Of the Internal Economy of Dotheboys Hall.
Aride of two hundred and odd miles in severe weather, isone of the best softeners of a hard bed that ingenuity candevise. Perhaps it is even a sweetener of dreams, for thosewhich hovered over the rough couch of Nicholas, and whisperedtheir airy nothings in his ear, were of an agreeable and happykind. He was making his fortune very fast indeed, when the faintglimmer of an expiring candle shone before his eyes, and a voicehe had no difficulty in recognising as part and parcel of MrSqueers, admonished him that it was time to rise.
‘Past seven, Nickleby,’ said Mr Squeers.
‘Has morning come already?’ asked Nicholas, sitting up in bed.
‘Ah! that has it,’ replied Squeers, ‘and ready iced too. Now,Nickleby, come; tumble up, will you?’
Nicholas needed no further admonition, but ‘tumbled up’ atonce, and proceeded to dress himself by the light of the taper,which Mr Squeers carried in his hand.
‘Here’s a pretty go,’ said that gentleman; ‘the pump’s froze.’
‘Indeed!’ said Nicholas, not much interested in the intelligence.
‘Yes,’ replied Squeers. ‘You can’t wash yourself this morning.’
‘Not wash myself!’ exclaimed Nicholas.
‘No, not a bit of it,’ rejoined Squeers tartly. ‘So you must becontent with giving yourself a dry polish till we break the ice in thewell, and can get a bucketful out for the boys. Don’t stand staringat me, but do look sharp, will you?’
Offering no further observation, Nicholas huddled on hisclothes. Squeers, meanwhile, opened the shutters and blew thecandle out; when the voice of his amiable consort was heard in thepassage, demanding admittance.
‘Come in, my love,’ said Squeers.
Mrs Squeers came in, still habited in the primitive night-jacketwhich had displayed the symmetry of her figure on the previousnight, and further ornamented with a beaver bonnet of someantiquity, which she wore, with much ease and lightness, on thetop of the nightcap before mentioned.
‘Drat the things,’ said the lady, opening the cupboard; ‘I can’tfind the school spoon anywhere.’
‘Never mind it, my dear,’ observed Squeers in a soothingmanner; ‘it’s of no consequence.’
‘No consequence, why how you talk!’ retorted Mrs Squeerssharply; ‘isn’t it brimstone morning?’
‘I forgot, my dear,’ rejoined Squeers; ‘yes, it certainly is. Wepurify the boys’ bloods now and then, Nickleby.’
‘Purify fiddlesticks’ ends,’ said his lady. ‘Don’t think, youngman, that we go to the expense of flower of brimstone andmolasses, just to purify them; because if you think we carry on thebusiness in that way, you’ll find yourself mistaken, and so I tell youplainly.’
‘My dear,’ said Squeers frowning. ‘Hem!’
‘Oh! nonsense,’ rejoined Mrs Squeers. ‘If the young man comesto be a teacher here, let him understand, at once, that we don’twant any foolery about the boys. They have the brimstone andtreacle, partly because if they hadn’t something or other in theway of medicine they’d be always ailing and giving a world of trouble, and partly because it spoils their appetites and comescheaper than breakfast and dinner. So, it does them good and usgood at the same time, and that’s fair enough I’m sure.’
Having given this explanation, Mrs Squeers put her head intothe closet and instituted a stricter search after the spoon, in whichMr Squeers assisted. A few words passed between them while theywere thus engaged, but as their voices were partially stifled by thecupboard, all that Nicholas could distinguish was, that Mr Squeerssaid what Mrs Squeers had said, was injudicious, and that MrsSqueers said what Mr Squeers said, was ‘stuff.’
A vast deal of searching and rummaging ensued, and it provingfruitless, Smike was called in, and pushed by Mrs Squeers, andboxed by Mr Squeers; which course of treatment brightening hisintellects, enabled him to suggest that possibly Mrs Squeers mighthave the spoon in her pocket, as indeed turned out to be the case.
As Mrs Squeers had previously protested, however, that she wasquite certain she had not got it, Smike received another box on theear for presuming to contradict his mistress, together with apromise of a sound thrashing if he were not more respectful infuture; so that he took nothing very advantageous by his motion.
