OLIVER CONTINUES REFRACTORY.
NOAH CLAYPOLE ran along the streets at his swiftest pace, and paused
not once for breath until he reached the workhouse-gate. Having rested
here for a minute or so, to collect a good burst of sobs and an
imposing show of tears and terror, he knocked loudly at the wicket, and
presented such a rueful face to the aged pauper who opened it, that
even he, who saw nothing but rueful faces about him at the best of
times, started back in astonishment.
“Why, what’s the matter with the boy?” said the old pauper.
“Mr. Bumble! Mr. Bumble!” cried Noah, with well-affected dismay, and in
tones so loud and agitated that they not only caught the ear of Mr.
Bumble himself, who happened to be hard by, but alarmed him so much
that he rushed into the yard without his cocked hat,—which is a very
curious and remarkable circumstance, as showing that even a beadle,
acted upon by a sudden and powerful impulse, may be afflicted with a
momentary visitation of loss of self-possession, and forgetfulness of
personal dignity.
“Oh, Mr. Bumble, sir!” said Noah: “Oliver, sir,—Oliver has——”
“What?—what?” interposed Mr. Bumble, with a gleam of pleasure in his
metallic eyes. “Not run away; he hasn’t run away, has he, Noah?”
“No, sir, no; not run away, sir, but he’s turned wicious,” replied
Noah. “He tried to murder me, sir, and then he tried to murder
Charlotte, and then missis. Oh! what dreadful pain it is! such agony,
please, sir!” and here Noah writhed and twisted his body into an
extensive variety of eel-like positions; thereby giving Mr. Bumble
to understand that, from the violent and sanguinary onset of Oliver
Twist, he had sustained severe internal injury and damage, from which
he was at that moment suffering the acutest torture.
When Noah saw that the intelligence he communicated perfectly paralyzed
Mr. Bumble, he imparted additional effect thereunto, by bewailing his
dreadful wounds ten times louder than before; and, when he observed a
gentleman in a white waistcoat crossing the yard, he was more tragic
in his lamentations than ever, rightly conceiving it highly expedient
to attract the notice, and rouse the indignation, of the gentleman
aforesaid.
The gentleman’s notice was very soon attracted, for he had not walked
three paces when he turned angrily round, and inquired what that
young cur was howling for, and why Mr. Bumble did not favour him with
something which would render the series of vocular exclamations so
designated, an involuntary process.
“It’s a poor boy from the free-school, sir,” replied Mr. Bumble, “who
has been nearly murdered—all but murdered, sir—by young Twist.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed the gentleman in the white waistcoat, stopping
short. “I knew it! I felt a strange presentiment from the very first,
that that audacious young savage would come to be hung!”
“He has likewise attempted, sir, to murder the female servant,” said
Mr. Bumble, with a face of ashy paleness.
“And his missis,” interposed Mr. Claypole.
“And his master, too, I think you said, Noah?” added Mr. Bumble.
“No; he’s out, or he would have murdered him,” replied Noah. “He said
he wanted to—”
“Ah! said he wanted to—did he, my boy?” inquired the gentleman in the
white waistcoat.
“Yes, sir,” replied Noah; “and please, sir, missis wants to know
whether Mr. Bumble can spare time to step up there directly and flog
him, ’cause master’s out.”
“Certainly, my boy; certainly,” said the gentleman in the white
waistcoat, smiling benignly, and patting Noah’s head, which was about
three inches higher than his own. “You’re a good boy—a very good boy.
Here’s a penny for you. Bumble, just step up to Sowerberry’s with your
cane, and see what’s best to be done. Don’t spare him, Bumble.”
“No, I will not sir,” replied the beadle, adjusting the wax-end which
was twisted round the bottom of his cane for purposes of parochial
flagellation.
“Tell Sowerberry not to spare him either. They’ll never do anything
with him without stripes and bruises,” said the gentleman in the white
waistcoat.
“I’ll take care, sir,” replied the beadle. And the cocked hat and
cane having been by this time adjusted to their owner’s satisfaction,
Mr. Bumble and Noah Claypole betook themselves with all speed to the
undertaker’s shop.
