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I longed for home till I was weary, and pined away with grief, but now 'And what now? asked Nicholas, looking kindly in his face. 'What now, old friend? 'I could not part from you to go to any home on earth, replied Smike, pressing his hand; 'except one, except one.
BIRCHAM! Such a forbidding name for an editor. He'll be a sort of editorial Mr. Squeers; he'll talk in a loud, blustering way, and you'll feel exactly like a journalistic Smike." "No," said Erica, laughing. "He'll be a neat little dapper man, very smooth and bland, and he'll talk patronizingly and raise my hopes, and then, in a few days' time will send me a polite refusal."
As Mr Crummles had a strange four-legged animal in the inn stables, which he called a pony, and a vehicle of unknown design, on which he bestowed the appellation of a four-wheeled phaeton, Nicholas proceeded on his journey next morning with greater ease than he had expected: the manager and himself occupying the front seat: and the Master Crummleses and Smike being packed together behind, in company with a wicker basket defended from wet by a stout oilskin, in which were the broad-swords, pistols, pigtails, nautical costumes, and other professional necessaries of the aforesaid young gentlemen.
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.
'Ah! where is Mr Smike? said Mrs Nickleby; 'he was here this instant. Upon further inquiry, it turned out, to the good lady's unbounded astonishment, that Smike had, that moment, gone upstairs to bed. 'Well now, said Mrs Nickleby, 'he is the strangest creature! Last Tuesday was it Tuesday?
'Yes, yes! cried Smike. 'Well said! 'So mild and gentle, said Newman. 'Yes, yes! cried Smike, with increasing eagerness. 'And yet with such a true and gallant spirit, pursued Newman. He was going on, in his enthusiasm, when, chancing to look at his companion, he saw that he had covered his face with his hands, and that tears were stealing out between his fingers.
'The word which separates us, said Nicholas, grasping him heartily by the shoulder, 'shall never be said by me, for you are my only comfort and stay. I would not lose you now, Smike, for all the world could give. The thought of you has upheld me through all I have endured today, and shall, through fifty times such trouble. Give me your hand. My heart is linked to yours.
Who ever heard o' the loike o' that, noo? Give us thee hond agean, yoongster! Beatten schoolmeasther! Dang it, I loove thee for 't!" Finally, and as the perfecting touch of tenderness between the two cousins, then unknown to each other as such, in the early morning light at Boroughbridge, we caught a glimpse of Nicholas and Smike passing, hand in hand, out of the old barn together.
While Nicholas, absorbed in the one engrossing subject of interest which had recently opened upon him, occupied his leisure hours with thoughts of Madeline Bray, and in execution of the commissions which the anxiety of brother Charles in her behalf imposed upon him, saw her again and again, and each time with greater danger to his peace of mind and a more weakening effect upon the lofty resolutions he had formed, Mrs Nickleby and Kate continued to live in peace and quiet, agitated by no other cares than those which were connected with certain harassing proceedings taken by Mr Snawley for the recovery of his son, and their anxiety for Smike himself, whose health, long upon the wane, began to be so much affected by apprehension and uncertainty as sometimes to occasion both them and Nicholas considerable uneasiness, and even alarm.
'I was afraid, said Smike, overjoyed to see his friend again, 'that you had fallen into some fresh trouble; the time seemed so long, at last, that I almost feared you were lost. 'Lost! replied Nicholas gaily. 'You will not be rid of me so easily, I promise you.
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