Part 73 (2/2)

CHAPTER 62

Ralphfro with his hands, when first he got into the street, as if he were a blindoften over his shoulder while he hurried away, as though he were followed in iination or reality by someone anxious to question or detain him; Ralph Nickleby left the city behind hiht was dark, and a cold wind blew, driving the clouds, furiously and fast, before it There was one black, gloo in the wild chase with the others, but lingering sullenly behind, and gliding darkly and stealthily on He often looked back at this, and, more than once, stopped to let it pass over; but, soain, it was still behind hi mournfully and slowly up, like a shadowy funeral train

He had to pass a poor, round-a dismal place, raised a few feet above the level of the street, and parted fro; a rank, unwholesorass and weeds see froraves of ry dens And here, in truth, they lay, parted fro by a little earth and a board or two-lay thick and close-corrupting in body as they had in mind-a dense and squalid crowd Here they lay, cheek by joith life: no deeper down than the feet of the throng that passed there every day, and piled high as their throats Here they lay, a grisly family, all these dear departed brothers and sisters of the ruddy clergyman who did his task so speedily when they were hidden in the ground!

As he passed here, Ralph called tobefore, on the body of a man who had cut his throat; and that he was buried in this place He could not tell how he came to recollect it nohen he had so often passed and never thought about him, or hoas that he felt an interest in the circu the iron railings with his hands, looked eagerly in, wondering which ed, there ca, some fellows full of drink, followed by others, ere reo hoood-huan to dance He was a grotesque, fantastic figure, and the few bystanders laughed Ralph hih of one who stood near and who looked round in his face When they had passed on, and he was left alone again, he resumed his speculation with a new kind of interest; for he recollected that the last person who had seen the suicide alive, had left hie he and the other jurors had thought that at the ti such a heap of graves, but he conjured up a strong and vivid idea of the man himself, and how he looked, and what had led him to do it; all of which he recalled with ease By dint of dwelling upon this theme, he carried the impression with him when he went away; as he remembered, when a child, to have had frequently before hioblin he had once seen chalked upon a door But as he drew nearer and nearer hoan to think how very dull and solitary the house would be inside

This feeling beca at last, that when he reached his own door, he could hardly make up his one into the passage, he felt as though to shut it again would be to shut out the world But he let it go, and it closed with a loud noise There was no light How very dreary, cold, and still it was!

shi+vering from head to foot, he made his way upstairs into the room where he had been last disturbed He had made a kind of compact with hiot home He was at home now, and suffered himself to consider it

His own child, his own child! He never doubted the tale; he felt it was true; knew it as well, now, as if he had been privy to it all along His own child! And dead too Dying beside Nicholas, loving hiel That was the worst!

They had all turned from him and deserted him in his very first need Evenlord dead, his coone at one blow, his plot with Gride overset at the very moer, the object of his persecution and Nicholas's love, his oretched boy; everything crumbled and fallen upon hi in the dust

If he had known his child to be alive; if no deceit had been ever practised, and he had grown up beneath his eye; he h, harsh father-like enough-he felt that; but the thought would coht have been a coan to think now, that his supposed death and his wife's flight had had so him the morose, hard man he was He seeh and obdurate; and alht that he had first hated Nicholas because he was young and gallant, and perhaps like the stripling who had brought dishonour and loss of fortune on his head

But one tender thought, or one of natural regret, in his ind of passion and remorse, was as a drop of calm water in a stormy maddened sea His hatred of Nicholas had been fed upon his own defeat, nourished on his interference with his schemes, fattened upon his old defiance and success There were reasons for its increase; it had grown and strengthened gradually Now it attained a height which was sheer wild lunacy That his, of all others, should have been the hands to rescue his miserable child; that he should have been his protector and faithful friend; that he should have shown him that love and tenderness which, from the wretched moment of his birth, he had never known; that he should have taught him to hate his own parent and execrate his very name; that he should no and feel all this, and triuall and madness to the usurer's heart The dead boy's love for Nicholas, and the attachony The picture of his deathbed, with Nicholas at his side, tending and supporting hi in his ar each other to the last, drove hi wildly round, with eyes which gleah the darkness, cried aloud: 'I aht has come! Is there no way to rob them of further triumph, and spurn their mercy and compassion? Is there no devil to help ure he had raised that night It seemed to lie before him The head was covered now So it hen he first saw it The rigid, upturned, marble feet too, he re relatives who had told their tale upon the inquest-the shrieks of women-the silent dread of men-the consternation and disquiet-the victory achieved by that heap of clay, which, with one motion of its hand, had let out the life andtheroped his way out of the rooarret-where he closed the door behind him, and remained

