Nicholas, accompanied by Smike, sallies forth toseek his Fortune. He encounters Mr VincentCrummles; and who he was, is herein mademanifest.

　　The whole capital which Nicholas found himself entitled to,either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy,after paying his rent and settling with the broker fromwhom he had hired his poor furniture, did not exceed, by morethan a few halfpence, the sum of twenty shillings. And yet hehailed the morning on which he had resolved to quit London, witha light heart, and sprang from his bed with an elasticity of spiritwhich is happily the lot of young persons, or the world wouldnever be stocked with old ones.

　　It was a cold, dry, foggy morning in early spring. A few meagreshadows flitted to and fro in the misty streets, and occasionallythere loomed through the dull vapour, the heavy outline of somehackney coach wending homewards, which, drawing slowlynearer, rolled jangling by, scattering the thin crust of frost from itswhitened roof, and soon was lost again in the cloud. At intervalswere heard the tread of slipshod feet, and the chilly cry of the poorsweep as he crept, shivering, to his early toil; the heavy footfall ofthe official watcher of the night, pacing slowly up and down andcursing the tardy hours that still intervened between him andsleep; the rambling of ponderous carts and waggons; the roll of thelighter vehicles which carried buyers and sellers to the different markets; the sound of ineffectual knocking at the doors of heavysleepers—all these noises fell upon the ear from time to time, butall seemed muffled by the fog, and to be rendered almost asindistinct to the ear as was every object to the sight. The sluggishdarkness thickened as the day came on; and those who had thecourage to rise and peep at the gloomy street from their curtainedwindows, crept back to bed again, and coiled themselves up tosleep.

　　Before even these indications of approaching morning were rifein busy London, Nicholas had made his way alone to the city, andstood beneath the windows of his mother’s house. It was dull andbare to see, but it had light and life for him; for there was at leastone heart within its old walls to which insult or dishonour wouldbring the same blood rushing, that flowed in his own veins.

　　He crossed the road, and raised his eyes to the window of theroom where he knew his sister slept. It was closed and dark. ‘Poorgirl,’ thought Nicholas, ‘she little thinks who lingers here!’ Helooked again, and felt, for the moment, almost vexed that Kate wasnot there to exchange one word at parting. ‘Good God!’ hethought, suddenly correcting himself, ‘what a boy I am!’

　　‘It is better as it is,’ said Nicholas, after he had lounged on, afew paces, and returned to the same spot. ‘When I left thembefore, and could have said goodbye a thousand times if I hadchosen, I spared them the pain of leave-taking, and why not now?’

　　As he spoke, some fancied motion of the curtain almost persuadedhim, for the instant, that Kate was at the window, and by one ofthose strange contradictions of feeling which are common to us all,he shrunk involuntarily into a doorway, that she might not seehim. He smiled at his own weakness; said ‘God bless them!’ and walked away with a lighter step.

　　Smike was anxiously expecting him when he reached his oldlodgings, and so was Newman, who had expended a day’s incomein a can of rum and milk to prepare them for the journey. Theyhad tied up the luggage, Smike shouldered it, and away they went,with Newman Noggs in company; for he had insisted on walkingas far as he could with them, overnight.

　　‘Which way?’ asked Newman, wistfully.

　　‘To Kingston first,’ replied Nicholas.

　　‘And where afterwards?’ asked Newman. ‘Why won’t you tellme?’

　　‘Because I scarcely know myself, good friend,’ rejoinedNicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder; ‘and if I did, I haveneither plan nor prospect yet, and might shift my quarters ahundred times before you could possibly communicate with me.’

　　‘I am afraid you have some deep scheme in your head,’ saidNewman, doubtfully.

　　‘So deep,’ replied his young friend, ‘that even I can’t fathom it.

　　Whatever I resolve upon, depend upon it I will write you soon.’

　　‘You won’t forget?’ said Newman.

　　‘I am not very likely to,’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘I have not so manyfriends that I shall grow confused among the number, and forgetmy best one.’

