RELATES WHAT BECAME OF OLIVER TWIST, AFTER HE HAD BEEN CLAIMED BY NANCY.
THE narrow streets and courts at length terminated in a large open
space, scattered about which, were pens for beasts, and other
indications of a cattle-market. Sikes slackened his pace when they
reached this spot, the girl being quite unable to support any longer
the rapid rate at which they had hitherto walked. Turning to Oliver, he
roughly commanded him to take hold of Nancy’s hand.
“Do you hear?” growled Sikes, as Oliver hesitated, and looked round.
They were in a dark corner, quite out of the track of passengers, and
Oliver saw but too plainly that resistance would be of no avail. He
held out his hand, which Nancy clasped tight in hers.
“Give me the other,” said Sikes, seizing Oliver’s unoccupied hand.
“Here, Bull’s-eye!”
The dog looked up, and growled.
“See here, boy!” said Sikes, putting his other hand to Oliver’s throat,
and uttering a savage oath; “if he speaks ever so soft a word, hold
him! D’ye mind?”
The dog growled again, and, licking his lips, eyed Oliver as if he were
anxious to attach himself to his windpipe without any unnecessary delay.
“He’s as willing as a Christian, strike me blind if he isn’t!” said
Sikes, regarding the animal with a kind of grim and ferocious approval.
“Now, you know what you’ve got to expect, master, so call away as quick
as you like; the dog will soon stop that game. Get on, young ’un!”
Bull’s-eye wagged his tail in acknowledgment of this unusually
endearing form of speech, and, giving vent to another admonitory growl
for the benefit of Oliver, led the way onward.
It was Smithfield that they were crossing, although it might have been
Grosvenor Square, for anything Oliver knew to the contrary. The night
was dark and foggy. The lights in the shops could scarcely struggle
through the heavy mist, which thickened every moment and shrouded the
streets and houses in gloom, rendering the strange place still stranger
in Oliver’s eyes, and making his uncertainty the more dismal and
depressing.
They had hurried on a few paces, when a deep church-bell struck the
hour. With its first stroke his two conductors stopped, and turned
their heads in the direction whence the sound proceeded.
“Eight o’clock, Bill,” said Nancy, when the bell ceased.
“What’s the good of telling me that; I can hear it, can’t I?” replied
Sikes.
“I wonder whether _they_ can hear it,” said Nancy.
“Of course they can,” replied Sikes. “It was Bartlemy time when I was
shopped, and there warn’t a penny trumpet in the fair as I couldn’t
hear the squeaking on. Arter I was locked up for the night, the row and
din outside made the thundering old jail so silent, that I could almost
have beat my head out against the iron plates of the door.”
“Poor fellows!” said Nancy, who still had her face turned towards the
quarter in which the bell had sounded. “Oh, Bill, such fine young chaps
as them!”
“Yes; that’s all you women think of,” answered Sikes. “Fine young
chaps! Well, they’re as good as dead, so it don’t much matter.”
With this consolation Mr. Sikes appeared to repress a rising tendency
to jealousy, and, clasping Oliver’s wrist more firmly, told him to step
out again.
“Wait a minute,” said the girl: “I wouldn’t hurry by, if it was you
that was coming out to be hung the next time eight o’clock struck,
Bill. I’d walk round and round the place till I dropped, if the snow
was on the ground, and I hadn’t a shawl to cover me.”
“And what good would that do?” inquired the unsentimental Mr. Sikes.
“Unless you could pitch over a file and twenty yards of good stout
rope, you might as well be walking fifty mile off, or not walking at
all, for all the good it would do me. Come on, will you, and don’t
stand preaching there.”
The girl burst into a laugh, drew her shawl more closely round her, and
they walked away. But Oliver felt her hand tremble; and, looking up in
her face as they passed a gas-lamp, saw that it had turned a deadly
white.
They walked on, by little-frequented and dirty ways, for a full
half-hour, meeting very few people, and those they did meet, appearing
from their looks to hold much the same position in society as Mr. Sikes
himself. At length they turned into a very filthy narrow street, nearly
full of old-clothes shops; the dog, running forward as if conscious
that there was no further occasion for his keeping on guard, stopped
before the door of a shop which was closed and apparently untenanted,
for the house was in a ruinous condition, and upon the door was nailed
a board intimating that it was to let, which looked as if it had hung
there for many years.
“All right,” said Sikes, glancing cautiously about.
Nancy stooped below the shutters, and Oliver heard the sound of a bell.
They crossed to the opposite side of the street, and stood for a few
moments under a lamp. A noise, as if a sash-window were gently raised,
was heard, and soon afterwards the door softly opened; upon which Mr.
