The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby

C >> Charles Dickens >> The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby


And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque features,
which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas, might have provoked
a smile. Mrs Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding over an
immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of which delicious compound she
administered a large instalment to each boy in succession: using for
the purpose a common wooden spoon, which might have been originally
manufactured for some gigantic top, and which widened every young
gentleman's mouth considerably: they being all obliged, under heavy
corporal penalties, to take in the whole of the bowl at a gasp. In
another corner, huddled together for companionship, were the little
boys who had arrived on the preceding night, three of them in very large
leather breeches, and two in old trousers, a something tighter fit than
drawers are usually worn; at no great distance from these was seated
the juvenile son and heir of Mr Squeers--a striking likeness of his
father--kicking, with great vigour, under the hands of Smike, who
was fitting upon him a pair of new boots that bore a most suspicious
resemblance to those which the least of the little boys had worn on
the journey down--as the little boy himself seemed to think, for he
was regarding the appropriation with a look of most rueful amazement.
Besides these, there was a long row of boys waiting, with countenances
of no pleasant anticipation, to be treacled; and another file, who
had just escaped from the infliction, making a variety of wry mouths
indicative of anything but satisfaction. The whole were attired in
such motley, ill-assorted, extraordinary garments, as would have been
irresistibly ridiculous, but for the foul appearance of dirt, disorder,
and disease, with which they were associated.

'Now,' said Squeers, giving the desk a great rap with his cane, which
made half the little boys nearly jump out of their boots, 'is that
physicking over?'

'Just over,' said Mrs Squeers, choking the last boy in her hurry, and
tapping the crown of his head with the wooden spoon to restore him.
'Here, you Smike; take away now. Look sharp!'

Smike shuffled out with the basin, and Mrs Squeers having called up a
little boy with a curly head, and wiped her hands upon it, hurried out
after him into a species of wash-house, where there was a small fire and
a large kettle, together with a number of little wooden bowls which were
arranged upon a board.

Into these bowls, Mrs Squeers, assisted by the hungry servant, poured
a brown composition, which looked like diluted pincushions without
the covers, and was called porridge. A minute wedge of brown bread was
inserted in each bowl, and when they had eaten their porridge by means
of the bread, the boys ate the bread itself, and had finished their
breakfast; whereupon Mr Squeers said, in a solemn voice, 'For what we
have received, may the Lord make us truly thankful!'--and went away to
his own.

Nicholas distended his stomach with a bowl of porridge, for much the
same reason which induces some savages to swallow earth--lest they
should be inconveniently hungry when there is nothing to eat. Having
further disposed of a slice of bread and butter, allotted to him in
virtue of his office, he sat himself down, to wait for school-time.

He could not but observe how silent and sad the boys all seemed to be.
There was none of the noise and clamour of a schoolroom; none of
its boisterous play, or hearty mirth. The children sat crouching and
shivering together, and seemed to lack the spirit to move about. The
only pupil who evinced the slightest tendency towards locomotion or
playfulness was Master Squeers, and as his chief amusement was to tread
upon the other boys' toes in his new boots, his flow of spirits was
rather disagreeable than otherwise.

After some half-hour's delay, Mr Squeers reappeared, and the boys took
their places and their books, of which latter commodity the average
might be about one to eight learners. A few minutes having elapsed,
during which Mr Squeers looked very profound, as if he had a perfect
apprehension of what was inside all the books, and could say every word
of their contents by heart if he only chose to take the trouble, that
gentleman called up the first class.

Obedient to this summons there ranged themselves in front of the
schoolmaster's desk, half-a-dozen scarecrows, out at knees and elbows,
one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath his learned eye.

'This is the first class in English spelling and philosophy, Nickleby,'
said Squeers, beckoning Nicholas to stand beside him. 'We'll get up a
Latin one, and hand that over to you. Now, then, where's the first boy?'

'Please, sir, he's cleaning the back-parlour window,' said the temporary
head of the philosophical class.

'So he is, to be sure,' rejoined Squeers. 'We go upon the practical mode
of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean,
verb active, to make bright, to scour. W-i-n, win, d-e-r, der, winder, a
casement. When the boy knows this out of book, he goes and does it. It's
just the same principle as the use of the globes. Where's the second
boy?'

'Please, sir, he's weeding the garden,' replied a small voice.