　　Occupied in such discourse, they walked on for a couple ofhours, as they might have done for a couple of days if Nicholas hadnot sat himself down on a stone by the wayside, and resolutelydeclared his intention of not moving another step until NewmanNoggs turned back. Having pleaded ineffectually first for anotherhalf-mile, and afterwards for another quarter, Newman was fain to comply, and to shape his course towards Golden Square, afterinterchanging many hearty and affectionate farewells, and manytimes turning back to wave his hat to the two wayfarers when theyhad become mere specks in the distance.

　　‘Now listen to me, Smike,’ said Nicholas, as they trudged withstout hearts onwards. ‘We are bound for Portsmouth.’

　　Smike nodded his head and smiled, but expressed no otheremotion; for whether they had been bound for Portsmouth or PortRoyal would have been alike to him, so they had been boundtogether.

　　‘I don’t know much of these matters,’ resumed Nicholas; ‘butPortsmouth is a seaport town, and if no other employment is to beobtained, I should think we might get on board some ship. I amyoung and active, and could be useful in many ways. So couldyou.’

　　‘I hope so,’ replied Smike. ‘When I was at that—you knowwhere I mean?’

　　‘Yes, I know,’ said Nicholas. ‘You needn’t name the place.’

　　‘Well, when I was there,’ resumed Smike; his eyes sparkling atthe prospect of displaying his abilities; ‘I could milk a cow, andgroom a horse, with anybody.’

　　‘Ha!’ said Nicholas, gravely. ‘I am afraid they don’t keep manyanimals of either kind on board ship, Smike, and even when theyhave horses, that they are not very particular about rubbing themdown; still you can learn to do something else, you know. Wherethere’s a will, there’s a way.’

　　‘And I am very willing,’ said Smike, brightening up again.

　　‘God knows you are,’ rejoined Nicholas; ‘and if you fail, it shallgo hard but I’ll do enough for us both.’

　　 ‘Do we go all the way today?’ asked Smike, after a short silence.

　　‘That would be too severe a trial, even for your willing legs,’

　　said Nicholas, with a good-humoured smile. ‘No. Godalming issome thirty and odd miles from London—as I found from a map Iborrowed—and I purpose to rest there. We must push on againtomorrow, for we are not rich enough to loiter. Let me relieve youof that bundle! Come!’

　　‘No, no,’ rejoined Smike, falling back a few steps. ‘Don’t ask meto give it up to you.’

　　‘Why not?’ asked Nicholas.

　　‘Let me do something for you, at least,’ said Smike. ‘You willnever let me serve you as I ought. You will never know how Ithink, day and night, of ways to please you.’

　　‘You are a foolish fellow to say it, for I know it well, and see it,or I should be a blind and senseless beast,’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘Letme ask you a question while I think of it, and there is no one by,’

　　he added, looking him steadily in the face. ‘Have you a goodmemory?’

　　‘I don’t know,’ said Smike, shaking his head sorrowfully. ‘Ithink I had once; but it’s all gone now—all gone.’

　　‘Why do you think you had once?’ asked Nicholas, turningquickly upon him as though the answer in some way helped outthe purport of his question.

　　‘Because I could remember, when I was a child,’ said Smike,‘but that is very, very long ago, or at least it seems so. I was alwaysconfused and giddy at that place you took me from; and couldnever remember, and sometimes couldn’t even understand, whatthey said to me. I—let me see—let me see!’

　　‘You are wandering now,’ said Nicholas, touching him on the arm.

　　‘No,’ replied his companion, with a vacant look ‘I was onlythinking how—’ He shivered involuntarily as he spoke.

　　‘Think no more of that place, for it is all over,’ retortedNicholas, fixing his eyes full upon that of his companion, whichwas fast settling into an unmeaning stupefied gaze, once habitualto him, and common even then. ‘What of the first day you went toYorkshire?’

　　‘Eh!’ cried the lad.

　　‘That was before you began to lose your recollection, you know,’

　　said Nicholas quietly. ‘Was the weather hot or cold?’

