ralph nickleby's hatred had been growing day by day. as he could not harm nicholas now, he tried to hurt him through smike. he sent for squeers, and the latter, finding smike alone one day on the street, seized him, put him in a coach and started to take him back to dotheboys hall. but luckily his victim escaped and got back to london.
then ralph formed a wicked plot to get smike surely into their hands. he hired a man to claim that he was the boy's father, who had first taken him to squeers's school. squeers, too, swore to this lying tale. but the cheeryble brothers suspected the story, and when ralph saw they were[pg 176] determined to help nicholas protect smike, he was afraid to go any further with the plan. so he smothered his rage for the time being, and meanwhile a most important thing happened to nicholas—he fell in love!
it came about in this way: there was a man named bray, who had been arrested for debt and was allowed to live only in a certain street under the guardianship of the jailer, for this was the law in england then. he was slowly dying of heart-disease, and all the money he had to live on was what his only daughter, a lovely girl named madeline, earned by painting and selling pictures.
the cheeryble brothers had learned of their poverty, (for it was hard for madeline to find purchasers), and they sent nicholas to buy some of the pictures. he was to pretend to be a dealer, so that madeline would not suspect it was done for charity. nicholas went more than once and soon had fallen very much in love with madeline bray.
he was not the only one who admired her, however. there was an old man named gride, almost as stingy as ralph nickleby, who had discovered by accident that a large sum of money really belonged to madeline, which she and her father knew nothing about, and he thought it would be a fine thing to marry her and thus get this fortune into his hands. now, ralph nickleby was one of the men who was keeping bray a prisoner, and so gride went to him and asked him to help him[pg 177] marry madeline. if bray made his daughter marry the old miser he himself was to be set free. ralph, for his share, was to get some of the money the old man gride knew should be madeline's.
it was a pretty plan and it pleased ralph, for he cared little what lives he ruined so long as he got money by it. so he agreed, and soon convinced bray (who, ill as he was, was utterly selfish) that it would be a fine thing for madeline to marry the hideous old gride and so free her father. at length, in despair, because she thought it her duty to her heartless father, madeline consented to do so.
nicholas might never have known of this till after the wedding, but luckily noggs, the clerk, had overheard the old skinflint make the bargain with ralph, and when one day nicholas confessed that he was in love with madeline, the good-hearted clerk told him all that he had found out.
nicholas was in great trouble, for he loved madeline very dearly. he went to her and begged her not to marry gride, but she thought it her duty. he went to gride, too, but the hideous old miser only sneered at him.
at last, in desperation, he told kate, and the brother and sister went together to bray's house. they reached it just as the wedding was about to begin.
ralph nickleby, who was there, foamed with fury to find the nephew he so hated again stepping[pg 178] between him and his evil designs. he tried to bar them out, but nicholas forced him back.
they would doubtless have come to blows, but at that moment there came from another room the sound of a fall, and a scream from madeline. the excitement had proved too much for her father. his heart had failed and he had fallen dead on the floor. thus providence interfered to bring the wicked scheme of the marriage to naught.
vainly did gride bemoan the loss of the money he had hoped to gain, and vainly did ralph nickleby, with curses, try to prevent. nicholas thrust them both aside, lifted the unconscious madeline as easily as if she had been a baby, placed her with kate in a coach and, daring ralph to follow; jumped up beside the coachman and bade him drive away.
he took her to his own home, where his mother and kate cared for her tenderly till she had recovered from the shock and was her own lovely self again.
the penalty that he had so long deserved was soon to overtake ralph nickleby. he lost much of his wealth through a failure, and close on the heels of this misfortune came the news that the infamous plot he had formed against smike had been discovered and that squeers, his accomplice, had been arrested.
the most terrible blow came last. a man whom ralph had long ago ruined and had caused to be[pg 179] transported for a crime, confessed that he had been the one who, many years before, had left smike at dotheboys hall, and he confessed also that smike was really ralph nickleby's own son by a secret marriage. ralph had not known this, because the man, in revenge, had falsely told him the child was dead.
the knowledge that, in smike, he had been persecuting his own son was the crowning blow for cruel ralph nickleby. when he heard this he locked himself up alone in his great house and never was seen alive again. his body was found in the garret where he had hanged himself to a rafter.
poor smike, however, did not live to sorrow over the villainy of his father. the exposure and hardships of his years at squeers's school had broken his health. he had for long been gradually growing weaker, and at last one day he died peacefully, with nicholas's arms around him.
every one of whose villainy this story tells came to a bad end. sir mulberry hawk quarreled with young lord verisopht and shot him dead in the duel that followed. for this he himself had to fly to a foreign country, where he finally died miserably in jail. gride, the miser who had plotted to marry madeline, met almost as terrible a fate as ralph's. his house was broken into by burglars one night and he was found murdered in his bed.
squeers was declared guilty and transported for[pg 180] seven years. when the news reached dotheboys hall such a cheer arose as had never been heard there. it came on the weekly "treacle day," and the boys ducked young wackford in the soup kettle and made mrs. squeers swallow a big dose of her own brimstone. then, big and little, they all ran away, just as nicholas and smike had done.
kate married a nephew of the cheeryble brothers, and nicholas, of course, married madeline, and in time became a partner in the firm. all of them lived near by, and their little children played together under the watchful care of old noggs, the one-eyed clerk, who loved them all alike.
the children laid flowers every day on poor smike's grave, and often their eyes filled with tears as they spoke low and softly of the dead cousin they had never known.
