"Stand aside, my dear," replied Squeers. "We'll try and find out."

Mrs. Squeers, being out of breath with her exertions, complied.

Squeers caught the boy firmly in his grip; one desperate cut had fallen on his body--he was wincing from the lash, and uttering a scream of pain--it was raised again, and again about to fall--when Nicholas Nickleby suddenly starting up, cried: "Stop!" in a voice that made the rafters ring.

"Who cried stop?" said Squeers, turning savagely round.

"I," said Nicholas, stepping forward. "This must not go on."

"Must not go on!" cried Squeers, almost in a shriek.

"No!" thundered Nicholas.

Aghast and stupefied by the boldness of the interference, Squeers released his hold of Smike, and, falling back a pace or two, gazed upon Nicholas with looks that were positively frightful.

"I say must not," repeated Nicholas, nothing daunted; "shall not. I will prevent it."

Squeers continued to gaze upon him, with his eyes starting out of his head; but astonishment had actually, for the moment, bereft him of speech.

"You have disregarded all my quiet interference in the miserable lad's behalf," said Nicholas; "you have returned no answer to the letter in which I begged forgiveness for him, and offered to be responsible that he would remain quietly here. Don't blame me for this public interference. You have brought it upon yourself, not I."

"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 pa.s.sion; "and my indignation is aggravated by the dastardly cruelties practised on helpless infancy in this foul den. Have a care; for, if you do raise 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, spit upon him, and 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.

The boys--with the exception of Master Squeers, who, coming to his father's a.s.sistance, hara.s.sed the enemy in the rear--moved not hand or foot; but Mrs. Squeers, with many shrieks for aid, hung on to the tail of her partner's coat, and endeavoured to drag him from his infuriated adversary; while Miss Squeers, who had been peeping through the keyhole in expectation of a very different scene, darted in at the very beginning of the attack, and after launching a shower of inkstands at the usher's head, beat Nicholas to her heart's content: animating herself at every blow with the recollection of his having refused her proffered love, and thus imparting additional strength to an arm which (as she took after her mother in this respect) was, at no time, one of the weakest.

Nicholas, in the full torrent of his violence, felt the blows no more than if they had been dealt with feathers; but, becoming tired of the noise and uproar, and feeling that his arm grew weak besides, he threw all his remaining strength into half a dozen finishing cuts and flung Squeers from him, with all the force he could muster. The violence of his fall precipitated Mrs. Squeers completely over an adjacent form; and Squeers, striking his head against it in his descent, lay at his full length on the ground, stunned and motionless.

Having brought affairs to this happy termination, and ascertained, to his thorough satisfaction, that Squeers was only stunned, and not dead (upon which point he had had some unpleasant doubts at first), Nicholas left his family to restore him and retired to consider what course he had better adopt. He looked anxiously round for Smike, as he left the room, but he was nowhere to be seen.

After a brief consideration, he packed up a few clothes in a small leathern valise, and, finding that n.o.body offered to oppose his progress, marched boldly out by the front door and started to walk to London.

Near the school he met John Browdie, the honest corn factor.

John saw that Nicholas had received a severe blow, and asked the reason.

"The fact is," said Nicholas, not very well knowing how to make the avowal, "the fact is, that I have been ill-treated."

"Noa!" interposed John Browdie, in a tone of compa.s.sion; for he was a giant in strength and stature, and Nicholas, very likely, in his eyes, seemed a mere dwarf; "dean't say thot."

"Yes, I have," replied Nicholas, "by that man Squeers, and I have beaten him soundly, and am leaving this place in consequence."

"What!" cried John Browdie, with such an ecstatic shout, that the horse quite shied at it. "Beatten the schoolmeasther! Ho! ho! ho!

Beatten the schoolmeasther! who ever heard o' the loike o' that noo!

Giv' us thee hond agean, yongster. Beatten the schoolmeasther! Dang it, I loove thee for't."

And the world agreed, and still agrees, with John Browdie.

Squeers and Smike began the real movement against cruelty and corporal punishment not only in schools, but in homes. d.i.c.kens described both characters so admirably that the world hated Squeers and pitied Smike to the limit of its power to hate and pity, and unconsciously the world a.s.sociated cruelty and corporal punishment with Squeers. This was exactly what d.i.c.kens desired. The hatred of Squeers led to a strong disapproval of his practices. Corporal punishment was a.s.sociated with an unpopular man, and it lost its respectable character and never regained it. The dislike for Squeers was accentuated by the long-continued sympathy and hopefulness felt for Smike as he gradually succ.u.mbed to the terrible disease, consumption, induced by poor food, neglect, and cruelty.

Squeers and Smike are doing their good work still, and doing it well. They could do it much better if men and women when they have become acquainted with Squeers would candidly ask themselves the question, "In what respects am I like Squeers?" instead of yielding to the feeling of self-satisfaction that they are so very unlike him.