'To be sure,' said Squeers, by no means disconcerted. 'So he is. B-o-t,
bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun substantive,
a knowledge of plants. When he has learned that bottinney means a
knowledge of plants, he goes and knows 'em. That's our system, Nickleby:
what do you think of it?'

'It's very useful one, at any rate,' answered Nicholas.

'I believe you,' rejoined Squeers, not remarking the emphasis of his
usher. 'Third boy, what's horse?'

'A beast, sir,' replied the boy.

'So it is,' said Squeers. 'Ain't it, Nickleby?'

'I believe there is no doubt of that, sir,' answered Nicholas.

'Of course there isn't,' said Squeers. 'A horse is a quadruped, and
quadruped's Latin for beast, as everybody that's gone through the
grammar knows, or else where's the use of having grammars at all?'

'Where, indeed!' said Nicholas abstractedly.

'As you're perfect in that,' resumed Squeers, turning to the boy, 'go
and look after MY horse, and rub him down well, or I'll rub you down.
The rest of the class go and draw water up, till somebody tells you
to leave off, for it's washing-day tomorrow, and they want the coppers
filled.'

So saying, he dismissed the first class to their experiments in
practical philosophy, and eyed Nicholas with a look, half cunning and
half doubtful, as if he were not altogether certain what he might think
of him by this time.

'That's the way we do it, Nickleby,' he said, after a pause.

Nicholas shrugged his shoulders in a manner that was scarcely
perceptible, and said he saw it was.

'And a very good way it is, too,' said Squeers. 'Now, just take them
fourteen little boys and hear them some reading, because, you know, you
must begin to be useful. Idling about here won't do.'

Mr Squeers said this, as if it had suddenly occurred to him, either that
he must not say too much to his assistant, or that his assistant did
not say enough to him in praise of the establishment. The children were
arranged in a semicircle round the new master, and he was soon listening
to their dull, drawling, hesitating recital of those stories of
engrossing interest which are to be found in the more antiquated
spelling-books.

In this exciting occupation, the morning lagged heavily on. At one
o'clock, the boys, having previously had their appetites thoroughly
taken away by stir-about and potatoes, sat down in the kitchen to some
hard salt beef, of which Nicholas was graciously permitted to take his
portion to his own solitary desk, to eat it there in peace. After this,
there was another hour of crouching in the schoolroom and shivering with
cold, and then school began again.

It was Mr Squeer's custom to call the boys together, and make a sort of
report, after every half-yearly visit to the metropolis, regarding the
relations and friends he had seen, the news he had heard, the letters he
had brought down, the bills which had been paid, the accounts which had
been left unpaid, and so forth. This solemn proceeding always took place
in the afternoon of the day succeeding his return; perhaps, because the
boys acquired strength of mind from the suspense of the morning, or,
possibly, because Mr Squeers himself acquired greater sternness and
inflexibility from certain warm potations in which he was wont to
indulge after his early dinner. Be this as it may, the boys were
recalled from house-window, garden, stable, and cow-yard, and the school
were assembled in full conclave, when Mr Squeers, with a small bundle of
papers in his hand, and Mrs S. following with a pair of canes, entered
the room and proclaimed silence.

'Let any boy speak a word without leave,' said Mr Squeers mildly, 'and
I'll take the skin off his back.'

This special proclamation had the desired effect, and a deathlike
silence immediately prevailed, in the midst of which Mr Squeers went on
to say:

'Boys, I've been to London, and have returned to my family and you, as
strong and well as ever.'

According to half-yearly custom, the boys gave three feeble cheers at
this refreshing intelligence. Such cheers! Sights of extra strength with
the chill on.

'I have seen the parents of some boys,' continued Squeers, turning over
his papers, 'and they're so glad to hear how their sons are getting on,
that there's no prospect at all of their going away, which of course is
a very pleasant thing to reflect upon, for all parties.'

Two or three hands went to two or three eyes when Squeers said this, but
the greater part of the young gentlemen having no particular parents to
speak of, were wholly uninterested in the thing one way or other.

'I have had disappointments to contend against,' said Squeers, looking
very grim; 'Bolder's father was two pound ten short. Where is Bolder?'

'Here he is, please sir,' rejoined twenty officious voices. Boys are
very like men to be sure.

'Come here, Bolder,' said Squeers.

An unhealthy-looking boy, with warts all over his hands, stepped from
his place to the master's desk, and raised his eyes imploringly to
Squeers's face; his own, quite white from the rapid beating of his
heart.

