Instead of going home, Ralph threw himself into the first streetcabriolet he could find, and, directing the driver towards thepolice-office of the district in which Mr Squeers's misfortunes hadoccurred, alighted at a short distance from it, and, discharging theman, went the rest of his way thither on foot. Inquiring for the objectof his solicitude, he learnt that he had timed his visit well; for MrSqueers was, in fact, at that moment waiting for a hackney coach he hadordered, and in which he purposed proceeding to his week's retirement,like a gentleman.

Demanding speech with the prisoner, he was ushered into a kind ofwaiting-room in which, by reason of his scholastic profession andsuperior respectability, Mr Squeers had been permitted to pass the day.Here, by the light of a guttering and blackened candle, he could barelydiscern the schoolmaster, fast asleep on a bench in a remote corner.An empty glass stood on a table before him, which, with his somnolentcondition and a very strong smell of brandy and water, forewarnedthe visitor that Mr Squeers had been seeking, in creature comforts, atemporary forgetfulness of his unpleasant situation.

It was not a very easy matter to rouse him: so lethargic and heavy werehis slumbers. Regaining his faculties by slow and faint glimmerings, heat length sat upright; and, displaying a very yellow face, a veryred nose, and a very bristly beard: the joint effect of which wasconsiderably heightened by a dirty white handkerchief, spotted withblood, drawn over the crown of his head and tied under his chin: staredruefully at Ralph in silence, until his feelings found a vent in thispithy sentence:

'I say, young fellow, you've been and done it now; you have!'

'What's the matter with your head?' asked Ralph.

'Why, your man, your informing kidnapping man, has been and broke it,'rejoined Squeers sulkily; 'that's what's the matter with it. You've comeat last, have you?'

'Why have you not sent to me?' said Ralph. 'How could I come till I knewwhat had befallen you?'

'My family!' hiccuped Mr Squeers, raising his eye to the ceiling: 'mydaughter, as is at that age when all the sensibilities is a-coming outstrong in blow--my son as is the young Norval of private life, and thepride and ornament of a doting willage--here's a shock for my family!The coat-of-arms of the Squeerses is tore, and their sun is gone downinto the ocean wave!'

'You have been drinking,' said Ralph, 'and have not yet slept yourselfsober.'

'I haven't been drinking YOUR health, my codger,' replied Mr Squeers;'so you have nothing to do with that.'

Ralph suppressed the indignation which the schoolmaster's altered andinsolent manner awakened, and asked again why he had not sent to him.

'What should I get by sending to you?' returned Squeers. 'To be known tobe in with you wouldn't do me a deal of good, and they won't take bailtill they know something more of the case, so here am I hard and fast:and there are you, loose and comfortable.'

'And so must you be in a few days,' retorted Ralph, with affectedgood-humour. 'They can't hurt you, man.'

'Why, I suppose they can't do much to me, if I explain how it was that Igot into the good company of that there ca-daverous old Slider,' repliedSqueers viciously, 'who I wish was dead and buried, and resurrected anddissected, and hung upon wires in a anatomical museum, before ever I'dhad anything to do with her. This is what him with the powdered headsays this morning, in so many words: "Prisoner! As you have been foundin company with this woman; as you were detected in possession ofthis document; as you were engaged with her in fraudulently destroyingothers, and can give no satisfactory account of yourself; I shall remandyou for a week, in order that inquiries may be made, and evidence got.And meanwhile I can't take any bail for your appearance." Well then,what I say now is, that I CAN give a satisfactory account of myself;I can hand in the card of my establishment and say, "I am the WackfordSqueers as is therein named, sir. I am the man as is guaranteed,by unimpeachable references, to be a out-and-outer in morals anduprightness of principle. Whatever is wrong in this business is no faultof mine. I had no evil design in it, sir. I was not aware that anythingwas wrong. I was merely employed by a friend, my friend Mr RalphNickleby, of Golden Square. Send for him, sir, and ask him what he hasto say; he's the man; not me!"'

'What document was it that you had?' asked Ralph, evading, for themoment, the point just raised.

'What document? Why, THE document,' replied Squeers. 'The MadelineWhat's-her-name one. It was a will; that's what it was.'

'Of what nature, whose will, when dated, how benefiting her, to whatextent?' asked Ralph hurriedly.

'A will in her favour; that's all I know,' rejoined Squeers, 'and that'smore than you'd have known, if you'd had them bellows on your head. It'sall owing to your precious caution that they got hold of it. If you hadlet me burn it, and taken my word that it was gone, it would have been aheap of ashes behind the fire, instead of being whole and sound, insideof my great-coat.'

