateliness; `this gentleman will understand me when I tell him that I repeat
the answer I gave him the other day,--that I always will repeat it, though I do
believe him to be sincere when I find him placing himself in such dreadful
situations on my account--and that I request him to have the goodness to go away
directly, or it will be impossible to keep his behaviour a secret from my son
Nicholas. I am obliged to him, very much obliged to him, but I cannot listen to
his addresses for a moment. It's quite impossible.'
While this address was in course of delivery, the old gentleman, with his
nose and cheeks embellished with large patches of soot, sat upon the ground with
his arms folded, eyeing the spectators in profound silence, and with a very
majestic demeanour. He did not appear to take the smallest notice of what Mrs
Nickleby said, but when she ceased to speak he honoured her with a long stare,
and inquired if she had quite finished.
`I have nothing more to say,' replied that lady modestly. `I really cannot
say anything more.'
`Very good,' said the old gentleman, raising his voice, `then bring in the
bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.'
Nobody executing this order, the old gentleman, after a short pause, raised
his voice again and demanded a thunder sandwich. This article not being
forthcoming either, he requested to be served with a fricassee of boot-tops and
gold-fish sauce, and then laughing heartily, gratified his hearers with a very
long, very loud, and most melodious bellow.
But still Mrs Nickleby, in reply to the significant looks of all about her,
shook her head as though to assure them that she saw nothing whatever in all
this, unless, indeed, it were a slight degree of eccentricity. She might have
remained impressed with these opinions down to the latest moment of her life,
but for a slight train of circumstances, which, trivial as they were, altered
the whole complexion of the case.
It happened that Miss La Creevy, finding her patient in no very threatening
condition, and being strongly impelled by curiosity to see what was going
forward, bustled into the room while the old gentleman was in the very act of
bellowing. It happened, too, that the instant the old gentleman saw her, he
stopped short, skipped suddenly on his feet, and fell to kissing his hand
violently: a change of demeanour which almost terrified the little portrait
painter out of her senses, and caused her to retreat behind Tim Linkinwater with
the utmost expedition.
`Aha!' cried the old gentleman, folding his hands, and squeezing them with
great force against each other. `I see her now; I see her now! My love, my life,
my bride, my peerless beauty. She is come at last--at last--and all is gas and
gaiters!'
Mrs Nickleby looked rather disconcerted for a moment, but immediately
recovering, nodded to Miss La Creevy and the other spectators several times, and
frowned, and smiled gravely, giving them to understand that she saw where the
mistake was, and would set it all to rights in a minute or two.
`She is come!' said the old gentleman, laying his hand upon his heart.
`Cormoran and Blunderbore! She is come! All the wealth I have is hers if she
will take me for her slave. Where are grace, beauty, and blandishments, like
those? In the Empress of Madagascar? No. In the Queen of Diamonds? No. In Mrs
Rowland, who every morning bathes in Kalydor for nothing? No. Melt all these
down into one, with the three Graces, the nine Muses, and fourteen
biscuit-bakers' daughters from Oxford Street, and make a woman half as lovely.
Pho! I defy you.'
After uttering this rhapsody, the old gentleman snapped his fingers twenty or
thirty times, and then subsided into an ecstatic contemplation of Miss La
Creevy's charms. This affording Mrs Nickleby a favourable opportunity of
explanation, she went about it straight.
`I am sure,' said the worthy lady, with a prefatory cough, `that it's a great
relief, under such trying circumstances as these, to have anybody else mistaken
for me--a very great relief; and it's a circumstance that never occurred before,
although I have several times been mistaken for my daughter Kate. I have no
doubt the people were very foolish, and perhaps ought to have known better, but
still they did take me for her, and of course that was no fault of mine, and it
would be very hard indeed if I was to be made responsible for it. However, in
this instance, of course, I must feel that I should do exceedingly wrong if I
suffered anybody--especially anybody that I am under great obligations to--to be
made uncomfortable on my account, and therefore I think it my duty to tell that
gentleman that he is mistaken--that I am the lady who he was told by some
impertinent person was niece to the Council of Paving-stones, and that I do beg
and entreat of him to go quietly away, if it's only for'--here Mrs Nickleby
simpered and hesitated--`for my sake.'
It might have been expected that the old gentleman would have been penetrated
to the heart by the delicacy and condescension of this appeal, and that he would
at least have returned a courteous and suitable reply. What, then, was the shock
which Mrs Nickleby received, when, accosting her in the most unmistakable
manner, he replied in a loud and sonourous voice--`Avaunt--Cat!'
`Sir!' cried Mrs Nickleby, in a faint tone.
`Cat!' repeated the old gentleman. `Puss, Kit, Tit, Grimalkin, Tabby,
Brindle--Whoosh!' with which last sound, uttered in a hissing manner between his
teeth, the old gentleman swung his arms violently round and round, and at the
same time alternately advanced on Mrs Nickleby, and retreated from her, in that
species of savage dance with which boys on market-days may be seen to frighten
pigs, sheep, and other animals, when they give out obstinate indications of
turning down a wrong street.