Sikes seized the terrified boy by the collar with very little ceremony,
and all three were quickly inside the house.
The passage was perfectly dark, and they waited while the person who
had let them in chained and barred the door.
“Anybody here?” inquired Sikes.
“No,” replied a voice, which Oliver thought he had heard before.
“Is the old ’un here?” asked the robber.
“Yes,” replied the voice; “and precious down in the mouth he has been.
Won’t he be glad to see you? Oh, no!”
The style of this reply, as well as the voice which delivered it,
seemed familiar to Oliver’s ears; but it was impossible to distinguish
even the form of the speaker in the darkness.
“Let’s have a glim,” said Sikes, “or we shall go breaking our necks, or
treading on the dog. Look after your legs if you do, that’s all.”
“Stand still a moment, and I’ll get you one,” replied the voice. The
receding footsteps of the speaker were heard, and in another minute
the form of Mr. John Dawkins, otherwise the artful Dodger, appeared,
bearing in his right hand a tallow candle stuck in the end of a cleft
stick.
The young gentleman did not stop to bestow any other mark of
recognition upon Oliver than a humorous grin; but, turning away,
beckoned the visiters to follow him down a flight of stairs.
They crossed an empty kitchen, and, opening the door of a low
earthy-smelling room, which seemed to have been built in a small
back-yard were received with a shout of laughter.
“Oh, my wig, my wig!” cried Master Charles Bates, from whose lungs the
laughter had proceeded; “here he is!—oh, cry, here he is! Oh, Fagin,
look at him; Fagin, do look at him! I can’t bear it; it is such a jolly
game, I can’t bear it. Hold me, somebody, while I laugh it out.”
With this irrepressible ebullition of mirth, Master Bates laid himself
flat on the floor, and kicked convulsively for five minutes in an
ecstasy of facetious joy. Then, jumping to his feet, he snatched the
cleft stick from the Dodger, and, advancing to Oliver, viewed him round
and round, while the Jew, taking off his nightcap, made a great number
of low bows to the bewildered boy; the Artful meantime, who was of a
rather saturnine disposition, and seldom gave way to merriment when it
interfered with business, rifling his pockets with steady assiduity.
“Look at his togs, Fagin!” said Charley, putting the light so close
to Oliver’s new jacket as nearly to set him on fire. “Look at his
togs!—superfine cloth, and the heavy-swell cut! Oh, my eye, what a
game! And his books, too;—nothing but a gentleman, Fagin!”
“Delighted to see you looking so well, my dear,” said the Jew, bowing
with mock humility. “The Artful shall give you another suit, my dear,
for fear you should spoil that Sunday one. Why didn’t you write, my
dear, and say you were coming?—we’d have got something warm for
supper.”
At this, Master Bates roared again: so loud that Fagin himself relaxed,
and even the Dodger smiled, but as the Artful drew forth the five-pound
note at that instant, it is doubtful whether the sally or the discovery
awakened his merriment.
“Hallo! what’s that?” inquired Sikes, stepping forward as the Jew
seized the note. “That’s mine, Fagin.”
“No, no, my dear,” said the Jew. “Mine, Bill, mine. You shall have the
books.”
“If that ain’t mine!” said Sikes, putting on his hat with a determined
air,—“mine and Nancy’s, that is,—I’ll take the boy back again.”
The Jew started, and Oliver started too, though from a very different
cause, for he hoped that the dispute might really end in his being
taken back.
“Come, hand over, will you?” said Sikes.
“This is hardly fair, Bill; hardly fair, is it, Nancy?” inquired the
Jew.
“Fair, or not fair,” retorted Sikes, “hand it over, I tell you! Do you
think Nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precious time
but to spend it in scouting arter and kidnapping every young boy as
gets grabbed through you? Give it here, you avaricious old skeleton;
give it here!”
With this gentle remonstrance, Mr. Sikes plucked the note from between
the Jew’s finger and thumb; and, looking the old man coolly in the
face, folded it up small, and tied it in his neckerchief.
“That’s for our share of the trouble,” said Sikes; “and not half
enough, neither. You may keep the books, if you’re fond of reading, and
if not, you can sell ’em.”
“They’re very pretty,” said Charley Bates, who with sundry grimaces
had been affecting to read one of the volumes in question; “beautiful
writing, isn’t it, Oliver?” and at sight of the dismayed look with
which Oliver regarded his tormentors, Master Bates, who was blessed
with a lively sense of the ludicrous, fell into another ecstasy more
boisterous than the first.