Here the position of affairs had not at all improved, or Sowerberry
had not yet returned, and Oliver continued to kick with undiminished
vigour at the cellar-door. The accounts of his ferocity, as related
by Mrs. Sowerberry and Charlotte, were of so startling a nature that
Mr. Bumble judged it prudent to parley before opening the door. With
this view he gave a kick at the outside, by way of prelude, and then,
applying his mouth to the keyhole, said, in a deep and impressive tone,
“Oliver!”
“Come; you let me out!” replied Oliver, from the inside.
“Do you know this here voice, Oliver?” said Mr. Bumble.
“Yes,” replied Oliver.
“Ain’t you afraid of it, sir? Ain’t you a-tremling while I speak, sir?”
said Mr. Bumble.
“No!” replied Oliver boldly.
An answer so different from the one he had expected to elicit, and
was in the habit of receiving, staggered Mr. Bumble not a little. He
stepped back from the keyhole, drew himself up to his full height,
and looked from one to another of the three by-standers in mute
astonishment.
“Oh, you know Mr. Bumble, he must be mad,” said Mrs. Sowerberry. “No
boy in half his senses could venture to speak so to you.”
“It’s not madness, ma’am,” replied Mr. Bumble, after a few moments of
deep meditation; “it’s meat.”
“What!” exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry.
“Meat, ma’am, meat,” replied Bumble, with stern emphasis. “You’ve
overfed him, ma’am. You’ve raised a artificial soul and spirit in
him, ma’am, unbecoming a person of his condition, as the board, Mrs.
Sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell you. What have
paupers to do with soul or spirit either? It’s quite enough that we let
’em have live bodies. If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma’am, this
would never have happened.”
“Dear, dear!” ejaculated Mrs. Sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to
the kitchen ceiling, “this comes of being liberal!”
The liberality of Mrs. Sowerberry to Oliver had consisted in a
profuse bestowal upon him of all the dirty odds and ends which nobody
else would eat; so that there was a great deal of meekness and
self-devotion in her voluntarily remaining under Mr. Bumble’s heavy
accusation, of which, to do her justice, she was wholly innocent in
thought, word, or deed.
“Ah!” said Mr. Bumble, when the lady brought her eyes down to earth
again; “the only thing that can be done now, that I know of, is to
leave him in the cellar for a day or so till he’s a little starved
down, and then to take him out and keep him on gruel all through his
apprenticeship. He comes of a bad family—excitable natures, Mrs.
Sowerberry. Both the nurse and doctor said that that mother of his made
her way here against difficulties and pain that would have killed any
well-disposed woman weeks before.”
At this point of Mr. Bumble’s discourse, Oliver just hearing enough
to know that some further allusion was being made to his mother,
recommenced kicking with a violence which rendered every other sound
inaudible. Sowerberry returned at this juncture, and Oliver’s offence
having been explained to him, with such exaggerations as the ladies
thought best calculated to rouse his ire, he unlocked the cellar-door
in a twinkling, and dragged his rebellious apprentice out by the collar.
Oliver’s clothes had been torn in the beating he had received; his
face was bruised and scratched, and his hair scattered over his
forehead. The angry flush had not disappeared, however; and when he was
pulled out of his prison, he scowled boldly on Noah, and looked quite
undismayed.
“Now, you are a nice young fellow, ain’t you?” said Sowerberry, giving
Oliver a shake and a box on the ear.
“He called my mother names,” replied Oliver.
“Well, and what if he did, you little ungrateful wretch?” said Mrs.
Sowerberry. “She deserved what he said, and worse.”
“She didn’t,” said Oliver.
“She did,” said Mrs. Sowerberry.
“It’s a lie!” said Oliver.
Mrs. Sowerberry burst into a flood of tears.
