"I should indeed," replied Nicholas.
Meanwhile Mrs. Squeers, who had been hunting elsewhere for the boy, bustled in with great excitement.
"He is off!" said she. "The cow-house and stable are locked up, so he can't be there; and he's not downstairs anywhere, for the girl has looked. He must have gone York way, and by a public road too."
"Why must he?" inquired Squeers.
"Stupid!" said Mrs. Squeers, angrily. "He hadn't any money, had he?"
"Never had a penny of his own in his whole life, that I know of," replied Squeers.
"To be sure," rejoined Mrs. Squeers, "and he didn't take anything to eat with him; that I'll answer for. So, of course, he must beg his way, and he could do that nowhere but on the public road."
"That's true," exclaimed Squeers, clapping his hands.
"True! Yes; but you would never have thought of it, for all that, if I hadn't said so," replied his wife. "Now, if you take the chaise and go one road, and I borrow Swallow's chaise and go the other, what with keeping our eyes open and asking questions, one or other of us is pretty certain to lay hold of him."
The worthy lady's plan was put into action without delay; while Nicholas remained behind in a tumult of anxiety. He realized the bitter consequences of Smike's rash act. The boy was liable to freeze or starve to death on the roadside—which could not, perhaps, be much worse than to fall again into the clutches of Mr. and Mrs. Squeers.