Life at Dotheboys Hall
After the night that first met and talked in the kitchen, Smike followed Nicholas everywhere. But when Squeers saw this, he beat Smike more than before.
‘They’re harder with me than ever,’ Smike cried one evening to Nicholas in the empty schoolroom.
‘I know,’ Nicholas replied, putting a hand on Smike’s shoulder kindly. ‘You’ll be happier when I’ve gone.’
‘Are you leaving?’ asked Smike, suddenly worried.
‘No.’ said Nicholas. ‘I was just thinking aloud.’
‘But will you go one day?.
‘Yes, one day I must go out into the world.’
‘And can we meet – out in the world?’ asked Smike.
‘Of course,’ said Nicholas. ‘And I’ll help you there and not make your life worse, as I’ve done here.’
Just then, Squeers arrived, and Smike disappeared.
Smike was not Nicholas’s only worry at Dotheboys Hall.
There was also Squeers’s daughter, Fanny. One day – not long after Nicholas arrived – Fanny went into schoolroom to get a pen. Nicholas gave her a friendly smile. ‘What a wonderful smile he has,’ she thought, and at once she decided that she was in love.
Soon after that, Fanny asked Nicholas to tea when Mrs Squeers was out. Fanny’s best friend Tilda, and Tilda’s fiancée, John Browdie, also came. There was bread and butter to eat, and Nicholas ate it very fast. When he saw this, John Browdie started laughing.
‘You won’t get fat if you stay in this school!’ he said.
‘John, don’t speak to Mr Nickleby like that!’ cried Fanny.
‘Oh, Fanny. Shall we leave you and Mr Nickleby alone?’ asked Tilda, laughing.
‘Oh, no. Please don’t go,’ said Nicholas worriedly. He suddenly saw the way that things were going. Then,because he didn’t want to raise Fanny’s hopes of love, and because Browdie was a man of few words, he began to talk with Tilda. This made both Fanny and Browdie very angry.
In the end, Tilda and her fiancé went home, Fanny started crying, and Nicholas went off quickly up to bed. ‘I must stop stop trying to be friendly to everyone!’ he thought. ‘It just gets me into trouble.’
One morning, not long after that, Squeers woke everyone by shouting from the kitchen downstairs, ‘ Are you going to sleep all day, you lazy dogs?’
‘We’re coming down now,’ shouted Nicholas form the big long bedroom upstairs, where he and the boys slept.
‘Smike!’ called Mrs Squeers. ‘Come down here at once!’ There was no reply.
Nicholas couldn’t see Smike at all.
‘He’s not up here!’ he cried.
‘That’s what you say!’ shouted Squeers. ‘I’m coming up to find him.’
‘I think that he’s run away,’ said Nicholas when Squeers came upstairs.
Squeers was very angry. ‘How do you know that?’ he asked. Now Mrs Squeers came upstairs, too.
‘Smike has run away, my dear,’ explained Squeers.
‘That’s no surprise to me!’ said Mrs Squeers, looking at Nicholas with an ugly smile. ‘You helped him!’
‘I did not,’ replied Nicholas hotly.
‘I’ll beat the life out of him when we catch him! Which way do you think he went?’ Squeers asked his wife.
‘Who knows? You take one coach and go towards York.
‘I’ll borrow another coach and go the other way,’ replied Mrs Squeers.
For the rest of the day, Nicholas waited at the school with the other boys and worried.
In the evening, Squeers came back, but Smike wasn’t with him.
‘Someone will pay for this!’ said Squeers angrily. ‘I’m telling you, Nicholas.’
‘It’s nothing to do with me, sir,’ said Nicholas, and he went to bed.
It was clear that Squeers wanted Smike back at the school just because the boy did lots of work there for nothing.
Early next morning, Nicholas heard a coach arriving at the front gate, and Mrs Squeers calling for her husband. Afraid of the worst, Nicholas looked through the window and saw Smike in the coach. His tired face was covered with mud and rain and he looked nearly dead. Mr Squeers came from the house and took him inside. He put him in the cellar and locked the door. He was looking forward to beating him later.
After lunch, Squeers told all the school to come to the classroom. When everyone was there, he brought Smike into the room, pulling him by his coat.
‘Well, Smike, explain yourself!’
‘Please, sir, forgive me!’
‘Oh, yes. I’ll forgive you – when I’ve finished beating the life out of you!’
‘Ha! That’s a good one,’ shouted Mrs Squeers.
Squeers had a new whip to beat Smike with. He raised it, then brought it down hard on Smike’s body. The poor boy screamed.
Then, suddenly, they heard a shout: ‘Stop!’
‘Who said that?’ asked Squeers, looking round the room in great surprise.
‘I did. This mustn’t go on,’ cried Nicholas, who was now very red in the face.
‘Mustn’t?’ cried Squeers.
He took his hand from Smike’s neck, raised his whip again, and used it to hit Nicholas in the face with all his strength. Nicholas at once pulled the whip from his hand, and began to beat him. Squeers screamed for help, but Nicholas went on beating him angrily. Mrs Squeers tried to pull her husband away, and Fanny hit Nicholas from behind with her hands, but they couldn’t stop the attack. At last Nicholas left Squeers – not moving, but alive – to his wife and daughter. He couldn’t see Smike anywhere, so he hurriedly put some clothes in a bag and left the house.
He decided to go at once to London. But how? It was far away and he had no money.