“They belong to the old gentleman,” said Oliver, wringing his
hands,—“to the good kind old gentleman who took me into his house, and
had me nursed when I was near dying of the fever. Oh, pray send them
back; send him back the books and money. Keep me here all my life long;
but pray, pray send them back. He’ll think I stole them;—the old lady,
all of them that were so kind to me, will think I stole them. Oh, do
have mercy upon me, and send them back!”
With these words, which were uttered with all the energy of passionate
grief, Oliver fell upon his knees at the Jew’s feet, and beat his hands
together in perfect desperation.
“The boy’s right,” remarked Fagin, looking covertly round, and knitting
his shaggy eyebrows into a hard knot. “You’re right, Oliver, you’re
right; they _will_ think you have stolen ’em. Ha! ha!” chuckled the
Jew, rubbing his hands; “it couldn’t have happened better if we had
chosen our time!”
“Of course it couldn’t,” replied Sikes; “I know’d that, directly I see
him coming through Clerkenwell with the books under his arm. It’s all
right enough. They’re soft-hearted psalm-singers, or they wouldn’t
have taken him in at all, and they’ll ask no questions arter him, fear
they should be obliged to prosecute, and so get him lagged. He’s safe
enough.”
Oliver had looked from one to the other while these words were being
spoken, as if he were bewildered, and could scarcely understand what
passed; but when Bill Sikes concluded, he jumped suddenly to his feet,
and tore wildly from the room, uttering shrieks for help which made the
bare old house echo to the roof.
“Keep back the dog, Bill!” cried Nancy, springing before the door, and
closing it as the Jew and his two pupils darted out in pursuit; “keep
back the dog; he’ll tear the boy to pieces.”
“Serve him right!” cried Sikes, struggling to disengage himself from
the girl’s grasp. “Stand off from me, or I’ll split your skull against
the wall.”
“I don’t care for that, Bill; I don’t care for that,” screamed the
girl, struggling violently with the man: “the child shan’t be torn down
by the dog, unless you kill me first.”
“Shan’t he!” said Sikes, setting his teeth fiercely. “I’ll soon do
that, if you don’t keep off.”
The housebreaker flung the girl from him to the further end of the
room, just as the Jew and the two boys returned, dragging Oliver among
them.
“What’s the matter here?” said the Jew, looking round.
“The girl’s gone mad, I think,” replied Sikes savagely.
“No, she hasn’t,” said Nancy, pale and breathless from the scuffle;
“no, she hasn’t, Fagin: don’t think it.”
“Then keep quiet, will you?” said the Jew with a threatening look.
“No, I won’t do that neither,” replied Nancy, speaking very loud.
“Come, what do you think of that?”
Mr. Fagin was sufficiently well acquainted with the manners and customs
of that particular species of humanity to which Nancy belonged, to
feel tolerably certain that it would be rather unsafe to prolong any
conversation with her at present. With the view of diverting the
attention of the company, he turned to Oliver.
“So you wanted to get away, my dear, did you?” said the Jew, taking up
a jagged and knotted club which lay in a corner of the fire-place; “eh?”
Oliver made no reply, but he watched the Jew’s motions and breathed
quickly.
“Wanted to get assistance,—called for the police, did you?” sneered
the Jew, catching the boy by the arm. “We’ll cure you of that, my young
master.”
The Jew inflicted a smart blow on Oliver’s shoulders with the club, and
was raising it for a second, when the girl, rushing forward, wrested
it from his hand, and flung it into the fire with a force that brought
some of the glowing coals whirling out into the room.
“I won’t stand by and see it done, Fagin,” cried the girl. “You’ve got
the boy, and what more would you have? Let him be—let him be, or I
shall put that mark on some of you, that will bring me to the gallows
before my time.”
The girl stamped her foot violently on the floor as she vented this
threat; and with her lips compressed, and her hands clenched, looked
alternately at the Jew and the other robber—her face quite colourless
from the passion of rage into which she had gradually worked herself.
“Why, Nancy!” said the Jew in a soothing tone, after a pause, during
which he and Mr. Sikes had stared at one another in a disconcerted
manner, “you—you’re more clever than ever to-night. Ha! ha! my dear,
you are acting beautifully.”
“Am I?” said the girl. “Take care I don’t overdo it: you will be the
worse for it, Fagin, if I do; and so I tell you in good time to keep
clear of me.”
There is something about a roused woman, especially if she add to
all her other strong passions the fierce impulses of recklessness and
despair, which few men like to provoke. The Jew saw that it would be
hopeless to affect any further mistake regarding the reality of Miss
Nancy’s rage; and, shrinking involuntarily back a few paces, cast a
glance, half-imploring and half-cowardly, at Sikes, as if to hint that
he was the fittest person to pursue the dialogue.
