OLIVER, BEING OFFERED ANOTHER PLACE, MAKES HIS FIRST ENTRY INTO PUBLIC
LIFE.
IN great families, when an advantageous place cannot be obtained,
either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the
young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom to send him to
sea. The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary an example, took
counsel together on the expediency of shipping off Oliver Twist in some
small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port, which suggested
itself as the very best thing that could possibly be done with him;
the probability being, that the skipper would either flog him to death
in a playful mood some day after dinner, or knock his brains out with
an iron bar—both pastimes being, as is pretty generally known, very
favourite and common recreations among gentlemen of that class. The
more the case presented itself to the board in this point of view, the
more manifold the advantages of the step appeared; so they came to the
conclusion, that the only way of providing for Oliver effectually, was
to send him to sea without delay.
Mr. Bumble had been despatched to make various preliminary inquiries,
with the view of finding out some captain or other who wanted a
cabin-boy without any friends; and was returning to the workhouse to
communicate the result of his mission, when he encountered just at the
gate no less a person than Mr. Sowerberry, the parochial undertaker.
Mr. Sowerberry was a tall, gaunt, large-jointed man, attired in a suit
of thread-bare black, with darned cotton stockings of the same colour,
and shoes to answer. His features were not naturally intended to wear
a smiling aspect, but he was in general rather given to professional
jocosity; his step was elastic, and his face betokened inward
pleasantry, as he advanced to Mr. Bumble and shook him cordially by the
hand.
“I have taken the measure of the two women that died last night, Mr.
Bumble,” said the undertaker.
“You’ll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,” said the beadle, as he
thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box of the
undertaker, which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin. “I
say you’ll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,” repeated Mr. Bumble,
tapping the undertaker on the shoulder in a friendly manner with his
cane.
“Think so?” said the undertaker in a tone which half admitted and half
disputed the probability of the event. “The prices allowed by the board
are very small, Mr. Bumble.”
“So are the coffins,” replied the beadle, with precisely as near an
approach to a laugh as a great official ought to indulge in.
Mr. Sowerberry was much tickled at this, as of course he ought to be,
and laughed a long time without cessation. “Well, well, Mr. Bumble,”
he said at length, “there’s no denying that, since the new system of
feeding has come in, the coffins are something narrower and more
shallow than they used to be; but we must have some profit, Mr. Bumble.
Well-seasoned timber is an expensive article, sir; and all the iron
handles come by canal from Birmingham.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Bumble, “every trade has its drawbacks, and a
fair profit is of course allowable.”
“Of course, of course,” replied the undertaker; “and if I don’t get a
profit upon this or that particular article, why, I make it up in the
long-run, you see—he! he! he!”
“Just so,” said Mr. Bumble.
“Though I must say,”—continued the undertaker, resuming the current
of observations which the beadle had interrupted—“though I must say,
Mr. Bumble, that I have to contend against one very great disadvantage,
which is, that all the stout people go off the quickest—I mean that
the people who have been better off, and have paid rates for many
years, are the first to sink when they come into the house: and let me
tell you, Mr. Bumble, that three or four inches over one’s calculation
makes a great hole in one’s profits, especially when one has a family
to provide for, sir.”
As Mr. Sowerberry said this, with the becoming indignation of an
ill-used man, and as Mr. Bumble felt that it rather tended to convey a
reflection on the honour of the parish, the latter gentleman thought it
advisable to change the subject; and Oliver Twist being uppermost in
his mind, he made him his theme.
“By the bye,” said Mr. Bumble, “you don’t know anybody who wants a
boy, do you—a porochial ’prentis, who is at present a dead-weight—a
millstone, as I may say—round the porochial throat? Liberal terms, Mr.
Sowerberry—liberal terms;”—and, as Mr. Bumble spoke, he raised his
cane to the bill above him, and gave three distinct raps upon the words
“five pounds,” which were printed thereon in Roman capitals of gigantic
size.