Mrs Nickleby wasted no words, but uttered an exclamation of horror and
surprise, and immediately fainted away.
`I'll attend to mamma,' said Kate, hastily; `I am not at all frightened. But
pray take him away: pray take him away!'
Frank was not at all confident of his power of complying with this request,
until he bethought himself of the stratagem of sending Miss La Creevy on a few
paces in advance, and urging the old gentleman to follow her. It succeeded to a
miracle; and he went away in a rapture of admiration, strongly guarded by Tim
Linkinwater on one side, and Frank himself on the other.
`Kate,' murmured Mrs Nickleby, reviving when the coast was clear, `is he
gone?'
She was assured that he was.
`I shall never forgive myself, Kate,' said Mrs Nickleby. `Never! That
gentleman has lost his senses, and I am the unhappy cause.'
`you the cause!' said Kate, greatly astonished.
`I, my love,' replied Mrs Nickleby, with a desperate calmness. `You saw what
he was the other day; you see what he is now. I told your brother, weeks and
weeks ago, Kate, that I hoped a disappointment might not be too much for him.
You see what a wreck he is. Making allowance for his being a little flighty, you
know how rationally, and sensibly, and honourably he talked, when we saw him in
the garden. You have heard the dreadful nonsense he has been guilty of this
night, and the manner in which he has gone on with that poor unfortunate little
old maid. Can anybody doubt how all this has been brought about?'
`I should scarcely think they could,' said Kate mildly.
`I should scarcely think so, either,' rejoined her mother. `Well! if I am the
unfortunate cause of this, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I am not to
blame. I told Nicholas--I said to him, "Nicholas, my dear, we should be very
careful how we proceed." He would scarcely hear me. If the matter had only been
properly taken up at first, as I wished it to be--But you are both of you so
like your poor papa. However, I have my consolation, and that should be enough
for me!'
Washing her hands, thus, of all responsibility under this head, past,
present, or to come, Mrs Nickleby kindly added that she hoped her children might
never have greater cause to reproach themselves than she had, and prepared
herself to receive the escort, who soon returned with the intelligence that the
old gentleman was safely housed, and that they found his custodians, who had
been making merry with some friends, wholly ignorant of his absence.
Quiet being again restored, a delicious half-hour--so Frank called it, in the
course of subsequent conversation with Tim Linkinwater as they were walking
home--a delicious half-hour was spent in conversation, and Tim's watch at length
apprising him that it was high time to depart, the ladies were left alone,
though not without many offers on the part of Frank to remain until Nicholas
arrived, no matter what hour of the night it might be, if, after the late
neighbourly irruption they entertained the least fear of being left to
themselves. As their freedom from all further apprehension, however, left no
pretext for his insisting on mounting guard, he was obliged to abandon the
citadel, and to retire with the trusty Tim.
Nearly three hours of silence passed away. Kate blushed to find, when
Nicholas returned, how long she had been sitting alone, occupied with her own
thoughts.
`I really thought it had not been half an hour,' she said.
`They must have been pleasant thoughts, Kate,' rejoined Nicholas gaily, `to
make time pass away like that. What were they now?'
Kate was confused; she toyed with some trifle on the table--looked up and
smiled--looked down and dropped a tear.
`Why, Kate,' said Nicholas, drawing his sister towards him and kissing her,
`let me see your face. No? Ah! that was but a glimpse; that's scarcely fair. A
longer look than that, Kate. Come--and I'll read your thoughts for you.'
There was something in this proposition, albeit it was said without the
slightest consciousness or application, which so alarmed his sister, that
Nicholas laughingly changed the subject to domestic matters, and thus gathered,
by degrees, as they left the room and went upstairs together, how lonely Smike
had been all night--and by very slow degrees, too; for on this subject also,
Kate seemed to speak with some reluctance.
`Poor fellow,' said Nicholas, tapping gently at his door, `what can be the
cause of all this?'
Kate was hanging on her brother's arm. The door being quickly opened, she had
not time to disengage herself, before Smike, very pale and haggard, and
completely dressed, confronted them.
`And have you not been to bed?' said Nicholas.
`N--n--no,' was the reply.
Nicholas gently detained his sister, who made an effort to retire; and asked,
`Why not?'
`I could not sleep,' said Smike, grasping the hand which his friend extended
to him.
`You are not well?' rejoined Nicholas.
`I am better, indeed--a great deal better,' said Smike quickly.
`Then why do you give way to these fits of melancholy?' inquired Nicholas, in
his kindest manner; `or why not tell us the cause? You grow a different
creature, Smike.'
`I do; I know I do,' he replied. `I will tell you the reason one day, but not
now. I hate myself for this; you are all so good and kind. But I cannot help it.
My heart is very full;--you do not know how full it is.'
He wrung Nicholas's hand before he released it; and glancing, for a moment,
at the brother and sister as they stood together, as if there were something in
their strong affection which touched him very deeply, withdrew into his chamber,
and was soon the only watcher under that quiet roof.
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