by Charles Dickens
“Education.—At Mr. Wackford Squeers’s Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, Youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructed in all languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes, algebra, single stick (if required), writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. Terms, twenty guineas per annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled. Mr. Squeers is in town, and attends daily, from one till four, at the Saracen’s Head, Snow Hill. N.B. An able assistant wanted. Annual salary £5. A Master of Arts would be preferred.”
To Nicholas Nickleby, a young man of nineteen, who had come to London seeking his fortune, this advertisement in a daily paper seemed a godsend—that is, provided he could secure the position referred to in the last two lines. It is true the salary was not large; but he reflected that his board and living would be included, and that a young man of his education and ability would be bound to rise. He even fancied himself, in a rosy-colored future, at the head of this model school, Dotheboys Hall, in the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge, in Yorkshire.
But it would not do to sit dreaming. Some one else might snap up this golden opportunity. Nicholas brushed his clothes carefully and lost no time in calling upon Mr. Squeers, at the tavern called the Saracen’s Head.
Mr. Squeers’s appearance was not prepossessing. He had but one eye which, while it was unquestionably useful, was decidedly not ornamental, being of a greenish gray and in shape resembling the fan-light of a street-door. The blank side of his face was much wrinkled and puckered up, which gave him a very sinister appearance, especially when he smiled, at which times his expression bordered closely on the villanous. He was about two or three and fifty, and a trifle below the middle size; and he wore a white neckerchief with long ends, and a suit of scholastic black.
Mr. Squeers was standing in a box by one of the coffee-room fireplaces, fitted with one such table as is usually seen in coffee-rooms. In a corner of the seat was a very small deal trunk, tied round with a scanty piece of cord; and on the trunk was perched—his lace-up half-boots and corduroy trousers dangling in the air—a diminutive boy, with his shoulders drawn up to his ears, and his hands planted on his knees, who glanced timidly at the schoolmaster, from time to time, with evident dread. Presently the boy chanced to give a violent sneeze.
“Hallo, sir!” growled the schoolmaster, turning round. “What’s that, sir?”
“Nothing, please, sir,” replied the little boy.
“Nothing, sir!” exclaimed Mr. Squeers.
“Please, sir, I sneezed,” rejoined the boy, trembling till the little trunk shook under him.
“Oh! sneezed, did you?” retorted Mr. Squeers. “Then what did you say ‘nothing’ for, sir?”
In default of a better answer to this question, the little boy screwed a couple of knuckles into each of his eyes and began to cry; wherefore Mr. Squeers knocked him off the trunk with a blow on one side of his face, and knocked him on again with a blow on the other.
“Wait till I get you down to Yorkshire, my young gentleman,” said Mr. Squeers, “and then I’ll give you the rest. Will you hold that noise, sir?”
“Ye-ye-yes,” sobbed the little boy, rubbing his face very hard.
“Then do so at once, sir,” said Squeers. “Do you hear?”
The little boy rubbed his face harder, as if to keep the tears back; and, beyond alternately sniffing and choking, gave no farther vent to his emotions.
“Mr. Squeers,” said the waiter, looking in at this juncture, “here’s a gentleman asking for you at the bar.”
“Show the gentleman in, Richard,” replied Mr. Squeers, in a soft voice. “Put your handkerchief in your pocket, you little scoundrel!”
The schoolmaster had scarcely uttered these words in a fierce whisper, when the stranger entered. Affecting not to see him, Mr. Squeers feigned to be intent upon mending a pen, and offering benevolent advice to his youthful pupil.
“My dear child,” said Mr. Squeers, “all people have their trials. This early trial of yours that is fit to make your little heart burst and your very eyes come out of your head with crying, what is it? Nothing; less than nothing. You are leaving your friends, but you will have a father in me, my dear, and a mother in Mrs. Squeers. At the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, where youth are boarded, clothed, booked, washed, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries—”
“Mr. Squeers, I believe,” said Nicholas Nickleby, as that worthy man stopped to cough.