'Bolder,' said Squeers, speaking very slowly, for he was considering, as
the saying goes, where to have him. 'Bolder, if you father thinks that
because--why, what's this, sir?'

As Squeers spoke, he caught up the boy's hand by the cuff of his jacket,
and surveyed it with an edifying aspect of horror and disgust.

'What do you call this, sir?' demanded the schoolmaster, administering a
cut with the cane to expedite the reply.

'I can't help it, indeed, sir,' rejoined the boy, crying. 'They will
come; it's the dirty work I think, sir--at least I don't know what it
is, sir, but it's not my fault.'

'Bolder,' said Squeers, tucking up his wristbands, and moistening
the palm of his right hand to get a good grip of the cane, 'you're an
incorrigible young scoundrel, and as the last thrashing did you no good,
we must see what another will do towards beating it out of you.'

With this, and wholly disregarding a piteous cry for mercy, Mr Squeers
fell upon the boy and caned him soundly: not leaving off, indeed, until
his arm was tired out.

'There,' said Squeers, when he had quite done; 'rub away as hard as you
like, you won't rub that off in a hurry. Oh! you won't hold that noise,
won't you? Put him out, Smike.'

The drudge knew better from long experience, than to hesitate about
obeying, so he bundled the victim out by a side-door, and Mr Squeers
perched himself again on his own stool, supported by Mrs Squeers, who
occupied another at his side.

'Now let us see,' said Squeers. 'A letter for Cobbey. Stand up, Cobbey.'

Another boy stood up, and eyed the letter very hard while Squeers made a
mental abstract of the same.

'Oh!' said Squeers: 'Cobbey's grandmother is dead, and his uncle John
has took to drinking, which is all the news his sister sends, except
eighteenpence, which will just pay for that broken square of glass. Mrs
Squeers, my dear, will you take the money?'

The worthy lady pocketed the eighteenpence with a most business-like
air, and Squeers passed on to the next boy, as coolly as possible.

'Graymarsh,' said Squeers, 'he's the next. Stand up, Graymarsh.'

Another boy stood up, and the schoolmaster looked over the letter as
before.

'Graymarsh's maternal aunt,' said Squeers, when he had possessed himself
of the contents, 'is very glad to hear he's so well and happy, and sends
her respectful compliments to Mrs Squeers, and thinks she must be an
angel. She likewise thinks Mr Squeers is too good for this world; but
hopes he may long be spared to carry on the business. Would have sent
the two pair of stockings as desired, but is short of money, so forwards
a tract instead, and hopes Graymarsh will put his trust in Providence.
Hopes, above all, that he will study in everything to please Mr and Mrs
Squeers, and look upon them as his only friends; and that he will love
Master Squeers; and not object to sleeping five in a bed, which no
Christian should. Ah!' said Squeers, folding it up, 'a delightful
letter. Very affecting indeed.'

It was affecting in one sense, for Graymarsh's maternal aunt was
strongly supposed, by her more intimate friends, to be no other than his
maternal parent; Squeers, however, without alluding to this part of the
story (which would have sounded immoral before boys), proceeded with
the business by calling out 'Mobbs,' whereupon another boy rose, and
Graymarsh resumed his seat.

'Mobbs's step-mother,' said Squeers, 'took to her bed on hearing that he
wouldn't eat fat, and has been very ill ever since. She wishes to know,
by an early post, where he expects to go to, if he quarrels with
his vittles; and with what feelings he could turn up his nose at the
cow's-liver broth, after his good master had asked a blessing on it.
This was told her in the London newspapers--not by Mr Squeers, for he is
too kind and too good to set anybody against anybody--and it has vexed
her so much, Mobbs can't think. She is sorry to find he is discontented,
which is sinful and horrid, and hopes Mr Squeers will flog him into
a happier state of mind; with which view, she has also stopped his
halfpenny a week pocket-money, and given a double-bladed knife with a
corkscrew in it to the Missionaries, which she had bought on purpose for
him.'

'A sulky state of feeling,' said Squeers, after a terrible pause, during
which he had moistened the palm of his right hand again, 'won't do.
Cheerfulness and contentment must be kept up. Mobbs, come to me!'

Mobbs moved slowly towards the desk, rubbing his eyes in anticipation
of good cause for doing so; and he soon afterwards retired by the
side-door, with as good cause as a boy need have.