'Beaten at every point!' muttered Ralph.

'Ah!' sighed Squeers, who, between the brandy and water and his brokenhead, wandered strangely, 'at the delightful village of Dotheboys nearGreta Bridge in Yorkshire, youth are boarded, clothed, booked, washed,furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructedin all languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry,astronomy, trigonometry--this is a altered state of trigonomics, thisis! A double 1--all, everything--a cobbler's weapon. U-p-up, adjective,not down. S-q-u-double e-r-s-Squeers, noun substantive, a educator ofyouth. Total, all up with Squeers!'

His running on, in this way, had afforded Ralph an opportunity ofrecovering his presence of mind, which at once suggested to himthe necessity of removing, as far as possible, the schoolmaster'smisgivings, and leading him to believe that his safety and best policylay in the preservation of a rigid silence.

'I tell you, once again,' he said, 'they can't hurt you. You shall havean action for false imprisonment, and make a profit of this, yet. Wewill devise a story for you that should carry you through twenty timessuch a trivial scrape as this; and if they want security in a thousandpounds for your reappearance in case you should be called upon, youshall have it. All you have to do is, to keep back the truth. You're alittle fuddled tonight, and may not be able to see this as clearly asyou would at another time; but this is what you must do, and you'll needall your senses about you; for a slip might be awkward.'

'Oh!' said Squeers, who had looked cunningly at him, with his head stuckon one side, like an old raven. 'That's what I'm to do, is it? Now then,just you hear a word or two from me. I an't a-going to have any storiesmade for me, and I an't a-going to stick to any. If I find matters goingagain me, I shall expect you to take your share, and I'll take care youdo. You never said anything about danger. I never bargained for beingbrought into such a plight as this, and I don't mean to take it as quietas you think. I let you lead me on, from one thing to another, becausewe had been mixed up together in a certain sort of a way, and if you hadliked to be ill-natured you might perhaps have hurt the business, andif you liked to be good-natured you might throw a good deal in my way.Well; if all goes right now, that's quite correct, and I don't mind it;but if anything goes wrong, then times are altered, and I shall just sayand do whatever I think may serve me most, and take advice from nobody.My moral influence with them lads,' added Mr Squeers, with deepergravity, 'is a tottering to its basis. The images of Mrs Squeers, mydaughter, and my son Wackford, all short of vittles, is perpetuallybefore me; every other consideration melts away and vanishes, in frontof these; the only number in all arithmetic that I know of, as a husbandand a father, is number one, under this here most fatal go!'

How long Mr Squeers might have declaimed, or how stormy a discussion hisdeclamation might have led to, nobody knows. Being interrupted, at thispoint, by the arrival of the coach and an attendant who was to bearhim company, he perched his hat with great dignity on the top of thehandkerchief that bound his head; and, thrusting one hand in his pocket,and taking the attendant's arm with the other, suffered himself to beled forth.

'As I supposed from his not sending!' thought Ralph. 'This fellow, Iplainly see through all his tipsy fooling, has made up his mind to turnupon me. I am so beset and hemmed in, that they are not only all struckwith fear, but, like the beasts in the fable, have their fling at menow, though time was, and no longer ago than yesterday too, when theywere all civility and compliance. But they shall not move me. I'll notgive way. I will not budge one inch!'

He went home, and was glad to find his housekeeper complaining ofillness, that he might have an excuse for being alone and sending heraway to where she lived: which was hard by. Then, he sat down by thelight of a single candle, and began to think, for the first time, on allthat had taken place that day.

He had neither eaten nor drunk since last night, and, in addition to theanxiety of mind he had undergone, had been travelling about, from placeto place almost incessantly, for many hours. He felt sick and exhausted,but could taste nothing save a glass of water, and continued to sit withhis head upon his hand; not resting nor thinking, but laboriouslytrying to do both, and feeling that every sense but one of weariness anddesolation, was for the time benumbed.

It was nearly ten o'clock when he heard a knocking at the door, andstill sat quiet as before, as if he could not even bring his thoughts tobear upon that. It had been often repeated, and he had, several times,heard a voice outside, saying there was a light in the window (meaning,as he knew, his own candle), before he could rouse himself and godownstairs.

'Mr Nickleby, there is terrible news for you, and I am sent to beg youwill come with me directly,' said a voice he seemed to recognise. Heheld his hand above his eyes, and, looking out, saw Tim Linkinwater onthe steps.