“The same, sir. What can I do for you?”
“I came in answer to an advertisement in this morning’s paper,” said Nicholas. “I believe you desire an assistant.”
“I do, sir,” rejoined Mr. Squeers, coolly; “but if you are applying for the place, don’t you think you’re too young?”
“I hope not, sir, and I have a fair education. I could—”
“Could what?” interrupted the schoolmaster. “Could you lick the boys if they needed it?”
“I do not usually believe in that sort of punishment—” hesitated Nicholas.
“Could you do it?” urged Mr. Squeers.
“I think—if they needed it—I could lick anybody in your school,” smiled Nicholas.
“Well, why didn’t you say so? I guess I had better take you. I’ve got to leave town at eight o’clock to-morrow morning, and haven’t time to look around. So be on hand sharp!”
Nicholas thanked him and promised to be on hand.
The next day he was as good as his word, and reached the tavern a little in advance of the appointed hour.
He found Mr. Squeers sitting at breakfast, with the little boy before noticed, and four others who had turned up by some lucky chance since the interview of the previous day, ranged in a row on the opposite seat. Mr. Squeers had before him a small measure of coffee, a plate of hot toast, and a cold round of beef; but he was at that moment intent on preparing breakfast for the little boys.
“This is twopenn’orth of milk, is it, waiter?” said he, looking down into a large blue mug, and slanting it gently, so as to get an accurate view of the quantity of liquid contained in it.
“That’s twopenn’orth, sir,” replied the waiter.
“What a rare article milk is, to be sure, in London!” said Mr. Squeers, with a sigh. “Just fill that mug up with lukewarm water, William, will you?”
“To the wery top, sir?” inquired the waiter. “Why, the milk will be drownded.”
“Never you mind that,” replied Mr. Squeers. “Serve it right for being so dear! You ordered that thick bread and butter for three, did you?”
“Coming directly, sir.”
“You needn’t hurry yourself,” said Squeers; “there’s plenty of time. Conquer your passions, boys, and don’t be eager after vittles.” As he uttered this moral precept, Mr. Squeers took a large bite out of the cold beef, and recognized Nicholas.
“Sit down, Mr. Nickleby,” said Squeers. “Here we are, a breakfasting, you see!”
Nicholas did not see that anybody was breakfasting except Mr. Squeers; but he bowed with all becoming reverence, and looked as cheerful as he could.
“Oh! that’s the milk and water, is it, William?” said Squeers. “Very good; don’t forget the bread and butter presently.”
At this fresh mention of the bread and butter the five little boys looked very eager, and followed the waiter out with their eyes; meanwhile Mr. Squeers tasted the milk and water.
“Ah!” said that gentleman, smacking his lips, “here’s richness! Think of the many beggars and orphans in the streets that would be glad of this, little boys. A shocking thing hunger is, isn’t it, Mr. Nickleby?”
“Very shocking, sir,” said Nicholas.
“When I say number one,” pursued Mr. Squeers, putting the mug before the children, “the boy on the left hand nearest the window may take a drink; and when I say number two, the boy next him will go in, and so till we come to number five, which is the last boy. Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir,” cried all the little boys with great eagerness.
“That’s right,” said Squeers, calmly getting on with his breakfast; “keep ready till I tell you to begin. Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you’ve conquered human natur. This is the way we inculcate strength of mind, Mr. Nickleby,” said the schoolmaster, turning to Nicholas, and speaking with his mouth very full of beef and toast.
Nicholas murmured something—he knew not what—in reply; and the little boys, dividing their gaze between the mug, the bread and butter (which had by this time arrived), and every morsel which Mr. Squeers took into his mouth, remained with strained eyes in torments of expectation.
“Thank God for a good breakfast,” said Squeers when he had finished. “Number one may take a drink.”
Number one seized the mug ravenously, and had just drunk enough to make him wish for more, when Mr. Squeers gave the signal for number two, who gave up at the same interesting moment to number three; and the process was repeated until the milk and water terminated with number five.
