After walking away from Dotheboy Hall for some time, Nicholas saw john Browdie on the road in front of him, carrying a big stick.
'Oh no! Will he hit me with his stick?' Thought Nicholas.
'After what happened at tea the other day.'
'Good evening. Young gentleman,'
said john Browdie when day met.
'Look, I'm sorry about what happened when you to tea,' said Nicholas.
'I didn't mean anything by it. Will you forget it, and shake hands?'
'Of course,' said Browdie, and he gave Nicholas his hand. 'But what's happened to your face?'
Nicholas told him everything. When john Browdie heard about Nicholas beating Squeers, he suddenly gave a great shout of joy.
'That's the best news that I've heard in twenty years,' he laughed. 'But what will you do now?'
'I'm going to walk to London.'
'Good luck. It's a long way to walk. Here, tack some money, and my stick. You'll need it,' said Browdie kindly, and he gave Nicholas a pound and his stick, and then went on his way. Stick in hand, Nicholas walked off towards London.
He slept that night in the cheapest inn that he could find. He walked all the next day, but at night he could find only a barn to sleep in. After a deep sleep, he work up early the next morning, and saw Smike standing in front of him.
‘Smike! How did you come here?’
‘When you left the school, I follow you all yesterday. I slept in this barn last night, too. I didn’t want to you to see me, but this morning you work up too quickly for me to hide.
Please take me to London with you. I’ll do anything. I’ll be your servant. I just want to be with you.’
‘Of course you can come with me, but not as my servant. We’ll go out into the world together, and what we find there will be for both of us.’
So they started their long walk together. On the way, Nicholas thought, ‘we’ll go hand look for Newman Noggs at the Crown Inn. He’ll tell me where I can find Kate and my mother.’
Some day later, late at night, Newman Noggs was at home when he heard visitors at his door. Opening it, he saw Nicholas and Smike standing there, both exhausted. He asked them in, and gave them something to eat and drink. Soon after that, they both fell asleep.
The next morning Nicholas told Noggs their story. ‘I knew most of that already.’ Said Noggs, when he finished. ‘Fanny Squeers wrote a long letter about it all to your uncle, you see.’
‘And does it tell the same story?’
‘Not really. The letter says that you used bad language, that you nearly killed Squeers, that you attacked her mother and herself, and that you stole one of Mrs Squeers’s rings.’
‘But that’s not true!’ shouted Nicholas. ‘No one who knows me could believe it. I’ll go and see my uncle and explain what really happened.’
‘Wait a minute,’ replied Newman, ‘Ralph Nickleby hates you, so he’ll say that he believes what’s in the letter. You must go and see your mother and sister and explain things to them before your uncle talk to them. I’ll show you the way to their house.’
But when they arrived at his mother’s house, Ralph Nickleby was already there. Kate ran to Nicholas, and embraced him.
‘Oh Nicholas, you’re back!’ she cried, full of joy at seeing her brother again.
‘Your uncle has told us terrible things about you and Mr Squeers,’ said Mrs Nickleby sadly. ‘Are they true?’
‘No, mother, it didn’t happen the way that my uncle told you,’ replied Nicholas.
‘So you didn’t beat Mr Squeers with a whip? And you didn’t take a boy away from the school?’ said Ralph Nickleby, with a small cold smile.
‘ Yes, I admit that I did these things, but I did them to stop the suffering of a poor, innocent boy,’
replied Nicholas.
‘When you came from Devon, I look after all of you,’ said Ralph Nickleby, turning to Nicholas’s mother. ‘Now see how you son pays me back for my kindness!’ And with these words, he left the house before Nicholas could hit him angrily in the face.
‘How can he talk like that?’ cried Kate after he left.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Nicholas.
‘While you were in Yorkshire, a friend of his, Sir Mulberry Hawk, treated me very badly. I met him at a dinner that our uncle invited me to although I didn’t want to go. After dinner, I had go to and lie down because I wasn’t felling very well. Sir Mulberry came in to the room where I lay, and tried to kiss me. I told him to stop, but he didn’t. In the end, I had to run out of the room to escape from him.’
‘If I ever see this mulberry Hawk, I’ll teach him a lesson!’ said Nicholas angrily.
‘Later I told out uncle everything,’ went on Kate. ’I said that Sir Mulberry needed to say sorry. But Uncle Ralph explained that he couldn’t possibly ask him to do that because he was an important business friend.’
‘So this is how out uncle looks after us!’ said Nicholas to himself. ‘He lets his friend do anything that they like with his niece, because it’s good for business. And he sends me to be a teacher at the worst school in England. What a “kind” and “helpful” man our uncle is!’