‘A most invaluable woman, that, Nickleby,’ said Squeers whenhis consort had hurried away, pushing the drudge before her.
‘Indeed, sir!’ observed Nicholas.
‘I don’t know her equal,’ said Squeers; ‘I do not know her equal.
That woman, Nickleby, is always the same—always the samebustling, lively, active, saving creetur that you see her now.’
Nicholas sighed involuntarily at the thought of the agreeabledomestic prospect thus opened to him; but Squeers was,fortunately, too much occupied with his own reflections to perceive it.
‘It’s my way to say, when I am up in London,’ continuedSqueers, ‘that to them boys she is a mother. But she is more than amother to them; ten times more. She does things for them boys,Nickleby, that I don’t believe half the mothers going, would do fortheir own sons.’
‘I should think they would not, sir,’ answered Nicholas.
Now, the fact was, that both Mr and Mrs Squeers viewed theboys in the light of their proper and natural enemies; or, in otherwords, they held and considered that their business andprofession was to get as much from every boy as could bypossibility be screwed out of him. On this point they were bothagreed, and behaved in unison accordingly. The only differencebetween them was, that Mrs Squeers waged war against theenemy openly and fearlessly, and that Squeers covered hisrascality, even at home, with a spice of his habitual deceit; as if hereally had a notion of someday or other being able to take himselfin, and persuade his own mind that he was a very good fellow.
‘But come,’ said Squeers, interrupting the progress of somethoughts to this effect in the mind of his usher, ‘let’s go to theschoolroom; and lend me a hand with my school-coat, will you?’
Nicholas assisted his master to put on an old fustian shooting-jacket, which he took down from a peg in the passage; andSqueers, arming himself with his cane, led the way across a yard,to a door in the rear of the house.
‘There,’ said the schoolmaster as they stepped in together; ‘thisis our shop, Nickleby!’
It was such a crowded scene, and there were so many objects toattract attention, that, at first, Nicholas stared about him, really without seeing anything at all. By degrees, however, the placeresolved itself into a bare and dirty room, with a couple ofwindows, whereof a tenth part might be of glass, the remainderbeing stopped up with old copy-books and paper. There were acouple of long old rickety desks, cut and notched, and inked, anddamaged, in every possible way; two or three forms; a detacheddesk for Squeers; and another for his assistant. The ceiling wassupported, like that of a barn, by cross-beams and rafters; and thewalls were so stained and discoloured, that it was impossible to tellwhether they had ever been touched with paint or whitewash.
But the pupils—the young noblemen! How the last faint tracesof hope, the remotest glimmering of any good to be derived fromhis efforts in this den, faded from the mind of Nicholas as helooked in dismay around! Pale and haggard faces, lank and bonyfigures, children with the countenances of old men, deformitieswith irons upon their limbs, boys of stunted growth, and otherswhose long meagre legs would hardly bear their stooping bodies,all crowded on the view together; there were the bleared eye, thehare-lip, the crooked foot, and every ugliness or distortion thattold of unnatural aversion conceived by parents for their offspring,or of young lives which, from the earliest dawn of infancy, hadbeen one horrible endurance of cruelty and neglect. There werelittle faces which should have been handsome, darkened with thescowl of sullen, dogged suffering; there was childhood with thelight of its eye quenched, its beauty gone, and its helplessnessalone remaining; there were vicious-faced boys, brooding, withleaden eyes, like malefactors in a jail; and there were youngcreatures on whom the sins of their frail parents had descended,weeping even for the mercenary nurses they had known, and lonesome even in their loneliness. With every kindly sympathyand affection blasted in its birth, with every young and healthyfeeling flogged and starved down, with every revengeful passionthat can fester in swollen hearts, eating its evil way to their core insilence, what an incipient Hell was breeding here!