“And now,” said the schoolmaster, dividing the bread and butter for three into as many portions as there were children, “you had better look sharp with your breakfast, for the horn will blow in a minute or two, and then every boy leaves off.”
Permission being thus given to fall to, the boys began to eat voraciously and in desperate haste; while the schoolmaster (who was in high good-humor after his meal) picked his teeth with a fork, and looked smilingly on. In a very short time the horn was heard.
“I thought it wouldn’t be long,” said Squeers, jumping up and producing a little basket from under the seat; “put what you haven’t had time to eat in here, boys! You’ll want it on the road!”
Nicholas was considerably startled by these very economical arrangements; but he had no time to reflect upon them, for the little boys had to be got up to the top of the coach, and this task was in his department. But soon they were all stowed away, and the coach started off with a flourish.
The journey proved long and hard, however. They were detained several times by the bad roads and inclement weather, so that it was not until nightfall of the second day that they reached their destination.
“Jump out,” said Squeers. “Hallo there! come and put this horse up. Be quick, will you!”
While the schoolmaster was uttering these and other impatient cries, Nicholas had time to observe that the school was a long, cold-looking house, one story high, with a few straggling outbuildings behind, and a barn and stable adjoining. After the lapse of a minute or two, the noise of somebody unlocking the yard-gate was heard, and presently a tall, lean boy, with a lantern in his hand, issued forth.
“Is that you, Smike?” cried Squeers.
“Yes, sir,” replied the boy.
“Then why the devil didn’t you come before?”
“Please, sir, I fell asleep over the fire,” answered Smike, with humility.
“Fire! what fire? Where’s there a fire?” demanded the schoolmaster, sharply.
“Only in the kitchen, sir,” replied the boy. “Missus said, as I was sitting up, I might go in there for a warm.”
“Your Missus is a fool,” retorted Squeers. “You’d have been a deuced deal more wakeful in the cold, I’ll engage.”
By this time Mr. Squeers had dismounted; and after ordering the boy to see to the pony, and to take care that he hadn’t any more corn that night, he told Nicholas to wait at the front door a minute while he went round and let him in.
A host of unpleasant misgivings, which had been crowding upon Nicholas during the whole journey, thronged into his mind with redoubled force when he was left alone. And as he looked up at the dreary house and dark windows, and upon the wild country round, covered with snow, he felt a depression of heart and spirit which he had never experienced before.
Presently he was ushered into a cheerless-looking parlor where stood a large, angular woman about half a head taller than Mr. Squeers.
“This is the new young man, my dear,” said that gentleman.
“Oh,” replied Mrs. Squeers, nodding her head at Nicholas, and eyeing him coldly from top to toe.
“He’ll take a meal with us to-night,” said Squeers, “and go among the boys to-morrow morning. You can give him a shakedown here, to-night, can’t you?”
“We must manage it somehow,” replied the lady. “You don’t much mind how you sleep, I suppose, sir?”
“No, indeed,” replied Nicholas, “I am not particular.”
“That’s lucky,” said Mrs. Squeers. And as the lady’s humor was considered to lie chiefly in retort, Mr. Squeers laughed heartily, and seemed to expect that Nicholas should do the same.
After some conversation between the master and mistress relative to the success of Mr. Squeers’s trip, and the people who had paid, and the people who had made default in payment, a young servant girl brought in a Yorkshire pie and some cold beef, which being set upon the table, the boy Smike appeared with a jug of ale.
Mr. Squeers was emptying his great-coat pockets of letters to different boys, and other small documents, which he had brought down in them. The boy glanced, with an anxious and timid expression, at the papers, as if with a sickly hope that one among them might relate to him. The look was a very painful one, and went to Nicholas’s heart at once, for it told a long and very sad history.
