第240章

`Scandal again!' cried Squeers. `Recollect, you an't worth powder and shot, but I'll be even with you one way or another.'

`Stop,' interposed Ralph, as Snawley was about to speak. `Let us cut this matter short, and not bandy words here with hare-brained profligates.

This is your son, as you can prove--and you, Mr Squeers, you know this boy to be the same that was with you for so many years under the name of Smike--do you?'

`Do I!' returned Squeers. `Don't I?'

`Good,' said Ralph; `a very few words will be sufficient here. You had a son by your first wife, Mr Snawley?'

`I had,' replied that person, `and there he stands.'

`We'll show that presently,' said Ralph. `You and your wife were separated, and she had the boy to live with her, when he was a year old. You received a communication from her, when you had lived apart a year or two, that the boy was dead; and you believed it?'

`Of course I did!' returned Snawley. `Oh the joy of--'

`Be rational, sir, pray,' said Ralph. `This is business, and transports interfere with it. This wife died a year and a half ago, or thereabouts--not more--in some obscure place, where she was housekeeper in a family. Is that the case?'

`That's the case,' replied Snawley.

`Having written on her death-bed a letter or confession to you, about this very boy, which, as it was not directed otherwise than in you name, only reached you, and that by a circuitous course, a few days since?'

`Just so,' said Snawley. `Correct in every particular, sir.'

`And this confession,' resumed Ralph, `is to the effect that his death was an invention of hers to wound you--was a part of a system of annoyance, in short, which you seem to have adopted towards each other--that the boy lived, but was of weak and imperfect intellect--that she sent him by a trusty hand to a cheap school in Yorkshire--that she had paid for his education for some years, and then, being poor, and going a long way off, gradually deserted him, for which she prayed forgiveness?'

Snawley nodded his head, and wiped his eyes; the first slightly, the last violently.

`The school was Mr Squeers's,' continued Ralph; `the boy was left there in the name of Smike; every description was fully given, dates tally exactly with Mr Squeers's books, Mr Squeers is lodging with you at this time; you have two other boys at his school: you communicated the whole discovery to him, he brought you to me as the person who had recommended to him the kidnapper of his child; and I brought you here. Is that so?'

`You talk like a good book, sir, that's got nothing in its inside but what's the truth,' replied Snawley.

`This is your pocket-book,' said Ralph, producing one from his coat;`the certificates of your first marriage and of the boy's birth, and your wife's two letters, and every other paper that can support these statements directly or by implication, are here, are they?'

`Every one of'em, sir.'

`And you don't object to their being looked at here, so that these people may be convinced of your power to substantiate your claim at once in law and reason, and you may resume your control over your own son without more delay. Do I understand you?'

`I couldn't have understood myself better, sir.'

`There, then,' said Ralph, tossing the pocket-book upon the table. `Let them see them if they like; and as those are the original papers, I should recommend you to stand near while they are being examined, or you may chance to lose some.'

With these words Ralph sat down unbidden, and compressing his lips, which were for the moment slightly parted by a smile, folded his arms, and looked for the first time at his nephew.

Nicholas, stung by the concluding taunt, darted an indignant glance at him; but commanding himself as well as he could, entered upon a close examination of the documents, at which John Browdie assisted. There was nothing about them which could be called in question. The certificates were regularly signed as extracts from the parish books, the first letter had a genuine appearance of having been written and preserved for some years, the handwriting of the second tallied with it exactly, (making proper allowance for its having been written by a person in extremity,) and there were several other corroboratory scraps of entries and memoranda which it was equally difficult to question.

`Dear Nicholas,' whispered Kate, who had been looking anxiously over his shoulder, `can this be really the case? Is this statement true?'

`I fear it is,' answered Nicholas. `What say you, John?' `John scratched his head and shook it, but said nothing at all.

`You will observe, ma'am,' said Ralph, addressing himself to Mrs Nickleby, `that this boy being a minor and not of strong mind, we might have come here tonight, armed with the powers of the law, and backed by a troop of its myrmidons. I should have done so, ma'am, unquestionably, but for my regard for the feelings of yourself--and your daughter.'

`You have shown your regard for her feelings well,' said Nicholas, drawing his sister towards him.

`Thank you,' replied Ralph. `Your praise, sir, is commendation, indeed.'

`Well,' said Squeers, `what's to be done? Them hackney-coach horses will catch cold if we don't think of moving; there's one of'em a sneezing now, so that he blows the street--door right open. What's the order of the day--eh? Is Master Snawley to come along with us?'

`No, no, no,' replied Smike, drawing back, and clinging to Nicholas.

`No. Pray, no. I will not go from you with him. No, no.'

`This is a cruel thing,' said Snawley, looking to his friends for support.

`Do parents bring children into the world for this?'