“Gadso!” said the undertaker, taking Mr. Bumble by the gilt-edged
lappel of his official coat; “that’s just the very thing I wanted to
speak to you about. You know—dear me, what a very elegant button this
is, Mr. Bumble; I never noticed it before.”
“Yes, I think it is rather pretty,” said the beadle, glancing proudly
downwards at the large brass buttons which embellished his coat. “The
die is the same as the porochial seal—the Good Samaritan healing
the sick and bruised man. The board presented it to me on New-year’s
morning, Mr Sowerberry. I put it on, I remember, for the first time, to
attend the inquest on that reduced tradesman who died in a doorway at
midnight.”
“I recollect,” said the undertaker. “The jury brought in, ‘Died
from exposure to the cold, and want of the common necessaries of
life,’—didn’t they?”
Mr. Bumble nodded.
“And they made it a special verdict, I think,” said the undertaker, “by
adding some words to the effect, that if the relieving officer had——”
“Tush—foolery!” interposed the beadle angrily. “If the board attended
to all the nonsense that ignorant jurymen talk, they’d have enough to
do.”
“Very true,” said the undertaker; “they would indeed.”
“Juries,” said Mr. Bumble, grasping his cane tightly, as was his wont
when working into a passion—“juries is ineddicated, vulgar, grovelling
wretches.”
“So they are,” said the undertaker.
“They haven’t no more philosophy nor political economy about ’em than
that,” said the beadle, snapping his fingers contemptuously.
“No more they have,” acquiesced the undertaker.
“I despise ’em,” said the beadle, growing very red in the face.
“So do I,” rejoined the undertaker.
“And I only wish we’d a jury of the independent sort in the house for a
week or two,” said the beadle; “the rules and regulations of the board
would soon bring their spirit down for them.”
“Let ’em alone for that,” replied the undertaker. So saying, he smiled
approvingly to calm the rising wrath of the indignant parish officer.
Mr. Bumble lifted off his cocked hat, took a handkerchief from the
inside of the crown, wiped from his forehead the perspiration which his
rage had engendered, fixed the cocked hat on again; and, turning to the
undertaker, said in a calmer voice,
“Well; what about the boy?”
“Oh!” replied the undertaker; “why, you know, Mr. Bumble, I pay a good
deal towards the poor’s rates.”
“Hem!” said Mr. Bumble. “Well?”
“Well,” replied the undertaker, “I was thinking that if I pay so much
towards ’em, I’ve a right to get as much out of ’em as I can, Mr.
Bumble; and so—and so—I think I’ll take the boy myself.”
Mr. Bumble grasped the undertaker by the arm, and led him into the
building. Mr. Sowerberry was closeted with the board for five minutes,
and it was arranged that Oliver should go to him that evening “upon
liking,”—a phrase which means, in the case of a parish apprentice,
that if the master find, upon a short trial, that he can get enough
work out of a boy without putting too much food in him, he shall have
him for a term of years, to do what he likes with.
When little Oliver was taken before “the gentlemen” that evening,
and informed that he was to go that night as general house-lad to a
coffin-maker’s, and that if he complained of his situation, or ever
came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be
drowned, or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so
little emotion, that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened
young rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith.
Now, although it was very natural that the board, of all people in the
world, should feel in a great state of virtuous astonishment and horror
at the smallest tokens of want of feeling on the part of anybody, they
were rather out in this particular instance. The simple fact was, that
Oliver, instead of possessing too little feeling, possessed rather
too much, and was in a fair way of being reduced to a state of brutal
stupidity and sullenness for life by the ill usage he had received. He
heard the news of his destination in perfect silence, and, having had
his luggage put into his hand—which was not very difficult to carry,
inasmuch as it was all comprised _within_ the limits of a brown paper
parcel, about half a foot square by three inches deep—he pulled his
cap over his eyes, and once more attaching himself to Mr. Bumble’s coat
cuff, was led away by that dignitary to a new scene of suffering.