And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque features,which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas, might haveprovoked a smile. Mrs Squeers stood at one of the desks, presidingover an immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of whichdelicious compound she administered a large instalment to eachboy in succession: using for the purpose a common wooden spoon,which might have been originally manufactured for some gigantictop, and which widened every young gentleman’s mouthconsiderably: they being all obliged, under heavy corporalpenalties, to take in the whole of the bowl at a gasp. In anothercorner, huddled together for companionship, were the little boyswho had arrived on the preceding night, three of them in verylarge leather breeches, and two in old trousers, a somethingtighter fit than drawers are usually worn; at no great distance fromthese was seated the juvenile son and heir of Mr Squeers—astriking likeness of his father—kicking, with great vigour, underthe hands of Smike, who was fitting upon him a pair of new bootsthat bore a most suspicious resemblance to those which the leastof the little boys had worn on the journey down—as the little boyhimself seemed to think, for he was regarding the appropriationwith a look of most rueful amazement. Besides these, there was along row of boys waiting, with countenances of no pleasantanticipation, to be treacled; and another file, who had just escapedfrom 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 beenirresistibly 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, ‘isthat 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 torestore him. ‘Here, you Smike; take away now. Look sharp!’
Smike shuffled out with the basin, and Mrs Squeers havingcalled up a little boy with a curly head, and wiped her hands uponit, hurried out after him into a species of wash-house, where therewas a small fire and a large kettle, together with a number of littlewooden bowls which were arranged upon a board.
Into these bowls, Mrs Squeers, assisted by the hungry servant,poured a brown composition, which looked like dilutedpincushions without the covers, and was called porridge. A minutewedge of brown bread was inserted in each bowl, and when theyhad eaten their porridge by means of the bread, the boys ate thebread itself, and had finished their breakfast; whereupon MrSqueers said, in a solemn voice, ‘For what we have received, maythe Lord make us truly thankful!’—and went away to his own.
Nicholas distended his stomach with a bowl of porridge, formuch the same reason which induces some savages to swallowearth—lest they should be inconveniently hungry when there isnothing to eat. Having further disposed of a slice of bread andbutter, 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 allseemed to be. There was none of the noise and clamour of aschoolroom; none of its boisterous play, or hearty mirth. Thechildren sat crouching and shivering together, and seemed to lackthe spirit to move about. The only pupil who evinced the slightesttendency towards locomotion or playfulness was Master Squeers,and as his chief amusement was to tread upon the other boys’ toesin his new boots, his flow of spirits was rather disagreeable thanotherwise.
After some half-hour’s delay, Mr Squeers reappeared, and theboys took their places and their books, of which latter commoditythe average might be about one to eight learners. A few minuteshaving elapsed, during which Mr Squeers looked very profound,as if he had a perfect apprehension of what was inside all thebooks, and could say every word of their contents by heart if heonly chose to take the trouble, that gentleman called up the firstclass.
Obedient to this summons there ranged themselves in front ofthe schoolmaster’s desk, half-a-dozen scarecrows, out at knees andelbows, one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath hislearned 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 thetemporary head of the philosophical class.
‘So he is, to be sure,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘We go upon thepractical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour. W-in, win, d-e-r, der, winder, a casement. When the boy knows thisout of book, he goes and does it. It’s just the same principle as theuse 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 meansa 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 ofhis 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 throughthe grammar knows, or else where’s the use of having grammarsat 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 youdown. The rest of the class go and draw water up, till somebodytells you to leave off, for it’s washing-day tomorrow, and they wantthe coppers filled.’
So saying, he dismissed the first class to their experiments inpractical philosophy, and eyed Nicholas with a look, half cunningand 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 scarcelyperceptible, and said he saw it was.
‘And a very good way it is, too,’ said Squeers. ‘Now, just takethem fourteen little boys and hear them some reading, because,you know, you must begin to be useful. Idling about here won’tdo.’
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 hisassistant 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 recitalof those stories of engrossing interest which are to be found in themore antiquated spelling-books.
In this exciting occupation, the morning lagged heavily on. Atone o’clock, the boys, having previously had their appetitesthoroughly taken away by stir-about and potatoes, sat down in thekitchen to some hard salt beef, of which Nicholas was graciouslypermitted to take his portion to his own solitary desk, to eat itthere in peace. After this, there was another hour of crouching inthe schoolroom and shivering with cold, and then school beganagain.