Mr. Sikes thus mutely appealed to, and possibly feeling his personal
pride and influence interested in the immediate reduction of Miss Nancy
to reason, gave utterance to about a couple of score of curses and
threats, the rapid production of which reflected great credit on the
fertility of his invention. As they produced no visible effect on the
object against whom they were discharged, however, he resorted to more
tangible arguments.
“What do you mean by this?” said Sikes, backing the inquiry with a very
common imprecation concerning the most beautiful of human features,
which, if it were heard above, only once out of every fifty thousand
times it is uttered below, would render blindness as common a disorder
as measles; “what do you mean by it? Burn my body!—do you know who you
are, and what you are?”
“Oh, yes, I know all about it,” replied the girl, laughing
hysterically, and shaking her head from side to side with a poor
assumption of indifference.
“Well, then, keep quiet,” rejoined Sikes with a growl like that he was
accustomed to use when addressing his dog, “or I’ll quiet you for a
good long time to come.”
The girl laughed again, even less composedly than before, and, darting
a hasty look at Sikes, turned her face aside, and bit her lip till the
blood came.
“You’re a nice one,” added Sikes, as he surveyed her with a
contemptuous air, “to take up the humane and genteel side! A pretty
subject for the child, as you call him, to make a friend of!”
“God Almighty help me, I am!” cried the girl passionately; “and I wish
I had been struck dead in the street, or changed places with them we
passed so near to-night, before I had lent a hand in bringing him here.
He’s a thief, a liar, a devil, all that’s bad from this night forth.
Isn’t that enough for the old wretch without blows?”
“Come, come, Sikes,” said the Jew, appealing to him in a remonstratory
tone, and motioning towards the boys, who were eagerly attentive to all
that passed; “we must have civil words,—civil words, Bill.”
“Civil words!” cried the girl, whose passion was frightful to see.
“Civil words, you villain! Yes; you deserve ’em from me. I thieved for
you when I was a child not half as old as this (pointing to Oliver). I
have been in the same trade, and in the same service, for twelve years
since. Don’t you know it? Speak out!—don’t you know it?”
“Well, well,” replied the Jew, with an attempt at pacification; “and,
if you have, it’s your living!”
“Ay, it is!” returned the girl: not speaking, but pouring out the words
in one continuous and vehement scream. “It is my living, and the cold,
wet, dirty streets are my home; and you’re the wretch that drove me to
them long ago, and that’ll keep me there day and night, day and night,
till I die!”
“I shall do you a mischief!” interposed the Jew, goaded by these
reproaches; “a mischief worse than that, if you say much more!”
The girl said nothing more; but, tearing her hair and dress in a
transport of phrensy, made such a rush at the Jew as would probably
have left signal marks of her revenge upon him, had not her wrists
been seized by Sikes at the right moment; upon which she made a few
ineffectual struggles, and fainted.
“She’s all right now,” said Sikes, laying her down in a corner. “She’s
uncommon strong in the arms when she’s up in this way.”
The Jew wiped his forehead, and smiled, as if it were a relief to have
the disturbance over; but neither he, nor Sikes, nor the dog, nor the
boys, seemed to consider it in any other light than a common occurrence
incidental to business.
“It’s the worst of having to do with women,” said the Jew, replacing
the club; “but they’re clever, and we can’t get on in our line without
’em.—Charley, show Oliver to bed.”
“I suppose he’d better not wear his best clothes to-morrow, Fagin, had
he?” inquired Charley Bates.
“Certainly not,” replied the Jew, reciprocating the grin with which
Charley put the question.
Master Bates, apparently much delighted with his commission, took the
cleft stick, and led Oliver into an adjacent kitchen, where there were
two or three of the beds on which he had slept before; and here, with
many uncontrollable bursts of laughter, he produced the identical old
suit of clothes which Oliver had so much congratulated himself upon
leaving off at Mr. Brownlow’s, and the accidental display of which
to Fagin by the Jew who purchased them, had been the very first clue
received of his whereabout.
“Pull off the smart ones,” said Charley, “and I’ll give ’em to Fagin to
take care of. What fun it is!”
Poor Oliver unwillingly complied; and Master Bates, rolling up the new
clothes under his arm, departed from the room, leaving Oliver in the
dark, and locking the door behind him.
The noise of Charley’s laughter, and the voice of Miss Betsy, who
opportunely arrived to throw water over her friend, and perform other
feminine offices for the promotion of her recovery, might have kept
many people awake under more happy circumstances than those in which
Oliver was placed; but he was sick and weary, and soon fell sound
asleep.