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“Sit down, beggar!” screamed Squeers, almost beside himself with rage, and seizing Smike as he spoke.

“Wretch,” rejoined Nicholas, fiercely, “touch him at your peril! I will not stand by and see it done. My blood is up, and I have the strength of ten such men as you. Look to yourself, for by Heaven I will not spare you, if you drive me on!”

“Stand back,” cried Squeers, brandishing his weapon.

“I have a long series of insults to avenge,” said Nicholas, flushed with passion; “and my indignation is aggravated by the dastardly cruelties practised on helpless infancy in this foul den. Have a care; for if you do rouse the devil within me, the consequences shall fall heavily upon your own head!”

He had scarcely spoken, when Squeers, in a violent outbreak of wrath, and with a cry like the howl of a wild beast, struck him a blow across the face with his instrument of torture, which raised up a bar of livid flesh as it was inflicted. Smarting with the agony of the blow, and concentrating into that one moment all his feelings of rage, scorn, and indignation, Nicholas sprang upon him, wrested the weapon from his hand, and pinning him by the throat, beat the ruffian till he roared for mercy.

Then he hastily retired from the fray, leaving Squeers’s family to restore him as best they might. Seeking his room with all possible haste, Nicholas considered seriously what course of action was best for him to adopt.

After a brief consideration, he packed up a few clothes in a small leathern valise, and, finding that nobody offered to oppose his progress, marched boldly out by the front door, and struck into the road which led to Greta Bridge.

When he had cooled, sufficiently to be enabled to give his present circumstances some little reflection, they did not appear in a very encouraging light; he had only four shillings and a few pence in his pocket, and was something more than two hundred and fifty miles from London, whither he resolved to direct his steps.

He lay, that night, at a cottage where beds were let at a cheap rate to the more humble class of travellers; and, rising betimes next morning, made his way before night to Boroughbridge. Passing through that town in search of some cheap resting-place, he stumbled upon an empty barn within a couple of hundred yards of the road side; in a warm corner of which he stretched his weary limbs, and soon fell asleep.

When he awoke next morning, and tried to recollect his dreams, which had been all connected with his recent sojourn at Dotheboys Hall, he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and stared–not with the most composed countenance possible–at some motionless object which seemed to be stationed within a few yards in front of him.

“Strange!” cried Nicholas, “can this be some lingering creation of the visions that have scarcely left me? It cannot be real–and yet I–I am awake! Smike!”

The form moved, rose, advanced, and dropped upon its knees at his feet. It was Smike indeed.

“Why do you kneel to me?” said Nicholas, hastily raising him.

“To go with you–anywhere–everywhere–to the world’s end–to the churchyard grave,” replied Smike, clinging to his hand. “Let me, oh, do let me. You are my home–my kind friend–take me with you, pray.”

I am a friend who can do “little for you,” said Nicholas, kindly. “How came you here?”

He had followed him, it seemed; had never lost sight of him all the way; had watched while he slept, and when he halted for refreshment; and had feared to appear before, lest he should be sent back. He had not intended to appear now, but Nicholas had awakened more suddenly than he looked for, and he had had no time to conceal himself.

“Poor fellow!” said Nicholas, “your hard fate denies you any friend but one, and he is nearly as poor and helpless as yourself.”