It was Mr Squeer’s custom to call the boys together, and make asort of report, after every half-yearly visit to the metropolis,regarding the relations and friends he had seen, the news he hadheard, the letters he had brought down, the bills which had beenpaid, the accounts which had been left unpaid, and so forth. Thissolemn proceeding always took place in the afternoon of the day succeeding his return; perhaps, because the boys acquiredstrength of mind from the suspense of the morning, or, possibly,because Mr Squeers himself acquired greater sternness andinflexibility from certain warm potations in which he was wont toindulge after his early dinner. Be this as it may, the boys wererecalled from house-window, garden, stable, and cow-yard, andthe school were assembled in full conclave, when Mr Squeers,with a small bundle of papers in his hand, and Mrs S. followingwith a pair of canes, entered the room and proclaimed silence.
‘Let any boy speak a word without leave,’ said Mr Squeersmildly, ‘and I’ll take the skin off his back.’
This special proclamation had the desired effect, and adeathlike silence immediately prevailed, in the midst of which MrSqueers went on to say:
‘Boys, I’ve been to London, and have returned to my family andyou, as strong and well as ever.’
According to half-yearly custom, the boys gave three feeblecheers at this refreshing intelligence. Such cheers! Sights of extrastrength 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 sonsare 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 allparties.’
Two or three hands went to two or three eyes when Squeerssaid this, but the greater part of the young gentlemen having noparticular parents to speak of, were wholly uninterested in thething 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. Boysare 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 eyesimploringly to Squeers’s face; his own, quite white from the rapidbeating of his heart.
‘Bolder,’ said Squeers, speaking very slowly, for he wasconsidering, as the saying goes, where to have him. ‘Bolder, if youfather thinks that because—why, what’s this, sir?’
As Squeers spoke, he caught up the boy’s hand by the cuff ofhis jacket, and surveyed it with an edifying aspect of horror anddisgust.
‘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 willcome; it’s the dirty work I think, sir—at least I don’t know what itis, sir, but it’s not my fault.’
‘Bolder,’ said Squeers, tucking up his wristbands, andmoistening the palm of his right hand to get a good grip of thecane, ‘you’re an incorrigible young scoundrel, and as the lastthrashing did you no good, we must see what another will dotowards beating it out of you.’
With this, and wholly disregarding a piteous cry for mercy, MrSqueers 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’thold that noise, won’t you? Put him out, Smike.’
The drudge knew better from long experience, than to hesitateabout obeying, so he bundled the victim out by a side-door, andMr Squeers perched himself again on his own stool, supported byMrs 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 whileSqueers made a mental abstract of the same.
‘Oh!’ said Squeers: ‘Cobbey’s grandmother is dead, and hisuncle John has took to drinking, which is all the news his sistersends, except eighteenpence, which will just pay for that brokensquare of glass. Mrs Squeers, my dear, will you take the money?’
The worthy lady pocketed the eighteenpence with a mostbusiness-like air, and Squeers passed on to the next boy, as coollyas possible.
‘Graymarsh,’ said Squeers, ‘he’s the next. Stand up,Graymarsh.’
Another boy stood up, and the schoolmaster looked over theletter as before.
‘Graymarsh’s maternal aunt,’ said Squeers, when he hadpossessed himself of the contents, ‘is very glad to hear he’s so welland happy, and sends her respectful compliments to Mrs Squeers,and thinks she must be an angel. She likewise thinks Mr Squeersis too good for this world; but hopes he may long be spared tocarry on the business. Would have sent the two pair of stockings asdesired, but is short of money, so forwards a tract instead, andhopes 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 loveMaster Squeers; and not object to sleeping five in a bed, which noChristian should. Ah!’ said Squeers, folding it up, ‘a delightfulletter. Very affecting indeed.’
It was affecting in one sense, for Graymarsh’s maternal auntwas strongly supposed, by her more intimate friends, to be noother than his maternal parent; Squeers, however, withoutalluding to this part of the story (which would have soundedimmoral before boys), proceeded with the business by calling out‘Mobbs,’ whereupon another boy rose, and Graymarsh resumedhis seat.
‘Mobbs’s step-mother,’ said Squeers, ‘took to her bed onhearing 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, ifhe quarrels with his vittles; and with what feelings he could turnup his nose at the cow’s-liver broth, after his good master hadasked a blessing on it. This was told her in the Londonnewspapers—not by Mr Squeers, for he is too kind and too good toset anybody against anybody—and it has vexed her so much,Mobbs can’t think. She is sorry to find he is discontented, which issinful and horrid, and hopes Mr Squeers will flog him into ahappier state of mind; with which view, she has also stopped hishalfpenny a week pocket-money, and given a double-bladed knifewith a corkscrew in it to the Missionaries, which she had boughton 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 inanticipation of good cause for doing so; and he soon afterwardsretired by the side-door, with as good cause as a boy need have.
