第102章

Do innocent men inveigle nameless vagabonds, and prowl with them about the country as idle robbers do? Assault, riot, theft, what do you call these?'

`A lie!' cried a voice, as the door was dashed open, and Nicholas came into the room.

In the first moment of surprise, and possibly of alarm, Ralph rose from his seat, and fell back a few paces, quite taken off his guard by this unexpected apparition. In another moment, he stood, fixed and immovable with folded arms, regarding his nephew with a scowl; while Kate and Miss La Creevy threw themselves between the two, to prevent the personal violence which the fierce excitement of Nicholas appeared to threaten.

`Dear Nicholas,' cried his sister, clinging to him. `Be calm, consider--``Consider, Kate!' cried Nicholas, clasping her hand so tight in the tumult of his anger, that she could scarcely bear the pain. `When I consider all, and think of what has passed, I need be made of iron to stand before him.'

`Or bronze,' said Ralph, quietly; `there is not hardihood enough in flesh and blood to face it out.'

`Oh dear, dear!' cried Mrs Nickleby, `that things should have come to such a pass as this!'

`Who speaks in a tone, as if I had done wrong, and brought disgrace on them?' said Nicholas, looking round.

`Your mother, sir,' replied Ralph, motioning towards her.

`Whose ears have been poisoned by you,' said Nicholas; `by you--who, under pretence of deserving the thanks she poured upon you, heaped every insult, wrong, and indignity upon my head. You, who sent me to a den where sordid cruelty, worthy of yourself, runs wanton, and youthful misery stalks precocious; where the lightness of childhood shrinks into the heaviness of age, and its every promise blights, and withers as it grows. I call Heaven to witness,' said Nicholas, looking eagerly round, `that I have seen all this, and that he knows it.'

`Refute these calumnies,' said Kate, `and be more patient, so that you may give them no advantage. Tell us what you really did, and show that they are untrue.'

`Of what do they--or of what does he--accuse me?' said Nicholas.

`First, of attacking your master, and being within an ace of qualifying yourself to be tried for murder,' interposed Ralph. `I speak plainly, young man, bluster as you will.'

`I interfered,' said Nicholas, `to save a miserable creature from the vilest cruelty. In so doing, I inflicted such punishment upon a wretch as he will not readily forget, though far less than he deserved from me.

If the same scene were renewed before me now, I would take the same part;but I would strike harder and heavier, and brand him with such marks as he should carry to his grave, go to it when he would.'

`You hear?' said Ralph, turning to Mrs Nickleby. `Penitence, this!'

`Oh dear me!' cried Mrs Nickleby, `I don't know what to think, I really don't.'

`Do not speak just now, mamma, I entreat you,' said Kate. `Dear Nicholas, I only tell you, that you may know what wickedness can prompt, but they accuse you of--a ring is missing, and they dare to say that--``The woman,' said Nicholas, haughtily, `the wife of the fellow from whom these charges come, dropped--as I suppose--a worthless ring among some clothes of mine, early in the morning on which I left the house. At least, I know that she was in the bedroom where they lay, struggling with an unhappy child, and that I found it when I opened my bundle on the road.

I returned it, at once, by coach, and they have it now.'

`I knew, I knew,' said Kate, looking towards her uncle. `About this boy, love, in whose company they say you left?'

`The boy, a silly, helpless creature, from brutality and hard usage, is with me now,' rejoined Nicholas.

`You hear?' said Ralph, appealing to the mother again, `everything proved, even upon his own confession. Do you choose to restore that boy, sir?'

`No, I do not,' replied Nicholas.

`You do not?' sneered Ralph.

`No,' repeated Nicholas, `not to the man with whom I found him. I would that I knew on whom he has the claim of birth: I might wring something from his sense of shame, if he were dead to every tie of nature.'

`Indeed!' said Ralph. `Now, sir, will you hear a word or two from me?'

`You can speak when and what you please,' replied Nicholas, embracing his sister. `I take little heed of what you say or threaten.'

`Mighty well, sir,' retorted Ralph; `but perhaps it may concern others, who may think it worth their while to listen, and consider what I tell them. I will address your mother, sir, who knows the world.'

`Ah! and I only too dearly wish I didn't,' sobbed Mrs Nickleby.

There really was no necessity for the good lady to be much distressed upon this particular head; the extent of her worldly knowledge being, to say the least, very questionable; and so Ralph seemed to think, for he smiled as she spoke. He then glanced steadily at her and Nicholas by turns, as he delivered himself in these words:

`Of what I have done, or what I meant to do, for you, ma'am, and my niece, I say not one syllable. I held out no promise, and leave you to judge for yourself. I hold out no threat now, but I say that this boy, headstrong, wilful and disorderly as he is, should not have one penny of my money, or one crust of my bread, or one grasp of my hand, to save him from the loftiest gallows in all Europe. I will not meet him, come where he comes, or hear his name. I will not help him, or those who help him.

With a full knowledge of what he brought upon you by so doing, he has come back in his selfish sloth, to be an aggravation of your wants, and a burden upon his sister's scanty wages. I regret to leave you, and more to leave her, now, but I will not encourage this compound of meanness and cruelty, and, as I will not ask you to renounce him, I see you no more.'