第335章

An old acquaintance is recognised under melancholy circumstances, and Dotheboys Hall breaks up for ever N ICHOLAS was one of those whose joy is incomplete unless it is shared by the friends of adverse and less fortunate days.

Surrounded by every fascination of love and hope, his warm heart yearned towards plain John Browdie. He remembered their first meeting with a smile, and their second with a tear; saw poor Smike once again with the bundle on his shoulder trudging patiently by his side; and heard the honest Yorkshireman's rough words of encouragement as he left them on their road to London.

Madeline and he sat down, very many times, jointly to produce a letter which should acquaint John at full length with his altered fortunes, and assure him of his friendship and gratitude. It so happened, however, that the letter could never be written. Although they applied themselves to it with the best intentions in the world, it chanced that they always fell to talking about something else, and when Nicholas tried it by himself, he found it impossible to write one-half of what he wished to say, or to pen anything, indeed, which on re-perusal did not appear cold and unsatisfactory compared with what he had in his mind. At last, after going on thus from day to day, and reproaching himself more and more, he resolved (the more readily as Madeline strongly urged him) to make a hasty trip into Yorkshire, and present himself before Mr and Mrs Browdie without a word of notice.

Thus it was that between seven and eight o'clock one evening, he and Kate found themselves in the Saracen's Head booking-office, securing a place to Greta Bridge by the next morning's coach. They had to go westward, to procure some little necessaries for his journey, and, as it was a fine night, they agreed to walk there, and ride home.

The place they had just been in called up so many recollections, and Kate had so many anecdotes of Madeline, and Nicholas so many anecdotes of Frank, and each was so interested in what the other said, and both were so happy and confiding, and had so much to talk about, that it was not until they had plunged for a full half-hour into that labyrinth of streets which lies between Seven Dials and Soho, without emerging into any large thoroughfare, that Nicholas began to think it just possible they might have lost their way.

The possibility was soon converted into a certainty; for, on looking about, and walking first to one end of the street and then to the other, he could find no landmark he could recognise, and was fain to turn back again in quest of some place at which he could seek a direction.

It was a by-street, and there was nobody about, or in the few wretched shops they passed. Making towards a faint gleam of light which streamed across the pavement from a cellar, Nicholas was about to descend two or three steps so as to render himself visible to those below and make his inquiry, when he was arrested by a loud noise of scolding in a woman's voice.

`Oh come away!' said Kate, `they are quarrelling. You'll be hurt.'

`Wait one instant, Kate. Let us hear if there's anything the matter,'

returned her brother. `Hush!'

`You nasty, idle, vicious, good-for-nothing brute,' cried the woman, stamping on the ground, `why don't you turn the mangle?'

`So I am, my life and soul!' replied the man's voice. `I am always turning.

I am perpetually turning, like a demd old horse in a demnition mill. My life is one demd horrid grind!'

`Then why don't you go and list for a soldier?' retorted the woman;`you're welcome to.'

`For a soldier!' cried the man. `For a soldier! Would his joy and gladness see him in a coarse red coat with a little tail? Would she hear of his being slapped and beat by drummers demnebly? Would she have him fire off real guns, and have his hair cut, and his whiskers shaved, and his eyes turned right and left, and his trousers pipeclayed?'

`Dear Nicholas,' whispered Kate, `you don't know who that is. It's Mr Mantalini I am confident.'

`Do make sure! Peep at him while I ask the way,' said Nicholas. `Come down a step or two -- come!'

Drawing her after him, Nicholas crept down the steps and looked into a small boarded cellar. There, amidst clothes-baskets and clothes, stripped up to his shirt-sleeves, but wearing still an old patched pair of pantaloons of superlative make, a once brilliant waistcoat, and moustache and whiskers as of yore, but lacking their lustrous dye -- there, endeavouring to mollify the wrath of a buxom female -- not the lawful Madame Mantalini, but the proprietress of the concern -- and grinding meanwhile as if for very life at the mangle, whose creaking noise, mingled with her shrill tones, appeared almost to deafen him -- there was the graceful, elegant, fascinating, and once dashing Mantalini.

`Oh you false traitor!' cried the lady, threatening personal violence on Mr Mantalini's face.

`False! Oh dem! Now my soul, my gentle, captivating, bewitching, and most demnebly enslaving chick-a-biddy, be calm,' said Mr Mantalini, humbly.

`I won't!' screamed the woman. `I'll tear your eyes out!'

`Oh! What a demd savage lamb!' cried Mr Mantalini.

`You're never to be trusted,' screamed the woman; `you were out all day yesterday, and gallivanting somewhere I know -- you know you were!

Isn't it enough that I paid two pound fourteen for you, and took you out of prison and let you live here like a gentleman, but must you go on like this: breaking, my heart besides?'

`I will never break its heart, I will be a good boy, and never do so any more; I will never be naughty again; I beg its little pardon,' said Mr Mantalini, dropping the handle of the mangle, and folding his palms together; `it is all up with its handsome friend! He has gone to the demnition bow-wows. It will have pity? it will not scratch and claw, but pet and comfort? Oh, demmit!'

Very little affected, to judge from her action, by this tender appeal, the lady was on the point of returning some angry reply, when Nicholas, raising his voice, asked his way to Piccadilly.