It induced him to consider the boy more attentively, and he was surprised to observe the extraordinary mixture of garments which formed his dress. Although he could not have been less than eighteen or nineteen years old, and was tall for that age, he wore a skeleton suit, such as is usually put upon very little boys, and which, though most absurdly short in the arms and legs, was quite wide enough for his thin body. In order that the lower part of his legs might be in perfect keeping with this singular dress, he had a very large pair of boots, originally made for tops, which might have been once worn by some stout farmer, but were now too patched and tattered for a beggar. He was lame; and as he feigned to be busy in arranging the table, he glanced at the letters with a look so keen, and yet so dispirited and hopeless, that Nicholas could hardly bear to watch him.
“What are you bothering about there, Smike?” cried Mrs. Squeers; “let the things alone, can’t you?”
“Eh!” said Squeers, looking up. “Oh! it’s you, is it?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the youth, pressing his hands together, as though to control, by force, the nervous wandering of his fingers; “Is there—”
“Well!” said Squeers.
“Have you—did anybody—has nothing been heard—about me?”
“Devil a bit,” replied Squeers, testily.
The lad withdrew his eyes, and, putting his hand to his face, moved towards the door.
“Not a word,” resumed Squeers, “and never will be. Now, this is a pretty sort of thing, isn’t it, that you should have been left here all these years, and no money paid after the first six—nor no notice taken, nor no clue to be got who you belong to? It’s a pretty sort of thing that I should have to feed a great fellow like you, and never hope to get one penny for it, isn’t it?”
The boy put his hand to his head as if he were making an effort to recollect something, and then, looking vacantly at his questioner, gradually broke into a smile, and limped away.
“I’ll tell you what, Squeers,” remarked his wife, as the door closed, “I think that young chap’s turning silly.”
“I hope not,” said the schoolmaster; “for he’s a handy fellow out-of-doors, and worth his meat and drink anyway. I should think he’d have wit enough for us, though, if he was.”
Supper being over, Mr. Squeers yawned fearfully and was of opinion that it was high time to go to bed. Upon this, Mrs. Squeers and a servant dragged in a small straw mattress and a couple of blankets, and arranged them into a couch for Nicholas.
“We’ll put you into a regular bedroom with the boys to-morrow, Nickleby,” said Squeers. “Good-night. Seven o’clock, in the morning, mind.”
The next morning, when Nicholas appeared in the main room, he found Mrs. Squeers very much distressed.
“I can’t find the school spoon,” she said.
“Never mind it, my dear,” observed Squeers in a soothing manner; “it’s of no consequence.”
“No consequence! why, how you talk!” retorted Mrs. Squeers, sharply; “isn’t it brimstone morning?”
“I forgot, my dear,” rejoined Squeers; “yes, it certainly is. We purify the boys’ bloods now and then, Nickleby.”
“Purify fiddlesticks’ ends!” said his lady. “Don’t think, young man, that we go to the expense of brimstone and molasses, just to purify them; because if you think we carry on the business in that way, you’ll find yourself mistaken, and so I tell you plainly.”
“My dear,” said Squeers, frowning. “Hem!”
“Oh! nonsense,” rejoined Mrs. Squeers. “If the young man comes to be a teacher here, let him understand, at once, that we don’t want any foolery about the boys. They have the brimstone and treacle, partly because if they hadn’t something or other in the way of medicine they’d be always ailing and giving a world of trouble, and partly because it spoils their appetites and comes cheaper than breakfast and dinner. So it does them good and us good at the same time, and that’s fair enough, I’m sure.”
A vast deal of searching and rummaging ensued, and it proving fruitless, Smike was called in, and pushed by Mrs. Squeers and boxed by Mr. Squeers; which course of treatment brightening his intellects, enabled him to suggest that possibly Mrs. Squeers might have the spoon in her pocket—as indeed turned out to be the case. But as Mrs. Squeers had previously protested that she was quite certain she had not got it, Smike received another box on the ear for presuming to contradict his mistress; so that he gained nothing of advantage by his idea.
“But come,” said Squeers, “let’s go to the schoolroom; and lend me a hand with my school-coat, will you?”
