Chapter 49

CHAPTER 49

Chronicles the further Proceedings of the Nickleby Family, and the
Sequel of the Adventure of the Gentleman in the Small-clothes

While Nicholas, absorbed in the one engrossing subject of interest
which had recently opened upon him, occupied his leisure hours with
thoughts of Madeline Bray, and in execution of the commissions which
the anxiety of brother Charles in her behalf imposed upon him, saw
her again and again, and each time with greater danger to his peace
of mind and a more weakening effect upon the lofty resolutions he
had formed, Mrs Nickleby and Kate continued to live in peace and
quiet, agitated by no other cares than those which were connected
with certain harassing proceedings taken by Mr Snawley for the
recovery of his son, and their anxiety for Smike himself, whose
health, long upon the wane, began to be so much affected by
apprehension and uncertainty as sometimes to occasion both them and
Nicholas considerable uneasiness, and even alarm.

It was no complaint or murmur on the part of the poor fellow himself
that thus disturbed them. Ever eager to be employed in such slight
services as he could render, and always anxious to repay his
benefactors with cheerful and happy looks, less friendly eyes might
have seen in him no cause for any misgiving. But there were times,
and often too, when the sunken eye was too bright, the hollow cheek
too flushed, the breath too thick and heavy in its course, the frame
too feeble and exhausted, to escape their regard and notice.

There is a dread disease which so prepares its victim, as it were,
for death; which so refines it of its grosser aspect, and throws
around familiar looks unearthly indications of the coming change; a
dread disease, in which the struggle between soul and body is so
gradual, quiet, and solemn, and the result so sure, that day by day,
and grain by grain, the mortal part wastes and withers away, so that
the spirit grows light and sanguine with its lightening load, and,
feeling immortality at hand, deems it but a new term of mortal life;
a disease in which death and life are so strangely blended, that
death takes the glow and hue of life, and life the gaunt and grisly
form of death; a disease which medicine never cured, wealth never
warded off, or poverty could boast exemption from; which sometimes
moves in giant strides, and sometimes at a tardy sluggish pace, but,
slow or quick, is ever sure and certain.

It was with some faint reference in his own mind to this disorder,
though he would by no means admit it, even to himself, that Nicholas
had already carried his faithful companion to a physician of great
repute. There was no cause for immediate alarm, he said. There
were no present symptoms which