cunning as Fagin was, he would never have guessed why. For Monks was
really Oliver's older half-brother!
A little while before this story began, Oliver's father had been obliged
to go on a trip to a foreign country, where he died very suddenly. But
before he died he made a will, in which he left all his fortune to be
divided between the baby Oliver and his mother. He left only a small sum
to his older son, because he knew that he was wicked, and did not
deserve any. The will declared Oliver should have the money only on
condition that he never stain his name with any act of meanness,
dishonor, cowardice or wrong. If he did do this, then half the money was
to go to the older son. The dying man also wrote a letter to Oliver's
mother, telling her that he had made the will and that he was dying; but
the older son, who was with him when he died, found the letter and
destroyed it.
So Oliver's poor mother, knowing nothing of all this, when his father
did not come back, thought at last that he had deserted her, and in her
shame stole away from her home, poor and ill-clad, to die finally in the
poorhouse.
The older brother, who had taken the name of Monks, hunted and hunted
for them, because he hated Oliver on account of their father's will, and
wanted to do him all the harm he could. He discovered that they had been
taken into the poorhouse, and went there, but this was after Oliver had
run away. He found, however, to his satisfaction, that the boy knew
nothing about his parentage or his real name, and Monks made up his mind
to prevent his ever learning.
There was only one person who could have told Oliver, and that one was
Mrs. Bumble. She knew through the locket she had kept, which had
belonged to Oliver's mother and which contained the dead woman's
wedding-ring with her name engraved inside it. When Mrs. Bumble heard
that a man named Monks was searching for news of Oliver, she thought it
a capital chance to make some money. She went, therefore, to Monks's
house and sold the locket and ring to him. These, Monks thought, were
the only proofs in the world that could ever show Oliver who he was, and
to make it impossible for him ever to see them, he dropped them through
a trap-door in his house down into the river, where they could never be
found.
But Monks did not give up searching for Oliver, and at last, on the very
day that Oliver was arrested, he saw him coming from Fagin's house with
the Artful Dodger.
From his wonderful resemblance to their dead father, he guessed at once
that Oliver was the half-brother whose very name he hated. Knowing the
other now to be in London, Monks was afraid that by some accident he
might yet find out what a fortune had been willed him. If he could only
make Oliver dishonest, Monks reflected, half their father's fortune
would become his own. With this thought in mind he had gone to Fagin
and had made him his offer of money to make the boy a thief.
Fagin, of course, had agreed, and now, to find his victim was out of his
power made the Jew grind his teeth with rage.
All these things made Fagin determined to gain possession of Oliver
again, and to do this he got the help of two others--a young woman named
Nancy and her lover, a brutal robber named Bill Sikes. These two
discovered that Oliver was at Mr. Brownlow's house, and lay in wait to
kidnap him if he ever came out.
The chance they waited for occurred before many days. Mr. Brownlow sent
Oliver to take some money to the very book-stall in front of which the
Artful Dodger had stolen the handkerchief, and Oliver went without
dreaming of any danger.
Suddenly a young woman in a cap and apron screamed out behind him very
loudly: "Oh, my dear little brother!" and threw her arms tight around
him. "Oh, my gracious, I've found him!" she cried. "Come home directly,
you naughty boy! For shame, to treat your poor mother so!"
Oliver struggled, but to no purpose. Nancy (for it was she) told the
people that crowded about them that it was her little brother, who had
run away from home and nearly broken his mother's heart, and that she
wanted to take him back.
Oliver insisted that he didn't know her at all and hadn't any sister,
but just then Bill Sikes appeared (as he had planned) and said the young
woman was telling the truth and that Oliver was a little rascal and a
liar. The people were all convinced at this, and when Sikes struck
Oliver and seized him by the collar they said, "Serves him right!" And
so Oliver found himself dragged away from Mr. Brownlow to the filthy
house where lived Fagin.
The wily old Jew was overjoyed to see them. He smiled such a fiendish
smile that Oliver screamed for help as loud as he could, and at this
Fagin picked up a great jagged club to beat him with.