Just before writing about the coercive tyranny of Squeers in his school, d.i.c.kens had written Oliver Twist, in which he had made a most vigorous attack upon two cla.s.ses of characters for their tyrannical treatment of children, and especially on account of their frequent use of corporal punishment. b.u.mble represented the officials in inst.i.tutions for children, and "the gentleman in the white waistcoat" was given as a type of the advanced Christian philanthropy of his time. He meant well, gave his time freely to attend the meetings of the board, and supposed he was doing right; but d.i.c.kens wished to let philanthropists see that they were terribly cruel to the helpless children, and that their good intentions could not condone their harshness, even though it resulted from ignorance and lack of reverence for childhood, and not from deliberate evil intentions.

Poor, friendless little Oliver! His beautiful face and gentle spirit might have touched the hardest heart, but the inst.i.tutional heart becomes hard easily, even two generations after the time of b.u.mble and "the gentleman in the immaculate white waistcoat."

d.i.c.kens says:

It must not be supposed that Oliver was denied the benefit of exercise, the pleasure of society, or the advantages of religious consolation in the workhouse. As for exercise, it was nice cold weather, and he was allowed to perform his ablutions every morning under the pump, in a stone yard, in the presence of Mr. b.u.mble, who prevented his catching cold, and caused a tingling sensation to pervade his frame, by repeated applications of the cane. As for society, he was carried every other day into the hall, where the boys dined, and there sociably flogged as a public warning and example. And so far from being denied the advantage of religious consolation, he was kicked into the same apartment every evening at prayer time, and there permitted to listen to, and console his mind with, a general supplication of the boys, containing a special clause, therein inserted by authority of the board, in which they entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented, and obedient, and to be guarded from the sins and vices of Oliver Twist.

After Oliver had been sent to work for Mr. Sowerberry he was goaded to desperation one evening by the disrespectful remarks of Noah Claypole about his mother, and bravely gave the mean bully the personal chastis.e.m.e.nt he so richly deserved. Noah was sent to complain to the parish board, and the gentleman in the white waistcoat said:

"b.u.mble, just step up to Sowerberry's with your cane, and see what's best to be done. Don't spare him, b.u.mble."

"No, I will not, sir," replied the beadle, adjusting the wax end which was twisted round the bottom of his cane, for purposes of parochial flagellation.

"Tell Sowerberry not to spare him either. They'll never do anything with him without stripes and bruises," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

The innocent, manly child was beaten unmercifully and abused cruelly by Sowerberry and b.u.mble, yet he bore all their taunts and floggings without a tear until he was alone. Then, "when there was none to see or hear him, he fell upon his knees on the floor, and, hiding his face in his hands, wept such tears as, G.o.d send for the credit of our nature, few so young may ever have cause to pour out before him!"

There are not many "gentlemen in white waistcoats" of the type described by d.i.c.kens now on charitable boards, and the enlightened sentiment of civilized countries turns the legal processes of nations upon officials who dare to treat children unkindly. d.i.c.kens made humane people everywhere sympathize with Mr. Meagles, who said: "Whenever I see a beadle in full fig coming down a street on a Sunday at the head of a charity school, I am obliged to turn and run away, or I should hit him."

Ten years after Squeers began his good work d.i.c.kens produced Squeers's a.s.sociate, Mr. Creakle, the master of Salem House.

David Copperfield was sent to Salem House by his stepfather, Mr.

Murdstone, because he bit his hand when he was punishing him unjustly. For this offence he was compelled to wear a placard on his back on which was written: "Take care of him. He bites." This dastardly practice of labelling youthful offenders persisted until very recent times. Children in schools are even yet in some places degraded by inconsiderate teachers by being compelled to wear some indication of their misconduct. d.i.c.kens vigorously condemned this outrage in 1849.

David was sent to school during the holidays, and was soon brought before Mr. Creakle by Tungay, his servant with the wooden leg.

"So," said Mr. Creakle, "this is the young gentleman whose teeth are to be filed! Turn him round."

Mr. Creakle's face was fiery, and his eyes were small and deep in his head; he had thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large chin. He was bald on the top of his head; and had some thin, wet-looking hair that was just turning gray brushed across each temple, so that the two sides interlaced on his forehead.

"Now," said Mr. Creakle. "What's the report of this boy?"

"There's nothing against him yet," returned the man with the wooden leg. "There has been no opportunity."

I thought Mr. Creakle was disappointed. I thought Mrs. and Miss Creakle (at whom I now glanced for the first time, and who were, both, thin and quiet) were not disappointed.

"Come here, sir!" said Mr. Creakle, beckoning to me.

"Come here!" said the man with the wooden leg, repeating the gesture.