This flood of tears left Sowerberry no alternative. If he had hesitated
for one instant to punish Oliver most severely, it must be quite
clear to every experienced reader that he would have been, according
to all precedents in disputes of matrimony established, a brute, an
unnatural husband, an insulting creature, a base imitation of a man,
and various other agreeable characters too numerous for recital within
the limits of this chapter. To do him justice, he was, as far as his
power went,—it was not very extensive,—kindly disposed towards the
boy; perhaps because it was his interest to be so, perhaps because his
wife disliked him. The flood of tears, however, left him no resource;
so he at once gave him a drubbing, which satisfied even Mrs. Sowerberry
herself, and rendered Mr. Bumble’s subsequent application of the
parochial cane rather unnecessary. For the rest of the day he was shut
up in the back kitchen, in company with a pump and a slice of bread;
and, at night, Mrs. Sowerberry, after making various remarks outside
the door, by no means complimentary to the memory of his mother,
looked into the room, and, amidst the jeers and pointings of Noah and
Charlotte, ordered him up stairs to his dismal bed.
It was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness of the
gloomy workshop of the undertaker, that Oliver gave way to the feelings
which the day’s treatment may be supposed likely to have awakened in a
mere child. He had listened to their taunts with a look of contempt; he
had borne the lash without a cry, for he felt that pride swelling in
his heart which would have kept down a shriek to the last, if they had
roasted him alive. But, now, that there were none to see or hear him,
he fell upon his knees on the floor, and, hiding his face in his hands,
wept such tears as, God send for the credit of our nature, few so young
may ever have cause to pour out before him.
For a long time Oliver remained motionless in this attitude. The candle
was burning low in the socket when he rose to his feet, and having
gazed cautiously round him, and listened intently, gently undid the
fastenings of the door and looked abroad.
It was a cold dark night. The stars seemed to the boy’s eyes further
from the earth than he had ever seen them before; there was no wind;
and the sombre shadows thrown by the trees on the earth, looked
sepulchral and death-like, from being so still. He softly reclosed the
door, and, having availed himself of the expiring light of the candle
to tie up in a handkerchief the few articles of wearing apparel he had,
sat himself down upon a bench to wait for morning.
With the first ray of light that struggled through the crevices in
the shutters Oliver rose, and again unbarred the door. One timid look
around,—one moment’s pause of hesitation,—he had closed it behind
him, and was in the open street.
He looked to the right and to the left, uncertain whither to fly. He
remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up the
hill; he took the same route, and arriving at a footpath across the
fields, which he knew after some distance led out again into the road,
struck into it, and walked quickly on.
Along this same footpath Oliver well remembered he had trotted beside
Mr. Bumble, when he first carried him to the workhouse from the farm.
His way lay directly in front of the cottage. His heart beat quickly
when he bethought himself of this, and he half resolved to turn back.
He had come a long way though, and should lose a great deal of time by
doing so. Besides, it was so early that there was very little fear of
his being seen; so he walked on.
He reached the house. There was no appearance of its inmates stirring
at that early hour. Oliver stopped, and peeped into the garden. A child
was weeding one of the little beds; and as he stopped, he raised his
pale face, and disclosed the features of one of his former companions.
Oliver felt glad to see him before he went, for, though younger than
himself, he had been his little friend and playmate; they had been
beaten, and starved, and shut up together, many and many a time.
“Hush, Dick!” said Oliver, as the boy ran to the gate, and thrust his
thin arm between the rails to greet him. “Is any one up?”
“Nobody but me,” replied the child.
“You mustn’t say you saw me, Dick,” said Oliver; “I am running away.
They beat and ill-use me, Dick; and I am going to seek my fortune,
some long way off, I don’t know where. How pale you are!”
“I heard the doctor tell them I was dying,” replied the child with a
faint smile. “I am very glad to see you, dear; but don’t stop, don’t
stop.”
“Yes, yes, I will, to say good-b’ye to you,” replied Oliver. “I shall
see you again, Dick; I know I shall. You will be well and happy.”
“I hope so,” replied the child, “after I am dead, but not before. I
know the doctor must be right, Oliver, because I dream so much of
heaven and angels, and kind faces that I never see when I am awake.
Kiss me,” said the child, climbing up the low gate, and flinging his
little arms round Oliver’s neck. “Good-b’ye, dear! God bless you!”
The blessing was from a young child’s lips, but it was the first that
Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through all the
struggles and sufferings, and troubles and changes of his after life,
he never once forgot it.