Now, Nancy had been very wicked all her life, but in spite of this there
was a little good in her. She had already begun to repent having helped
steal the boy, and now his plight touched her heart. She seized the club
and threw it into the fire, and so saved him the beating for that time.
For many days Oliver was kept a prisoner. He was free to wander about
the mildewed old house, but every outer door was locked and every window
had closed iron shutters. All the light came in through small round
holes at the top, which made the rooms gloomy and full of shadows.
Spiderwebs were over all the walls, and often the mice would go
scampering across the floor. There was only one window to look out of,
and that was in a back garret, but it had iron bars and looked out only
on to the housetops.
He found only one book to read: this was a history of the lives of great
criminals and was full of stories of secret thefts and murders. For the
old Jew, having tortured his mind by loneliness and gloom, had left the
volume in his way, hoping it would instil into his soul the poison that
would blacken it for ever.
But Oliver's blood ran cold as he read, and he pushed the book away in
horror, and, falling on his knees, prayed that he might be spared from
such deeds and rescued from that terrible place.
He was still on his knees when Nancy came in and told him he must get
ready at once to go on a journey with Bill Sikes. She had been crying
and her face was bruised as though she had been beaten. Oliver saw she
was very sorry for him, and, indeed, she told him she would help him if
she could, but that there was no use trying to escape now, because they
were watched all the time, and if he got away Sikes would certainly kill
her.
Nancy took him to the house where Sikes lived, and the next morning the
latter started out, making Oliver go with him. Sikes had a loaded pistol
in his overcoat pocket, and he showed this to Oliver and told him if he
spoke to anybody on the road or tried to get away he would shoot him
with it.
They walked a long way out of London, once or twice riding in carts
which were going in their direction. Whenever this happened Sikes kept
his hand in the pocket where the pistol was, so that Oliver was afraid
to appeal for help. Late at night they came to an old deserted mansion
in the country, and in the basement of this, where a fire had been
kindled, they joined two other men whom Oliver had seen more than once
in Fagin's house in London.
The journey had been cold and long and Oliver was very hungry, but he
could scarcely eat the supper that was given him for fear of what they
intended to do with him in that lonely spot. He was so tired, however,
that he finally went fast asleep and knew nothing more till two o'clock
in the morning, when Sikes woke him roughly and bade him come with them.
It was foggy and cold and dark outside. Sikes and one of the others each
took one of Oliver's hands, and so they walked a quarter of a mile to
where was a fine house with a high wall around it. They made him climb
over the wall with them, and, pulling him along, crept toward the house.
It was not till now that Oliver knew what they intended--that they were
going to rob the house and make him help them, so that he, too, would be
a burglar. His limbs began to tremble and he sank to his knees, begging
them to have mercy and to let him run away and die in the fields rather
than to make him steal. But Sikes drew his pistol with a frightful oath
and dragged him on.
In the back of the house was a window, which was not fastened, because
it was much too small for a man to get through. But Oliver was so
little that he could do it easily. With the pistol in his hand, Sikes
put Oliver through the window, gave him a lantern and bade him go and
unlock the front door for them.
[Illustration: "The Artful Dodger" introducing Oliver Twist to Fagin
_See page 55_]
Oliver had made up his mind that as soon as he got beyond the range of
Sikes's pistol he would scream and wake everybody in the house, but just
then there was a sound from inside, and Sikes called to him to come
back.
Suddenly there was a loud shout from the top of the stairs--a flash--a
report--and Oliver staggered back with a terrible pain in his arm and
with everything swimming before his eyes.
He heard cries and the loud ringing of a bell and felt Sikes drag him
backward through the window. He felt himself being carried along
rapidly, and then a cold sensation crept over his heart and he knew no
more.
III
HOW EVERYTHING TURNED OUT RIGHT FOR OLIVER IN THE END
After a long, long time Oliver came to himself. The morning was
breaking. He tried to rise and found that his arm was wounded and his
clothes wet with blood.