Nicholas assisted his master to put on an old shooting-jacket; and Squeers, arming himself with his cane, led the way across a yard, to a door in the rear of the house.
“There,” said the schoolmaster, as they stepped in together; “this is our shop, Nickleby!”
It was such a crowded scene, and there were so many objects to attract attention, that, at first, Nicholas stared about him, really without seeing anything at all. By degrees, however, the place resolved itself into a bare and dirty room, with a couple of windows, stopped up with old copybooks and paper. There were two rickety desks, cut and notched, and inked in every possible way; two or three forms; a detached desk for Squeers, and another for his assistant. The ceiling was supported, like that of a barn, by crossbeams and rafters, and the walls were so stained and discolored that it was impossible to tell whether they had ever been touched with paint or whitewash.
But the pupils! How the last faint traces of hope, the remotest glimmering of any good to be derived from his efforts in this den, faded from the mind of Nicholas as he looked in dismay around! Pale and haggard faces, lank and bony figures, children with the countenances of old men, boys of stunted growth, and others whose long, meagre legs would hardly bear their stooping bodies, all crowded on the view together.
And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque features. Mrs. Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding over an immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of which delicious compound she administered a large instalment to each boy in succession, using for the purpose a common wooden spoon, which might have been originally manufactured for some gigantic top, and which widened every young gentleman’s mouth considerably; they being all obliged, under heavy penalties, to take in the whole of the bowl at a gulp.
“Now,” said Squeers, giving the desk a great rap with his cane which made half the little boys nearly jump out of their boots, “is that physicking over?”
“Just over,” said Mrs. Squeers, choking the last boy in her hurry, and tapping the crown of his head with the wooden spoon to restore him. “Here, you Smike; take away now. Look sharp!”
Smike shuffled out with the basin, and Mrs. Squeers having called up a little boy with a curly head and wiped her hands upon it, hurried out after him into a species of wash-house, where there was a small fire and a large kettle, together with a number of little wooden bowls which were arranged upon a board. Into these bowls Mrs. Squeers, assisted by the hungry servant, poured a brown composition, which looked like diluted pincushions without the covers, and was called porridge. A minute wedge of brown bread was inserted in each bowl, and when they had eaten their porridge by means of the bread, the boys ate the bread itself, and had finished their breakfast; whereupon Mr. Squeers said, in a solemn voice, “For what we have received, may the Lord make us truly thankful!”—and went away to his own.
Nicholas filled his stomach with a bowl of porridge, for much the same reason which induces some savages to swallow earth—lest they should be hungry when there is nothing to eat. Having disposed of a slice of bread and butter, allotted to him in virtue of his office, he sat himself down to wait for school-time.
He could not but observe how silent and sad the boys all seemed to be. There was none of the noise and clamor of a schoolroom; none of its boisterous play or hearty mirth. The children sat crouching and shivering together, and seemed to lack the spirit to move about. The only pupil who seemed at all playful was Master Squeers, son of the master, and as his chief amusement was to tread upon the other boys’ toes in his new boots, his flow of spirits was rather disagreeable than otherwise.
After some half-hour’s delay Mr. Squeers reappeared, and the boys took their places and their books, of which latter there might be about one to eight learners. A few minutes having elapsed, during which Mr. Squeers looked very profound, as if he had a perfect apprehension of what was inside all the books, and could say every word of their contents by heart if he only chose to take the trouble, that gentleman called up the first class.
Obedient to this summons there ranged themselves in front of the schoolmaster’s desk half-a-dozen scarecrows, out at knees and elbows, one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath his learned eye.
“This is the first class in English spelling and philosophy, Nickleby,” said Squeers, beckoning Nicholas to stand beside him. “We’ll get up a Latin one, and hand that over to you. Now, then, where’s the first boy?”
“Please, sir, he’s cleaning the back parlor window,” said the temporary head of the class.
“So he is, to be sure,” rejoined Squeers. “We go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour. When the boy knows this out of book, he goes and does it. Second boy, what’s a horse?”
“A beast, sir,” replied the boy.