It was a mere lumber-room now, but it yet contained an old dismantled bedstead; the one on which his son had slept; for no other had ever been there He avoided it hastily, and sat down as far frohts in the street below, shi+ning through the hich had no blind or curtain to intercept it, was enough to show the character of the rooh not sufficient fully to reveal the various articles of lumber, old corded trunks and broken furniture, which were scattered about It had a shelving roof; high in one part, and at another descending alhest part that Ralph directed his eyes; and upon it he kept the thither an old chest upon which he had been seated,the wall above his head with both hands At length, they touched a large iron hook, firmly driven into one of the beams

At thatat the door below After a little hesitation he opened the , and demanded who it was

'I want Mr Nickleby,' replied a voice

'What with him?'

'That's not Mr Nickleby's voice, surely?' was the rejoinder

It was not like it; but it was Ralph who spoke, and so he said

The voice made answer that the twin brothers wished to knohether the ht was to be detained; and that although it was now ht

'Yes,' cried Ralph, 'detain hi him here-him and my nephew-and come themselves, and be sure that I will be ready to receive them'

'At what hour?' asked the voice

'At any hour,' replied Ralph fiercely 'In the afternoon, tell them At any hour, at any minute All times will be alike tofootsteps until the sound had passed, and then, gazing up into the sky, saw, or thought he saw, the same black cloud that had seemed to follow him home, and which now appeared to hover directly above the house

'I know its hts, the dreams, and why I have quailed of late All pointed to this Oh! iftheir own souls could ride rampant for a terht!'

The sound of a deep bell ca the wind One

'Lie on!' cried the usurer, 'with your iron tongue! Ring es that are made in hell, and toll ruefully for the dead whose shoes are worn already! Callchis this cursed world nearer to its end No bell or book for hill, and let me rot there, to infect the air!'

With a wild look around, in which frenzy, hatred, and despair were horribly led, he shook his clenched hand at the sky above hi, and closed the

The rain and hail pattered against the glass; the chimneys quaked and rocked; the crazy caseh an i to burst it open But no hand was there, and it opened no entle these two hours'

'And yet he caht,' said another; 'for he spoke to somebody out of thatupstairs'

They were a little knot ofmentioned, went out into the road to look up at it This occasioned their observing that the house was still close shut, as the housekeeper had said she had left it on the previous night, and led to a great estions: which ter round to the back, and so entering by a hile the others remained outside, in impatient expectation

They looked into all the roo the shutters as they went, to ad nobody, and everything quiet and in its place, doubted whether they should go farther One arret, and that it was there he had been last seen, they agreed to look there too, and went up softly; for the mystery and silence made them ti, eyeing each other, he who had proposed their carrying the search so far, turned the handle of the door, and, pushi+ng it open, looked through the chink, and fell back directly

'It's very odd,' he whispered, 'he's hiding behind the door! Look!'

They pressed forward to see; but one a the others aside with a loud excla into the room, cut down the body

He had torn a rope fro himself on an iron hook i-in the very place to which the eyes of his son, a lonely, desolate, little creature, had so often been directed in childish terror, fourteen years before

CHAPTER 63

The Brothers Cheeryble make various Declarations for themselves and others Tim Linkinwater makes a Declaration for himself Some weeks had passed, and the first shock of these events had subsided Madeline had been reun to try in good earnest to stifle their own regrets, and to live for each other and for their mother-who, poor lady, could in nowise be reconciled to this dull and altered state of affairs-when there ca, per favour of Mr Linkinwater, an invitation from the brothers to dinner on the next day but one: co, not only Mrs Nickleby, Kate, and Nicholas, but little Miss La Creevy, as most particularly mentioned