'Come where?' demanded Ralph.

'To our house, where you came this morning. I have a coach here.'

'Why should I go there?' said Ralph.

'Don't ask me why, but pray come with me.'

'Another edition of today!' returned Ralph, making as though he wouldshut the door.

'No, no!' cried Tim, catching him by the arm and speaking mostearnestly; 'it is only that you may hear something that has occurred:something very dreadful, Mr Nickleby, which concerns you nearly. Do youthink I would tell you so or come to you like this, if it were not thecase?'

Ralph looked at him more closely. Seeing that he was indeed greatlyexcited, he faltered, and could not tell what to say or think.

'You had better hear this now, than at any other time,' said Tim; 'itmay have some influence with you. For Heaven's sake come!'

Perhaps, at, another time, Ralph's obstinacy and dislike would havebeen proof against any appeal from such a quarter, however emphaticallyurged; but now, after a moment's hesitation, he went into the hall forhis hat, and returning, got into the coach without speaking a word.

Tim well remembered afterwards, and often said, that as Ralph Nicklebywent into the house for this purpose, he saw him, by the light of thecandle which he had set down upon a chair, reel and stagger like adrunken man. He well remembered, too, that when he had placed his footupon the coach-steps, he turned round and looked upon him with a face soashy pale and so very wild and vacant that it made him shudder, and forthe moment almost afraid to follow. People were fond of saying thathe had some dark presentiment upon him then, but his emotion might,perhaps, with greater show of reason, be referred to what he hadundergone that day.

A profound silence was observed during the ride. Arrived at their placeof destination, Ralph followed his conductor into the house, and into aroom where the two brothers were. He was so astounded, not to say awed,by something of a mute compassion for himself which was visible in theirmanner and in that of the old clerk, that he could scarcely speak.

Having taken a seat, however, he contrived to say, though in brokenwords, 'What--what have you to say to me--more than has been saidalready?'

The room was old and large, very imperfectly lighted, and terminated ina bay window, about which hung some heavy drapery. Casting his eyes inthis direction as he spoke, he thought he made out the dusky figure ofa man. He was confirmed in this impression by seeing that the objectmoved, as if uneasy under his scrutiny.

'Who's that yonder?' he said.

'One who has conveyed to us, within these two hours, the intelligencewhich caused our sending to you,' replied brother Charles. 'Let him be,sir, let him be for the present.'

'More riddles!' said Ralph, faintly. 'Well, sir?'

In turning his face towards the brothers he was obliged to avert it fromthe window; but, before either of them could speak, he had looked roundagain. It was evident that he was rendered restless and uncomfortable bythe presence of the unseen person; for he repeated this action severaltimes, and at length, as if in a nervous state which rendered himpositively unable to turn away from the place, sat so as to have itopposite him, muttering as an excuse that he could not bear the light.

The brothers conferred apart for a short time: their manner showingthat they were agitated. Ralph glanced at them twice or thrice, andultimately said, with a great effort to recover his self-possession,'Now, what is this? If I am brought from home at this time of night, letit be for something. What have you got to tell me?' After a short pause,he added, 'Is my niece dead?'

He had struck upon a key which rendered the task of commencement aneasier one. Brother Charles turned, and said that it was a death ofwhich they had to tell him, but that his niece was well.

'You don't mean to tell me,' said Ralph, as his eyes brightened, 'thather brother's dead? No, that's too good. I'd not believe it, if you toldme so. It would be too welcome news to be true.'

'Shame on you, you hardened and unnatural man,' cried the other brother,warmly. 'Prepare yourself for intelligence which, if you have any humanfeeling in your breast, will make even you shrink and tremble. What ifwe tell you that a poor unfortunate boy: a child in everything but neverhaving known one of those tender endearments, or one of those lightsomehours which make our childhood a time to be remembered like a happydream through all our after life: a warm-hearted, harmless, affectionatecreature, who never offended you, or did you wrong, but on whom you havevented the malice and hatred you have conceived for your nephew, andwhom you have made an instrument for wreaking your bad passions uponhim: what if we tell you that, sinking under your persecution, sir, andthe misery and ill-usage of a life short in years but long in suffering,this poor creature has gone to tell his sad tale where, for your part init, you must surely answer?'

'If you tell me,' said Ralph; 'if you tell me that he is dead, I forgiveyou all else. If you tell me that he is dead, I am in your debt andbound to you for life. He is! I see it in your faces. Who triumphs now?Is this your dreadful news; this your terrible intelligence? You seehow it moves me. You did well to send. I would have travelled a hundredmiles afoot, through mud, mire, and darkness, to hear this news just atthis time.'