　　‘Wet,’ replied the boy. ‘Very wet. I have always said, when it hasrained hard, that it was like the night I came: and they used tocrowd round and laugh to see me cry when the rain fell heavily. Itwas like a child, they said, and that made me think of it more. Iturned cold all over sometimes, for I could see myself as I wasthen, coming in at the very same door.’

　　‘As you were then,’ repeated Nicholas, with assumedcarelessness; ‘how was that?’

　　‘Such a little creature,’ said Smike, ‘that they might have hadpity and mercy upon me, only to remember it.’

　　‘You didn’t find your way there, alone!’ remarked Nicholas.

　　‘No,’ rejoined Smike, ‘oh no.’

　　‘Who was with you?’

　　‘A man—a dark, withered man. I have heard them say so, at theschool, and I remembered that before. I was glad to leave him, Iwas afraid of him; but they made me more afraid of them, andused me harder too.’

　　‘Look at me,’ said Nicholas, wishing to attract his full attention.

　　 ‘There; don’t turn away. Do you remember no woman, no kindwoman, who hung over you once, and kissed your lips, and calledyou her child?’

　　‘No,’ said the poor creature, shaking his head, ‘no, never.’

　　‘Nor any house but that house in Yorkshire?’

　　‘No,’ rejoined the youth, with a melancholy look; ‘a room—Iremember I slept in a room, a large lonesome room at the top of ahouse, where there was a trap-door in the ceiling. I have coveredmy head with the clothes often, not to see it, for it frightened me: ayoung child with no one near at night: and I used to wonder whatwas on the other side. There was a clock too, an old clock, in onecorner. I remember that. I have never forgotten that room; forwhen I have terrible dreams, it comes back, just as it was. I seethings and people in it that I had never seen then, but there is theroom just as it used to be; that never changes.’

　　‘Will you let me take the bundle now?’ asked Nicholas, abruptlychanging the theme.

　　‘No,’ said Smike, ‘no. Come, let us walk on.’

　　He quickened his pace as he said this, apparently under theimpression that they had been standing still during the whole ofthe previous dialogue. Nicholas marked him closely, and everyword of this conversation remained upon his memory.

　　It was, by this time, within an hour of noon, and although adense vapour still enveloped the city they had left, as if the verybreath of its busy people hung over their schemes of gain andprofit, and found greater attraction there than in the quiet regionabove, in the open country it was clear and fair. Occasionally, insome low spots they came upon patches of mist which the sun hadnot yet driven from their strongholds; but these were soon passed, and as they laboured up the hills beyond, it was pleasant to lookdown, and see how the sluggish mass rolled heavily off, before thecheering influence of day. A broad, fine, honest sun lighted up thegreen pastures and dimpled water with the semblance of summer,while it left the travellers all the invigorating freshness of thatearly time of year. The ground seemed elastic under their feet; thesheep-bells were music to their ears; and exhilarated by exercise,and stimulated by hope, they pushed onward with the strength oflions. The day wore on, and all these bright colours subsided, andassumed a quieter tint, like young hopes softened down by time,or youthful features by degrees resolving into the calm andserenity of age. But they were scarcely less beautiful in their slowdecline, than they had been in their prime; for nature gives toevery time and season some beauties of its own; and from morningto night, as from the cradle to the grave, is but a succession ofchanges so gentle and easy, that we can scarcely mark theirprogress.

　　To Godalming they came at last, and here they bargained fortwo humble beds, and slept soundly. In the morning they wereastir: though not quite so early as the sun: and again afoot; if notwith all the freshness of yesterday, still, with enough of hope andspirit to bear them cheerily on.

　　It was a harder day’s journey than yesterday’s, for there werelong and weary hills to climb; and in journeys, as in life, it is agreat deal easier to go down hill than up. However, they kept on,with unabated perseverance, and the hill has not yet lifted its faceto heaven that perseverance will not gain the summit of at last.

