Of his brothers, two had disappeared in the abyss, and one, Andrew, earned a hard livelihood as a journeyman baker; the elder of his sisters had married poorly, and the younger was his blind pensioner.

Nicholas had found a wife of better birth than his own, a young woman with country kindred in decent circumstances, though she herself served as nursemaid in the house of the medical man who employed her future husband.

He had taught himself the English language, so far as grammar went, but could not cast off the London accent; Mrs.Peak was fortunate enough to speak with nothing worse than the note of the Midlands.
His bent led him to the study of history, politics, economics, and in that time of military outbreak he was frenzied by the conflict of his ideals with the state of things about him.

A book frequently in his hands was Godwin's _Political Justice_, and when a son had been born to him he decided to name the child after that favourite author.

In this way, at all events, he could find some expression for his hot defiance of iniquity.
He paid his income-tax, and felt a savage joy in the privation thus imposed upon his family.