Even then, moved as he was by this savage joy, Ralph could see in thefaces of the two brothers, mingling with their look of disgust andhorror, something of that indefinable compassion for himself which hehad noticed before.

'And HE brought you the intelligence, did he?' said Ralph, pointingwith his finger towards the recess already mentioned; 'and sat there,no doubt, to see me prostrated and overwhelmed by it! Ha, ha, ha! But Itell him that I'll be a sharp thorn in his side for many a long day tocome; and I tell you two, again, that you don't know him yet; and thatyou'll rue the day you took compassion on the vagabond.'

'You take me for your nephew,' said a hollow voice; 'it would be betterfor you, and for me too, if I were he indeed.'

The figure that he had seen so dimly, rose, and came slowly down. Hestarted back, for he found that he confronted--not Nicholas, as he hadsupposed, but Brooker.

Ralph had no reason, that he knew, to fear this man; he had never fearedhim before; but the pallor which had been observed in his face when heissued forth that night, came upon him again. He was seen to tremble,and his voice changed as he said, keeping his eyes upon him,

'What does this fellow here? Do you know he is a convict, a felon, acommon thief?'

'Hear what he has to tell you. Oh, Mr Nickleby, hear what he has totell you, be he what he may!' cried the brothers, with such emphaticearnestness, that Ralph turned to them in wonder. They pointed toBrooker. Ralph again gazed at him: as it seemed mechanically.

'That boy,' said the man, 'that these gentlemen have been talking of--'

'That boy,' repeated Ralph, looking vacantly at him.

'Whom I saw, stretched dead and cold upon his bed, and who is now in hisgrave--'

'Who is now in his grave,' echoed Ralph, like one who talks in hissleep.

The man raised his eyes, and clasped his hands solemnly together:

'--Was your only son, so help me God in heaven!'

In the midst of a dead silence, Ralph sat down, pressing his two handsupon his temples. He removed them, after a minute, and never was thereseen, part of a living man undisfigured by any wound, such a ghastlyface as he then disclosed. He looked at Brooker, who was by this timestanding at a short distance from him; but did not say one word, or makethe slightest sound or gesture.

'Gentlemen,' said the man, 'I offer no excuses for myself. I am longpast that. If, in telling you how this has happened, I tell you that Iwas harshly used, and perhaps driven out of my real nature, I do it onlyas a necessary part of my story, and not to shield myself. I am a guiltyman.'

He stopped, as if to recollect, and looking away from Ralph, andaddressing himself to the brothers, proceeded in a subdued and humbletone:

'Among those who once had dealings with this man, gentlemen--that's fromtwenty to five-and-twenty years ago--there was one: a rough fox-hunting,hard-drinking gentleman, who had run through his own fortune, and wantedto squander away that of his sister: they were both orphans, and shelived with him and managed his house. I don't know whether it was,originally, to back his influence and try to over-persuade the youngwoman or not, but he,' pointing, to Ralph, 'used to go down to the housein Leicestershire pretty often, and stop there many days at a time. Theyhad had a great many dealings together, and he may have gone on someof those, or to patch up his client's affairs, which were in a ruinousstate; of course he went for profit. The gentlewoman was not a girl,but she was, I have heard say, handsome, and entitled to a pretty largeproperty. In course of time, he married her. The same love of gainwhich led him to contract this marriage, led to its being kept strictlyprivate; for a clause in her father's will declared that if she marriedwithout her brother's consent, the property, in which she had only somelife interest while she remained single, should pass away altogether toanother branch of the family. The brother would give no consent that thesister didn't buy, and pay for handsomely; Mr Nickleby would consent tono such sacrifice; and so they went on, keeping their marriage secret,and waiting for him to break his neck or die of a fever. He did neither,and meanwhile the result of this private marriage was a son. The childwas put out to nurse, a long way off; his mother never saw him but onceor twice, and then by stealth; and his father--so eagerly did he thirstafter the money which seemed to come almost within his grasp now,for his brother-in-law was very ill, and breaking more and more everyday--never went near him, to avoid raising any suspicion. The brotherlingered on; Mr Nickleby's wife constantly urged him to avow theirmarriage; he peremptorily refused. She remained alone in a dull countryhouse: seeing little or no company but riotous, drunken sportsmen.He lived in London and clung to his business. Angry quarrels andrecriminations took place, and when they had been married nearly sevenyears, and were within a few weeks of the time when the brother's deathwould have adjusted all, she eloped with a younger man, and left him.'