For some time Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along without notice or remark,
for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should;
and, it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by
the skirts of Mr. Bumble’s coat as they blew open, and disclosed to
great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee-breeches.
As they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought
it expedient to look down and see that the boy was in good order for
inspection by his new master, which he accordingly did, with a fit and
becoming air of gracious patronage.
“Oliver!” said Mr. Bumble.
“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver, in a low, tremulous voice.
“Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir.”
Although Oliver did as he was desired at once, and passed the back of
his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them
when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon
him, it rolled down his cheek. It was followed by another, and another.
The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one; and,
withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble’s, he covered his face with
both, and wept till the tears sprung out from between his thin and bony
fingers.
“Well!” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his
little charge a look of intense malignity,—“well, of _all_ the
ungratefullest and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are
the——”
“No, no, sir,” sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the
well-known cane; “no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I
will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so—so—”
“So what?” inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement.
“So lonely, sir—so very lonely,” cried the child. “Everybody hates me.
Oh! sir, don’t, don’t pray be cross to me.” The child beat his hand
upon his heart, and looked into his companion’s face with tears of real
agony.
Mr. Bumble regarded Oliver’s piteous and helpless look with some
astonishment for a few seconds, hemmed three or four times in a husky
manner, and, after muttering something about “that troublesome cough,”
bid Oliver dry his eyes and be a good boy; and, once more taking his
hand, walked on with him in silence.
The undertaker had just put up the shutters of his shop, and was making
some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriately
dismal candle, when Mr. Bumble entered.
“Aha!” said the undertaker, looking up from the book, and pausing in
the middle of a word; “is that you, Bumble?”
“No one else, Mr. Sowerberry,” replied the beadle. “Here, I’ve brought
the boy.” Oliver made a bow.
“Oh! that’s the boy, is it?” said the undertaker, raising the candle
above his head to get a full glimpse of Oliver. “Mrs. Sowerberry! will
you come here a moment, my dear?”
Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and
presented the form of a short, thin, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish
countenance.
“My dear,” said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, “this is the boy from
the workhouse that I told you of.” Oliver bowed again.
“Dear me!” said the undertaker’s wife, “he’s very small.”
“Why, he _is_ rather small,” replied Mr. Bumble, looking at Oliver as
if it were his fault that he was no bigger; “he _is_ small,—there’s
no denying it. But he’ll grow, Mrs. Sowerberry,—he’ll grow.”
“Ah! I dare say he will,” replied the lady pettishly, “on our victuals
and our drink. I see no saving in parish children, not I; for they
always cost more to keep than they’re worth: however, men always think
they know best. There, get down stairs, little bag o’ bones.” With
this, the undertaker’s wife opened a side door, and pushed Oliver down
a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark, forming the
ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated “the kitchen,” wherein
sat a slatternly girl in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings
very much out of repair.
“Here, Charlotte,” said Mrs. Sowerberry, who had followed Oliver down,
“give this boy some of the cold bits that were put by for Trip: he
hasn’t come home since the morning, so he may go without ’em. I dare
say he isn’t too dainty to eat ’em,—are you, boy?”
Oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was
trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative and a
plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him.
I wish some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall
within him, whose blood is ice, and whose heart is iron, could have
seen Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had
neglected, and witnessed the horrible avidity with which he tore the
bits asunder with all the ferocity of famine:—there is only one thing
I should like better, and that would be to see him making the same sort
of meal himself, with the same relish.
“Well,” said the undertaker’s wife, when Oliver had finished his
supper, which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful
auguries of his future appetite, “have you done?”
There being nothing eatable within his reach, Oliver replied in the
affirmative.
“Then come with me,” said Mrs. Sowerberry, taking up a dim and dirty
lamp, and leading the way up stairs; “your bed’s under the counter. You
won’t mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose?—but it doesn’t much
matter whether you will or not, for you won’t sleep anywhere else.
Come; don’t keep me here all night.”
Oliver lingered no longer, but meekly followed his new mistress.