The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book Part 28

"I was driven to it," said Smike, faintly; and casting another imploring look about him.

"Driven to it, were you?" said Squeers. "Oh! it wasn't your fault; it was mine, I suppose--eh?"

"A nasty, ungrateful, pig-headed, brutish, obstinate, sneaking dog,"

exclaimed Mrs. Squeers, taking Smike's head under her arm and administering a cuff at every epithet; "what does he mean by that?"

"Stand aside, my dear," replied Squeers. "We'll try and find out."

Mrs. Squeers being out of breath with her exertions, complied. Squeers caught the boy firmly in his grip; one desperate cut had fallen on his body--he was wincing from the lash and uttering a scream of pain--it was raised again, and again about to fall--when Nicholas Nickleby, suddenly starting up, cried "Stop!" in a voice that made the rafters ring.

"Who cried stop?" asked Squeers, turning savagely round.

"I," said Nicholas, stepping forward. "This must not go on."

"Must not go on!" cried Squeers, almost in a shriek.

"No!" thundered Nicholas.

Aghast and stupefied at the boldness of the interference, Squeers released his hold of Smike, and, falling back a pace, gazed upon Nicholas with looks that were positively frightful.

"I say must not," repeated Nicholas, nothing daunted; "shall not, I will prevent it."

Squeers continued to gaze upon him with his eyes starting out of his head; but astonishment had actually for the moment bereft him of speech.

"You have disregarded all my quiet interference in this miserable lad's behalf," said Nicholas; "you have returned no answer to the letter in which I begged forgiveness for him and offered to be responsible that he would remain quietly here. Don't blame me for this public interference.

You have brought it upon yourself; not I."

"Sit down, beggar!" screamed Squeers, almost beside himself with rage, and seizing Smike as he spoke.

"Wretch," rejoined Nicholas, fiercely, "touch him at your peril! I will not stand by and see it done. My blood is up, and I have the strength of ten such men as you. Look to yourself, for by Heaven I will not spare you, if you drive me on!"

"Stand back!" cried Squeers, brandishing his weapon.

"I have a long series of insults to avenge," said Nicholas, flushed with pa.s.sion; "and my indignation is aggravated by the dastardly cruelties practised on helpless infancy in this foul den. Have a care; for if you do raise the devil within me, the consequences shall fall heavily upon your own head!"

He had scarcely spoken, when Squeers in a violent outbreak of wrath, and with a cry like the howl of a wild beast, spat upon him and struck him a blow across the face with his instrument of torture, which raised a bar of livid flesh as it was inflicted. Smarting with the agony of the blow, and concentrating into that one moment all his feelings of rage, scorn, and indignation, Nicholas sprang upon him, wrested the weapon from his hand, and pinning him by the throat beat the ruffian till he roared for mercy.

The boys--with the exception of Master Squeers, who, coming to his father's a.s.sistance, hara.s.sed the enemy in the rear--moved not hand or foot; but Mrs. Squeers, with many shrieks for aid, hung on to the tail of her partner's coat and endeavoured to drag him from his infuriated adversary; while Miss Squeers, who had been peeping through the keyhole in the expectation of a very different scene, darted in at the very beginning of the attack, and after launching a shower of inkstands at the usher's head, beat Nicholas to her heart's content; animating herself, at every blow, with the recollection of his having refused her proffered love, and thus imparting additional strength to an arm which (as she took after her mother in this respect) was, at no time, of the weakest.

Nicholas, in the full strength of his violence, felt the blows no more than if they had been dealt with feathers; but, becoming tired of the noise and uproar, and feeling that his arm grew weaker besides, he threw all his remaining strength into half a dozen finishing cuts, and flung Squeers from him, with all the force he could muster. The violence of his fall precipitated Mrs. Squeers completely over an adjacent form; Squeers, striking his head against it in his descent, lay at his full length on the ground, stunned and motionless.

Having brought affairs to this happy termination, and ascertained, to his thorough satisfaction, that Squeers was only stunned, and not dead (upon which point he had some unpleasant doubts at first), Nicholas left his family to restore him, and retired to consider what course he had better adopt. He looked anxiously round for Smike, as he left the room, but he was nowhere to be seen.

After a brief consideration, he packed up a few clothes in a small valise, and, finding that n.o.body offered to oppose his progress, marched boldly out by the front door, and, shortly afterward, struck into the road which led to the Greta Bridge.

d.i.c.kens: "Nicholas Nickleby."

d.i.c.kENS IN THE CAMP

Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting, The river sang below; The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting Their minarets of snow.

The roaring camp-fire, with rude humour, painted The ruddy tints of health On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted In the fierce race for wealth;

Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure A h.o.a.rded volume drew, And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure To hear the tale anew.

And then, while round them shadows gathered faster, And as the firelight fell, He read aloud the book wherein the Master Had writ of "Little Nell."

Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,--for the reader Was youngest of them all,-- But, as he read, from cl.u.s.tering pine and cedar A silence seemed to fall;

The fir trees, gathering closer in the shadows, Listened in every spray, While the whole camp, with "Nell" on English meadows, Wandered and lost their way.

And so in mountain solitudes--o'ertaken As by some spell divine-- Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken From out the gusty pine.

Lost is that camp and wasted all its fire: And he who wrought that spell?-- Ah! towering pine and stately Kentish spire, Ye have one tale to tell!

Lost is that camp, but let its fragrant story Blend with the breath that thrills With hopvines' incense all the pensive glory That fills the Kentish hills.

And on that grave where English oak, and holly, And laurel wreaths entwine, Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,-- This spray of Western pine!

Bret Harte

DOST THOU LOOK BACK ON WHAT HATH BEEN

Dost thou look back on what hath been, As some divinely gifted man, Whose life in low estate began And on a simple village green;

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And b.r.e.a.s.t.s the blows of circ.u.mstance, And grapples with his evil star;

Who makes by force his merit known, And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne;

And moving up from high to higher, Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope The pillar of a people's hope, The centre of a world's desire;

Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, When all his active powers are still, A distant dearness in the hill, A secret sweetness in the stream,

The limit of his narrower fate, While yet beside its vocal springs He played at counsellors and kings, With one that was his earliest mate;

Who ploughs with pain his native lea, And reaps the labour of his hands, Or in the furrow musing stands; "Does my old friend remember me?"

Tennyson: "In Memoriam, LXIV."