Here he paused, but Ralph did not stir, and the brothers signed to himto proceed.

'It was then that I became acquainted with these circumstances from hisown lips. They were no secrets then; for the brother, and others, knewthem; but they were communicated to me, not on this account, but becauseI was wanted. He followed the fugitives. Some said to make money of hiswife's shame, but, I believe, to take some violent revenge, for that wasas much his character as the other; perhaps more. He didn't find them,and she died not long after. I don't know whether he began to think hemight like the child, or whether he wished to make sure that it shouldnever fall into its mother's hands; but, before he went, he intrusted mewith the charge of bringing it home. And I did so.'

He went on, from this point, in a still more humble tone, and spoke in avery low voice; pointing to Ralph as he resumed.

'He had used me ill--cruelly--I reminded him in what, not long ago whenI met him in the street--and I hated him. I brought the child home tohis own house, and lodged him in the front garret. Neglect had made himvery sickly, and I was obliged to call in a doctor, who said he must beremoved for change of air, or he would die. I think that first put it inmy head. I did it then. He was gone six weeks, and when he came back, Itold him--with every circumstance well planned and proved; nobody couldhave suspected me--that the child was dead and buried. He might havebeen disappointed in some intention he had formed, or he might have hadsome natural affection, but he WAS grieved at THAT, and I was confirmedin my design of opening up the secret one day, and making it a means ofgetting money from him. I had heard, like most other men, of Yorkshireschools. I took the child to one kept by a man named Squeers, and leftit there. I gave him the name of Smike. Year by year, I paid twentypounds a-year for him for six years; never breathing the secret all thetime; for I had left his father's service after more hard usage, andquarrelled with him again. I was sent away from this country. I havebeen away nearly eight years. Directly I came home again, I travelleddown into Yorkshire, and, skulking in the village of an evening-time,made inquiries about the boys at the school, and found that this one,whom I had placed there, had run away with a young man bearing the nameof his own father. I sought his father out in London, and hinting atwhat I could tell him, tried for a little money to support life; but herepulsed me with threats. I then found out his clerk, and, going onfrom little to little, and showing him that there were good reasons forcommunicating with me, learnt what was going on; and it was I who toldhim that the boy was no son of the man who claimed to be his father. Allthis time I had never seen the boy. At length, I heard from this samesource that he was very ill, and where he was. I travelled down there,that I might recall myself, if possible, to his recollection and confirmmy story. I came upon him unexpectedly; but before I could speak he knewme--he had good cause to remember me, poor lad!--and I would have swornto him if I had met him in the Indies. I knew the piteous face I hadseen in the little child. After a few days' indecision, I applied to theyoung gentleman in whose care he was, and I found that he was dead. Heknows how quickly he recognised me again, how often he had describedme and my leaving him at the school, and how he told him of a garrethe recollected: which is the one I have spoken of, and in his father'shouse to this day. This is my story. I demand to be brought face to facewith the schoolmaster, and put to any possible proof of any part of it,and I will show that it's too true, and that I have this guilt upon mysoul.'

'Unhappy man!' said the brothers. 'What reparation can you make forthis?'

'None, gentlemen, none! I have none to make, and nothing to hope now. Iam old in years, and older still in misery and care. This confession canbring nothing upon me but new suffering and punishment; but I make it,and will abide by it whatever comes. I have been made the instrument ofworking out this dreadful retribution upon the head of a man who, inthe hot pursuit of his bad ends, has persecuted and hunted down his ownchild to death. It must descend upon me too. I know it must fall. Myreparation comes too late; and, neither in this world nor in the next,can I have hope again!'

He had hardly spoken, when the lamp, which stood upon the table closeto where Ralph was seated, and which was the only one in the room, wasthrown to the ground, and left them in darkness. There was some triflingconfusion in obtaining another light; the interval was a mere nothing;but when the light appeared, Ralph Nickleby was gone.

The good brothers and Tim Linkinwater occupied some time in discussingthe probability of his return; and, when it became apparent that hewould not come back, they hesitated whether or no to send after him.At length, remembering how strangely and silently he had sat in oneimmovable position during the interview, and thinking he might possiblybe ill, they determined, although it was now very late, to send to hishouse on some pretence. Finding an excuse in the presence of Brooker,whom they knew not how to dispose of without consulting his wishes, theyconcluded to act upon this resolution before going to bed.