Mr Squeers then proceeded to open a miscellaneous collection of letters;
some enclosing money, which Mrs Squeers 'took care of;' and others
referring to small articles of apparel, as caps and so forth, all of
which the same lady stated to be too large, or too small, and calculated
for nobody but young Squeers, who would appear indeed to have had most
accommodating limbs, since everything that came into the school fitted
him to a nicety. His head, in particular, must have been singularly
elastic, for hats and caps of all dimensions were alike to him.

This business dispatched, a few slovenly lessons were performed, and
Squeers retired to his fireside, leaving Nicholas to take care of the
boys in the school-room, which was very cold, and where a meal of bread
and cheese was served out shortly after dark.

There was a small stove at that corner of the room which was nearest
to the master's desk, and by it Nicholas sat down, so depressed and
self-degraded by the consciousness of his position, that if death could
have come upon him at that time, he would have been almost happy to meet
it. The cruelty of which he had been an unwilling witness, the coarse
and ruffianly behaviour of Squeers even in his best moods, the filthy
place, the sights and sounds about him, all contributed to this state of
feeling; but when he recollected that, being there as an assistant,
he actually seemed--no matter what unhappy train of circumstances had
brought him to that pass--to be the aider and abettor of a system which
filled him with honest disgust and indignation, he loathed himself, and
felt, for the moment, as though the mere consciousness of his present
situation must, through all time to come, prevent his raising his head
again.

But, for the present, his resolve was taken, and the resolution he had
formed on the preceding night remained undisturbed. He had written to
his mother and sister, announcing the safe conclusion of his journey,
and saying as little about Dotheboys Hall, and saying that little as
cheerfully, as he possibly could. He hoped that by remaining where he
was, he might do some good, even there; at all events, others depended
too much on his uncle's favour, to admit of his awakening his wrath just
then.

One reflection disturbed him far more than any selfish considerations
arising out of his own position. This was the probable destination of
his sister Kate. His uncle had deceived him, and might he not consign
her to some miserable place where her youth and beauty would prove a far
greater curse than ugliness and decrepitude? To a caged man, bound hand
and foot, this was a terrible idea--but no, he thought, his mother was
by; there was the portrait-painter, too--simple enough, but still living
in the world, and of it. He was willing to believe that Ralph Nickleby
had conceived a personal dislike to himself. Having pretty good reason,
by this time, to reciprocate it, he had no great difficulty in arriving
at this conclusion, and tried to persuade himself that the feeling
extended no farther than between them.

As he was absorbed in these meditations, he all at once encountered the
upturned face of Smike, who was on his knees before the stove, picking a
few stray cinders from the hearth and planting them on the fire. He
had paused to steal a look at Nicholas, and when he saw that he was
observed, shrunk back, as if expecting a blow.

'You need not fear me,' said Nicholas kindly. 'Are you cold?'

'N-n-o.'

'You are shivering.'

'I am not cold,' replied Smike quickly. 'I am used to it.'

There was such an obvious fear of giving offence in his manner, and he
was such a timid, broken-spirited creature, that Nicholas could not help
exclaiming, 'Poor fellow!'

If he had struck the drudge, he would have slunk away without a word.
But, now, he burst into tears.

'Oh dear, oh dear!' he cried, covering his face with his cracked and
horny hands. 'My heart will break. It will, it will.'

'Hush!' said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder. 'Be a man; you
are nearly one by years, God help you.'

'By years!' cried Smike. 'Oh dear, dear, how many of them! How many of
them since I was a little child, younger than any that are here now!
Where are they all!'

'Whom do you speak of?' inquired Nicholas, wishing to rouse the poor
half-witted creature to reason. 'Tell me.'

'My friends,' he replied, 'myself--my--oh! what sufferings mine have
been!'

'There is always hope,' said Nicholas; he knew not what to say.

'No,' rejoined the other, 'no; none for me. Do you remember the boy that
died here?'

'I was not here, you know,' said Nicholas gently; 'but what of him?'

'Why,' replied the youth, drawing closer to his questioner's side, 'I
was with him at night, and when it was all silent he cried no more for
friends he wished to come and sit with him, but began to see faces round
his bed that came from home; he said they smiled, and talked to him; and
he died at last lifting his head to kiss them. Do you hear?'

'Yes, yes,' rejoined Nicholas.

'What faces will smile on me when I die!' cried his companion,
shivering. 'Who will talk to me in those long nights! They cannot come
from home; they would frighten me, if they did, for I don't know what it
is, and shouldn't know them. Pain and fear, pain and fear for me, alive
or dead. No hope, no hope!'

