Admiring what could have wound his friend up to such a pitch of mystery, Nicholas endeavoured, by a series of questions, to elucidate the cause; but in vain. Newman could not be drawn into any more explicit statement than a repetition of the perplexities he had already thrown out, and a confused oration, showing, How it was necessary to use the utmost caution; how the lynx-eyed Ralph had already seen him in company with his unknown correspondent; and how he had baffled the said Ralph by extreme guardedness of manner and ingenuity of speech; having prepared himself for such a contingency from the first.
Remembering his companion’s propensity—of which his nose, indeed, perpetually warned all beholders like a beacon—Nicholas had drawn him into a sequestered tavern. Here, they fell to reviewing the origin and progress of their acquaintance, as men sometimes do, and tracing out the little events by which it was most strongly marked, came at last to Miss Cecilia Bobster.
“And that reminds me,” said Newman, “that you never told me the young lady’s real name.”
“Madeline!” said Nicholas.
“Madeline!” cried Newman. “What Madeline? Her other name. Say her other name.”
“Bray,” said Nicholas, in great astonishment.
“It’s the same!” cried Newman. “Sad story! Can you stand idly by, and let that unnatural marriage take place without one attempt to save her?”
“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicholas, starting up; “marriage! are you mad?”
“Are you? Is she? Are you blind, deaf, senseless, dead?” said Newman. “Do you know that within one day, by means of your uncle Ralph, she will be married to a man as bad as he, and worse, if worse there is? Do you know that, within one day, she will be sacrificed, as sure as you stand there alive, to a hoary wretch—a devil born and bred, and grey in devils’ ways?”
“Be careful what you say,” replied Nicholas. “For Heaven’s sake be careful! I am left here alone, and those who could stretch out a hand to rescue her are far away. What is it that you mean?”
“I never heard her name,” said Newman, choking with his energy. “Why didn’t you tell me? How was I to know? We might, at least, have had some time to think!”
“What is it that you mean?” cried Nicholas.
It was not an easy task to arrive at this information; but, after a great quantity of extraordinary pantomime, which in no way assisted it, Nicholas, who was almost as wild as Newman Noggs himself, forced the latter down upon his seat and held him down until he began his tale.
Rage, astonishment, indignation, and a storm of passions, rushed through the listener’s heart, as the plot was laid bare. He no sooner understood it all, than with a face of ashy paleness, and trembling in every limb, he darted from the house.
“Stop him!” cried Newman, bolting out in pursuit. “He’ll be doing something desperate; he’ll murder somebody. Hallo! there, stop him. Stop thief! stop thief!”
LII
Nicholas despairs of rescuing Madeline Bray, but plucks up his spirits again, and determines to attempt it. Domestic intelligence of the Kenwigses and Lillyvicks.
Finding that Newman was determined to arrest his progress at any hazard, and apprehensive that some well-intentioned passenger, attracted by the cry of “Stop thief,” might lay violent hands upon his person, and place him in a disagreeable predicament from which he might have some difficulty in extricating himself, Nicholas soon slackened his pace, and suffered Newman Noggs to come up with him: which he did, in so breathless a condition, that it seemed impossible he could have held out for a minute longer.
“I will go straight to Bray’s,” said Nicholas. “I will see this man. If there is a feeling of humanity lingering in his breast, a spark of consideration for his own child, motherless and friendless as she is, I will awaken it.”
“You will not,” replied Newman. “You will not, indeed.”
“Then,” said Nicholas, pressing onward, “I will act upon my first impulse, and go straight to Ralph Nickleby.”
“By the time you reach his house he will be in bed,” said Newman.
“I’ll drag him from it,” cried Nicholas.
“Tut, tut,” said Noggs. “Be yourself.”
“You are the best of friends to me, Newman,” rejoined Nicholas after a pause, and taking his hand as he spoke. “I have made head against many trials; but the misery of another, and such misery, is involved in this one, that I declare to you I am rendered desperate, and know not how to act.”
In truth, it did seem a hopeless case. It was impossible to make any use of such intelligence as Newman Noggs had gleaned, when he lay concealed in the closet. The mere circumstance of the compact between Ralph Nickleby and Gride would not invalidate the marriage, or render Bray averse to it, who, if he did not actually know of the existence of some such understanding, doubtless suspected it. What had been hinted with reference to some fraud on Madeline, had been put, with sufficient obscurity by Arthur Gride, but coming from Newman Noggs, and obscured still further by the smoke of his pocket-pistol, it became wholly unintelligible, and involved in utter darkness.
“There seems no ray of hope,” said Nicholas.
“The greater necessity for coolness, for reason, for consideration, for thought,” said Newman, pausing at every alternate word, to look anxiously in his friend’s face. “Where are the brothers?”
“Both absent on urgent business, as they will be for a week to come.”
“Is there no way of communicating with them? No way of getting one of them here by tomorrow night?”
“Impossible!” said Nicholas, “the sea is between us and them. With the fairest winds that ever blew, to go and return would take three days and nights.”
“Their nephew,” said Newman, “their old clerk.”
“What could either do, that I cannot?” rejoined Nicholas. “With reference to them, especially, I am enjoined to the strictest silence on this subject. What right have I to betray the