“So it is,” said Squeers, “and as you’re perfect in that, go and look after my horse, and rub him down well, or I’ll rub you down. The rest of the class go and draw water till somebody tells you to leave off, for it’s washing-day to-morrow, and they want the coppers filled.”
So saying, he dismissed the first class to their experiments in practical philosophy, and eyed Nicholas with a look, half cunning and half doubtful, as if he were not altogether certain what he might think of him by this time.
“That’s the way we do it, Nickleby,” he said, after a pause.
Nicholas shrugged his shoulders in a manner that was scarcely perceptible, and said he saw it was.
“And a very good way it is, too,” said Squeers. “Now, just take them fourteen little boys and hear them some reading, because, you know, you must begin to be useful. Idling about here won’t do.”
Mr. Squeers said this, as if it had suddenly occurred to him, either that he must not say too much to his assistant, or that his assistant did not say enough to him in praise of the establishment. The children were arranged in a semicircle round the new master, and he was soon listening to their dull, drawling recital of those stories of interest which are to be found in the spelling books.
In this exciting occupation the morning lagged heavily on. At one o’clock the boys, having previously had their appetites thoroughly taken away by stir-about and potatoes, sat down in the kitchen to some hard salt beef, of which Nicholas was graciously permitted to take his portion to his own solitary desk, to eat it there in peace. After this, there was another hour of crouching in the schoolroom and shivering with cold; and this was a fair sample of the school day at Dotheboys Hall.
There was a small stove in the corner of the room, and by it Nicholas sat down, when the school was dismissed, so heavy-hearted that it seemed to him as though every bit of joy had gone out of the world. The cruelty and coarseness of Squeers were revolting, and yet Nicholas did not know how to resent it or which way to turn. He had cast his lot here, and here he must abide.
As he was absorbed in these meditations, he all at once encountered the upturned face of Smike, who was on his knees before the stove, picking a few stray cinders from the hearth and planting them on the fire. He had paused to steal a look at Nicholas, and when he saw that he was observed, shrank back, as if expecting a blow.
“You need not fear me,” said Nicholas, kindly. “Are you cold?”
“N-n-o.”
“You are shivering.”
“I am not cold,” replied Smike, quickly. “I am used to it.”
There was such an obvious fear of giving offence in his manner, and he was such a timid, broken-spirited creature, that Nicholas could not help exclaiming, “Poor fellow!”
If he had struck the drudge, he would have slunk away without a word. But now he burst into tears.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” he cried, covering his face with his cracked and horny hands. “My heart will break. It will, it will!”
“Hush!” said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder. “Be a man; you are nearly one by years, God help you.”
“By years!” cried Smike. “Oh, dear, dear, how many of them! How many of them since I was a little child, younger than any that are here now! Where are they all?”
“Whom do you speak of?” inquired Nicholas, wishing to rouse the poor, half-witted creature to reason. “Tell me.”
“My friends,” he replied, “myself—my—oh! what sufferings mine have been!”
“There is always hope,” said Nicholas; he knew not what to say.
“No,” rejoined the other, “no; none for me. Do you remember the boy that died here?”
“I was not here, you know,” said Nicholas, gently; “but what of him?”
“Why,” replied the youth, drawing closer to his questioner’s side, “I was with him at night, and when it was all silent he cried no more for friends he wished to come and sit with him, but began to see faces round his bed that came from home; he said they smiled, and talked to him; and he died at last lifting his head to kiss them. Do you hear?”
“Yes, yes,” rejoined Nicholas.
“What faces will smile on me when I die!” cried his companion, shivering. “Who will talk to me in those long nights! They cannot come from home; they would frighten me, if they did, for I don’t know what it is, and shouldn’t know them. Pain and fear, pain and fear for me, alive or dead. No hope, no hope!”
The bell rang to bed, and the boy, subsiding at the sound into his usual listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice. It was with a heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards—no, not retired; there was no retirement there—followed to his dirty and crowded dormitory.