Mr Squeers then proceeded to open a miscellaneous collectionof letters; some enclosing money, which Mrs Squeers ‘took careof;’ and others referring to small articles of apparel, as caps and soforth, all of which the same lady stated to be too large, or too small,and calculated for nobody but young Squeers, who would appearindeed to have had most accommodating limbs, since everythingthat came into the school fitted him to a nicety. His head, inparticular, must have been singularly elastic, for hats and caps ofall dimensions were alike to him.
This business dispatched, a few slovenly lessons wereperformed, and Squeers retired to his fireside, leaving Nicholas totake care of the boys in the school-room, which was very cold, andwhere a meal of bread and cheese was served out shortly afterdark.
There was a small stove at that corner of the room which wasnearest to the master’s desk, and by it Nicholas sat down, sodepressed and self-degraded by the consciousness of his position,that if death could have come upon him at that time, he wouldhave been almost happy to meet it. The cruelty of which he hadbeen an unwilling witness, the coarse and ruffianly behaviour ofSqueers even in his best moods, the filthy place, the sights andsounds about him, all contributed to this state of feeling; but whenhe recollected that, being there as an assistant, he actuallyseemed—no matter what unhappy train of circumstances hadbrought him to that pass—to be the aider and abettor of a system which filled him with honest disgust and indignation, he loathedhimself, and felt, for the moment, as though the mereconsciousness of his present situation must, through all time tocome, prevent his raising his head again.
But, for the present, his resolve was taken, and the resolutionhe had formed on the preceding night remained undisturbed. Hehad written to his mother and sister, announcing the safeconclusion of his journey, and saying as little about DotheboysHall, and saying that little as cheerfully, as he possibly could. Hehoped that by remaining where he was, he might do some good,even there; at all events, others depended too much on his uncle’sfavour, to admit of his awakening his wrath just then.
One reflection disturbed him far more than any selfishconsiderations arising out of his own position. This was theprobable destination of his sister Kate. His uncle had deceivedhim, and might he not consign her to some miserable place whereher youth and beauty would prove a far greater curse thanugliness 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 livingin the world, and of it. He was willing to believe that RalphNickleby had conceived a personal dislike to himself. Havingpretty good reason, by this time, to reciprocate it, he had no greatdifficulty in arriving at this conclusion, and tried to persuadehimself that the feeling extended no farther than between them.
As he was absorbed in these meditations, he all at onceencountered the upturned face of Smike, who was on his kneesbefore the stove, picking a few stray cinders from the hearth andplanting them on the fire. He had paused to steal a look at Nicholas, and when he saw that he was observed, shrunk back, asif 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 Nicholascould not help exclaiming, ‘Poor fellow!’
If he had struck the drudge, he would have slunk away withouta word. But, now, he burst into tears.
‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ he cried, covering his face with his crackedand horny hands. ‘My heart will break. It will, it will.’
‘Hush!’ said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder. ‘Be aman; 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 thatare here now! Where are they all!’
‘Whom do you speak of?’ inquired Nicholas, wishing to rousethe poor half-witted creature to reason. ‘Tell me.’
‘My friends,’ he replied, ‘myself—my—oh! what sufferings minehave been!’
‘There is always hope,’ said Nicholas; he knew not what to say.
‘No,’ rejoined the other, ‘no; none for me. Do you remember theboy that died here?’
‘I was not here, you know,’ said Nicholas gently; ‘but what ofhim?’
‘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 tosee 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 cannotcome from home; they would frighten me, if they did, for I don’tknow what it is, and shouldn’t know them. Pain and fear, pain andfear for me, alive or dead. No hope, no hope!’
The bell rang to bed: and the boy, subsiding at the sound intohis usual listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice. Itwas with a heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards—no, notretired; there was no retirement there—followed—to his dirty andcrowded dormitory.
| 欢迎访问英文小说网http://novel.tingroom.com |