　　They walked upon the rim of the Devil’s Punch Bowl; andSmike listened with greedy interest as Nicholas read the inscription upon the stone which, reared upon that wild spot, tellsof a murder committed there by night. The grass on which theystood, had once been dyed with gore; and the blood of themurdered man had run down, drop by drop, into the hollow whichgives the place its name. ‘The Devil’s Bowl,’ thought Nicholas, ashe looked into the void, ‘never held fitter liquor than that!’

　　Onward they kept, with steady purpose, and entered at lengthupon a wide and spacious tract of downs, with every variety oflittle hill and plain to change their verdant surface. Here, thereshot up, almost perpendicularly, into the sky, a height so steep, asto be hardly accessible to any but the sheep and goats that fedupon its sides, and there, stood a mound of green, sloping andtapering off so delicately, and merging so gently into the levelground, that you could scarce define its limits. Hills swelling aboveeach other; and undulations shapely and uncouth, smooth andrugged, graceful and grotesque, thrown negligently side by side,bounded the view in each direction; while frequently, withunexpected noise, there uprose from the ground a flight of crows,who, cawing and wheeling round the nearest hills, as if uncertainof their course, suddenly poised themselves upon the wing andskimmed down the long vista of some opening valley, with thespeed of light itself.

　　By degrees, the prospect receded more and more on eitherhand, and as they had been shut out from rich and extensivescenery, so they emerged once again upon the open country. Theknowledge that they were drawing near their place of destination,gave them fresh courage to proceed; but the way had beendifficult, and they had loitered on the road, and Smike was tired.

　　Thus, twilight had already closed in, when they turned off the path to the door of a roadside inn, yet twelve miles short of Portsmouth.

　　‘Twelve miles,’ said Nicholas, leaning with both hands on hisstick, and looking doubtfully at Smike.

　　‘Twelve long miles,’ repeated the landlord.

　　‘Is it a good road?’ inquired Nicholas.

　　‘Very bad,’ said the landlord. As of course, being a landlord, hewould say.

　　‘I want to get on,’ observed Nicholas. hesitating. ‘I scarcelyknow what to do.’

　　‘Don’t let me influence you,’ rejoined the landlord. ‘I wouldn’tgo on if it was me.’

　　‘Wouldn’t you?’ asked Nicholas, with the same uncertainty.

　　‘Not if I knew when I was well off,’ said the landlord. Andhaving said it he pulled up his apron, put his hands into hispockets, and, taking a step or two outside the door, looked downthe dark road with an assumption of great indifference.

　　A glance at the toil-worn face of Smike determined Nicholas, sowithout any further consideration he made up his mind to staywhere he was.

　　The landlord led them into the kitchen, and as there was a goodfire he remarked that it was very cold. If there had happened to bea bad one he would have observed that it was very warm.

　　‘What can you give us for supper?’ was Nicholas’s naturalquestion.

　　‘Why—what would you like?’ was the landlord’s no less naturalanswer.

　　Nicholas suggested cold meat, but there was no cold meat—poached eggs, but there were no eggs—mutton chops, but therewasn’t a mutton chop within three miles, though there had been more last week than they knew what to do with, and would be anextraordinary supply the day after tomorrow.

　　‘Then,’ said Nicholas, ‘I must leave it entirely to you, as I wouldhave done, at first, if you had allowed me.’

　　‘Why, then I’ll tell you what,’ rejoined the landlord. ‘There’s agentleman in the parlour that’s ordered a hot beef-steak puddingand potatoes, at nine. There’s more of it than he can manage, and Ihave very little doubt that if I ask leave, you can sup with him. I’lldo that, in a minute.’

　　‘No, no,’ said Nicholas, detaining him. ‘I would rather not. I—atleast—pshaw! why cannot I speak out? Here; you see that I amtravelling in a very humble manner, and have made my way hitheron foot. It is more than probable, I think, that the gentleman maynot relish my company; and although I am the dusty figure yousee, I am too proud to thrust myself into his.’

　　‘Lord love you,’ said the landlord, ‘it’s only Mr Crummles; he............