第58章

The wretched creature, Smike, since the night Nicholas had spoken kindly to him in the schoolroom, had followed him to and fro, with an ever-restless desire to serve or help him; anticipating such little wants as his humble ability could supply, and content only to be near him. He would sit beside him for hours, looking patiently into his face; and a word would brighten up his care-worn visage, and call into it a passing gleam, even of happiness.

He was an altered being; he had an object now; and that object was, to show his attachment to the only person--that person a stranger--who had treated him, not to say with kindness, but like a human creature.

Upon this poor being, all the spleen and ill-humour that could not be vented on Nicholas were unceasingly bestowed. Drudgery would have been nothing--Smike was well used to that. Buffetings inflicted without cause, would have been equally a matter of course; for to them also he had served a long and weary apprenticeship; but it was no sooner observed that he had become attached to Nicholas, than stripes and blows, stripes and blows, morning, noon, and night, were his only portion. Squeers was jealous of the influence which his man had so soon acquired, and his family hated him, and Smike paid for both. Nicholas saw it, and ground his teeth at every repetition of the savage and cowardly attack.

He had arranged a few regular lessons for the boys; and one night, as he paced up and down the dismal schoolroom, his swoln heart almost bursting to think that his protection and countenance should have increased the misery of the wretched being whose peculiar destitution had awakened his pity, he paused mechanically in a dark corner where sat the object of his thoughts.

The poor soul was poring hard over a tattered book, with the traces of recent tears still upon his face; vainly endeavouring to master some task which a child of nine years old, possessed of ordinary powers, could have conquered with ease, but which, to the addled brain of the crushed boy of nineteen, was a sealed and hopeless mystery. Yet there he sat, patiently conning the page again and again, stimulated by no boyish ambition, for he was the common jest and scoff even of the uncouth objects that congregated about him, but inspired by the one eager desire to please his solitary friend.

Nicholas laid his hand upon his shoulder.

`I can't do it,' said the dejected creature, looking up with bitter disappointment in every feature. `No, no.'

`Do not try,' replied Nicholas.

The boy shook his head, and closing the book with a sigh, looked vacantly round, and laid his head upon his arm. He was weeping.

`Do not for God's sake,' said Nicholas, in an agitated voice; `I cannot bear to see you.'

`They are more hard with me than ever,' sobbed the boy.

`I know it,' rejoined Nicholas. `They are.'

`But for you,' said the outcast, `I should die. They would kill me;they would; I know they would.'

`You will do better, poor fellow,' replied Nicholas, shaking his head mournfully, `when I am gone.'

`Gone!' cried the other, looking intently in his face.

`Softly!' rejoined Nicholas. `Yes.'

`Are you going?' demanded the boy, in an earnest whisper.

`I cannot say,' replied Nicholas. `I was speaking more to my own thoughts, than to you.'

`Tell me,' said the boy imploringly, `oh do tell me, will you go--will you?'

`I shall be driven to that at last!' said Nicholas. `The world is before me, after all.'

`Tell me,' urged Smike, `is the world as bad and dismal as this place?'

`Heaven forbid,' replied Nicholas, pursuing the train of his own thoughts;`its hardest, coarsest toil, were happiness to this.'

`Should I ever meet you there?' demanded the boy, speaking with unusual wildness and volubility.

`Yes,' replied Nicholas, willing to soothe him.

`No, no!' said the other, clasping him by the hand. `Should I--should I--tell me that again. Say I should be sure to find you.'

`You would,' replied Nicholas, with the same humane intention, `and I would help and aid you, and not bring fresh sorrow on you as I have done here.'

The boy caught both the young man's hands passionately in his, and, hugging them to his breast, uttered a few broken sounds which were unintelligible.

Squeers entered at the moment, and he shrunk back into his old corner.