Hearing this adjuration, Mr Squeers, who had been lingering in the passage until such time as it should be expedient for him to enter and he could appear with effect, was fain to present himself in a somewhat undignified and sneaking way; at which John Browdie laughed with such keen and heartfelt delight, that even Kate, in all the pain, anxiety, and surprise of the scene, and though the tears were in her eyes, felt a disposition to join him.
`Have you done enjoying yourself, sir?' said Ralph, at length.
`Pratty nigh for the prasant time, sir,' replied John.
`I can wait,' said Ralph. `Take your own time, pray.'
Ralph waited until there was a perfect silence, and then turning to Mrs Nickleby, but directing an eager glance at Kate, as if more anxious to watch his effect upon her, said:--`Now, ma'am, listen to me. I don't imagine that you were a party to a very fine tirade of words sent me by that boy of yours, because I don't believe that under his control, you have the slightest will of your own, or that your advice, your opinion, your wants, your wishes--anything which in nature and reason (or of what use is your great experience?) ought to weigh with him--has the slightest influence or weight whatever, or is taken for a moment into account.'
Mrs Nickleby shook her head and sighed, as if there were a good deal in that, certainly.
`For this reason,' resumed Ralph, `I address myself to you, ma'am. For this reason, partly, and partly because I do not wish to be disgraced by the acts of a vicious stripling whom I was obliged to disown, and who, afterwards, in his boyish majesty, feigns to--ha! ha!--to disown me , I present myself here tonight. I have another motive in coming--a motive of humanity. I come here,' said Ralph, looking round with a biting and triumphant smile, and gloating and dwelling upon the words as if he were loath to lose the pleasure of saying them, `to restore a parent his child.
Ay, sir,' he continued, bending eagerly forward, and addressing Nicholas, as he marked the change of his countenance, `to restore a parent his child--his son, sir--trepanned, waylaid, and guarded at every turn by you, with the base design of robbing him some day of any little wretched pittance of which he might become possessed.'
`In that, you know you lie,' said Nicholas, proudly.
`In this, I know I speak the truth--I have his father here,' retorted Ralph.
`Here!' sneered Squeers, stepping forward. `Do you hear that? Here!
Didn't I tell you to be careful that his father didn't turn up and send him back to me? Why, his father's my friend; he's to come back to me directly, he is. Now, what do you say--eh!--now--come--what do you say to that--an't you sorry you took so much trouble for nothing? an't you? an't you?'
`You bear upon your body certain marks I gave you,' said Nicholas, looking quietly away, `and may talk in acknowledgment of them as much as you please.
You'll talk a long time before you rub them out, Mr Squeers.'
The estimable gentleman last named cast a hasty look at the table, as if he were prompted by this retort to throw a jug or bottle at the head of Nicholas, but he was interrupted in this design (if such design he had)by Ralph, who, touching him on the elbow, bade him tell the father that he might now appear and claim his son.
This being purely a labour of love, Mr Squeers readily complied, and leaving the room for the purpose, almost immediately returned, supporting a sleek personage with an oily face, who, bursting from him, and giving to view the form and face of Mr Snawley, made straight up to Smike, and tucking that poor fellow's head under his arm in a most uncouth and awkward embrace, elevated his broad-brimmed hat at arm's length in the air as a token of devout thanksgiving, exclaiming, meanwhile, `How little did Ithink of this here joyful meeting, when I saw him last! Oh, how little did I think it!'
`Be composed, sir,' said Ralph, with a gruff expression of sympathy, `you have got him now.'
`Got him! Oh, haven't I got him! Have I got him, though?' cried Mr Snawley, scarcely able to believe it. `Yes, here he is, flesh and blood, flesh and blood.'
`Vary little flesh,' said John Browdie.
Mr Snawley was too much occupied by his parental feelings to notice this remark; and, to assure himself more completely of the restoration of his child, tucked his head under his arm again, and kept it there.
`What was it,' said Snawley, `that made me take such a strong interest in him, when that worthy instructor of youth brought him to my house? What was it that made me burn all over with a wish to chastise him severely for cutting away from his best friends--his pastors and masters?'
`It was parental instinct, sir,' observed Squeers.
`That's what it was, sir,' rejoined Snawley; `the elevated feeling--the feeling of the ancient Romans and Grecians, and of the beasts of the field and birds of the air, with the exception of rabbits and tom-cats, which sometimes devour their offspring. My heart yearned towards him. I could have--I don't know what I couldn't have done to him in the anger of a father.'
`It only shows what Natur is, sir,' said Mr Squeers. `She's rum'un, is Natur.'
`She is a holy thing, sir,' remarked Snawley.
`I believe you,' added Mr Squeers, with a moral sigh. `I should like to know how we should ever get on without her. Natur,' said Mr Squeers, solemnly, `is more easier conceived than described. Oh what a blessed thing, sir, to be in a state of natur!'
Pending this philosophical discourse, the bystanders had been quite stupefied with amazement, while Nicholas had looked keenly from Snawley to Squeers, and from Squeers to Ralph, divided between his feelings of disgust, doubt, and surprise. At this juncture, Smike escaping from his father fled to Nicholas, and implored him, in most moving terms, never to give him up, but to let him live and die beside him.
`If you are this boy's father,' said Nicholas, `look at the wreck he is, and tell me that you purpose to send him back to that loathsome den from which I brought him.'