The bell rang to bed: and the boy, subsiding at the sound into his usual
listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice. It was with a
heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards--no, not retired; there was no
retirement there--followed--to his dirty and crowded dormitory.



CHAPTER 9

Of Miss Squeers, Mrs Squeers, Master Squeers, and Mr Squeers; and of
various Matters and Persons connected no less with the Squeerses than
Nicholas Nickleby


When Mr Squeers left the schoolroom for the night, he betook himself, as
has been before remarked, to his own fireside, which was situated--not
in the room in which Nicholas had supped on the night of his arrival,
but in a smaller apartment in the rear of the premises, where his lady
wife, his amiable son, and accomplished daughter, were in the full
enjoyment of each other's society; Mrs Squeers being engaged in the
matronly pursuit of stocking-darning; and the young lady and gentleman
being occupied in the adjustment of some youthful differences, by means
of a pugilistic contest across the table, which, on the approach of
their honoured parent, subsided into a noiseless exchange of kicks
beneath it.

And, in this place, it may be as well to apprise the reader, that Miss
Fanny Squeers was in her three-and-twentieth year. If there be any one
grace or loveliness inseparable from that particular period of life,
Miss Squeers may be presumed to have been possessed of it, as there is
no reason to suppose that she was a solitary exception to an universal
rule. She was not tall like her mother, but short like her father; from
the former she inherited a voice of harsh quality; from the latter a
remarkable expression of the right eye, something akin to having none at
all.

Miss Squeers had been spending a few days with a neighbouring friend,
and had only just returned to the parental roof. To this circumstance
may be referred, her having heard nothing of Nicholas, until Mr Squeers
himself now made him the subject of conversation.

'Well, my dear,' said Squeers, drawing up his chair, 'what do you think
of him by this time?'

'Think of who?' inquired Mrs Squeers; who (as she often remarked) was no
grammarian, thank Heaven.

'Of the young man--the new teacher--who else could I mean?'

'Oh! that Knuckleboy,' said Mrs Squeers impatiently. 'I hate him.'

'What do you hate him for, my dear?' asked Squeers.

'What's that to you?' retorted Mrs Squeers. 'If I hate him, that's
enough, ain't it?'

'Quite enough for him, my dear, and a great deal too much I dare say,
if he knew it,' replied Squeers in a pacific tone. 'I only ask from
curiosity, my dear.'

'Well, then, if you want to know,' rejoined Mrs Squeers, 'I'll tell you.
Because he's a proud, haughty, consequential, turned-up-nosed peacock.'

Mrs Squeers, when excited, was accustomed to use strong language, and,
moreover, to make use of a plurality of epithets, some of which were of
a figurative kind, as the word peacock, and furthermore the allusion
to Nicholas's nose, which was not intended to be taken in its literal
sense, but rather to bear a latitude of construction according to the
fancy of the hearers.

Neither were they meant to bear reference to each other, so much as to
the object on whom they were bestowed, as will be seen in the present
case: a peacock with a turned-up nose being a novelty in ornithology,
and a thing not commonly seen.

'Hem!' said Squeers, as if in mild deprecation of this outbreak. 'He is
cheap, my dear; the young man is very cheap.'

'Not a bit of it,' retorted Mrs Squeers.

'Five pound a year,' said Squeers.

'What of that; it's dear if you don't want him, isn't it?' replied his
wife.

'But we DO want him,' urged Squeers.

'I don't see that you want him any more than the dead,' said
Mrs Squeers. 'Don't tell me. You can put on the cards and in the
advertisements, "Education by Mr Wackford Squeers and able assistants,"
without having any assistants, can't you? Isn't it done every day by all
the masters about? I've no patience with you.'

'Haven't you!' said Squeers, sternly. 'Now I'll tell you what, Mrs
Squeers. In this matter of having a teacher, I'll take my own way, if
you please. A slave driver in the West Indies is allowed a man under
him, to see that his blacks don't run away, or get up a rebellion; and
I'll have a man under me to do the same with OUR blacks, till such time
as little Wackford is able to take charge of the school.'

'Am I to take care of the school when I grow up a man, father?' said
Wackford junior, suspending, in the excess of his delight, a vicious
kick which he was administering to his sister.

'You are, my son,' replied Mr Squeers, in a sentimental voice.

'Oh my eye, won't I give it to the boys!' exclaimed the interesting
child, grasping his father's cane. 'Oh, father, won't I make 'em squeak
again!'