He was so dizzy he could hardly stand, but it was freezing cold, and he
knew if he stayed there he must die. So he staggered on till he came to
a road where, a little way off, he saw a house. There, he thought, he
might get help. But when he came closer he saw that it was the very
house the men had tried to rob that night. Fear came over him then, and
he would have run away, but he was too weak.
He had just strength left to push open the gate, totter across the lawn
and knock at the door; then he sank in a faint on the steps.
In the house lived a lady named Mrs. Maylie, just as kind-hearted as was
Mr. Brownlow who had rescued Oliver at the police station, and with her
lived a beautiful girl whom she had adopted, named Rose. The servants,
when they came to the door, made sure Oliver was one of the robbers, and
sent at once for policemen to take him in charge; but Miss Rose, the
moment she saw what a good face the boy had and how little he looked
like a thief, made them put him to bed and send at once for the doctor.
When the good doctor arrived and saw Oliver, who was still unconscious,
he thought Miss Rose was right, and when the boy had come to himself and
told them how he had suffered, he was certain of it. They were both
sorry the policemen had been sent for, because the doctor was sure they
would not believe Oliver's story, especially as he had been arrested
once before. He would have taken him away, but he was too sick to be
moved.
So when the officers came the doctor told them that the boy had been
accidentally shot and had come to the house for assistance, when the
servants had mistaken him for one of the burglars. This was not exactly
the truth, but it seemed necessary to deceive the policemen if Oliver
was to be saved. Of course, the servant that had fired the pistol was
not able to swear that he had hit anybody at all, so the officers had to
go away without arresting anybody.
After this Oliver was ill for a long time, but he was carefully nursed,
especially by Miss Rose, who grew as fond of him as if she had been his
sister. As soon as he grew better she wrote a letter for him to Mr.
Brownlow, the old gentleman who had rescued him from the police station,
but to Oliver's grief she found that he had gone to the West Indies.
Thus the time passed till Oliver was quite well, and then Miss Rose
(first carefully instructing the servant who went with them not to lose
sight of him for a moment for fear of his old enemies) took him with her
for a visit to London.
Meantime there had been a dreadful scene in Fagin's house when Bill
Sikes got back to London and told the old Jew that the robbery had
failed and that Oliver was lost again. They were more afraid than ever
that they would be caught and sent to prison. Fagin swore at Sikes, and
Monks cursed Fagin, and between them all they determined that Oliver
must either be captured or killed.
While they were plotting afresh Nancy, who had been feeling sorrier and
sorrier for what she had done, overheard them, and so found out that
Monks was Oliver's half-brother and why he so hated him; and she made up
her mind to save the boy from his last and greatest danger.
So one evening, when she was alone with him, she gave Sikes some
laudanum in a glass of liquor, and when he was asleep she slipped away,
found Miss Rose and told her all about it. Bad as Nancy was, however,
she was not willing to betray Fagin or Bill Sikes, so she only told her
of Monks.
Miss Rose was greatly astonished, for she had never heard of him before,
but she pitied Nancy because she had tried to help Oliver, and, of
course, she herself wanted very much to help him discover who he was and
who his parents had been. She thanked Nancy and begged her to come to
see her again. Nancy was afraid to do this, because Bill Sikes watched
her so closely, but she promised that on the next Sunday at midnight she
would be on a certain bridge where Miss Rose might see her. Then Nancy
hurried back before Sikes should wake up.
Miss Rose was in trouble now, for there was no one in London with her
then who could help her. But the same afternoon, whom should Oliver see
at a distance, walking into his house, but Mr. Brownlow. He came back in
great joy to tell Miss Rose, and she concluded that the old gentleman
would be the very one to aid her. She took Oliver to the house, and,
sure enough, there was the boy's old benefactor.
Very glad, indeed, he was to hear what she told him. For the old
gentleman, when Oliver had disappeared with the money he had given him
to take to the bookseller, had been reluctant to think the boy he had
befriended was, after all, a liar and a thief. He had advertised for
him, but the only result had been a call from Mr. Bumble, who told him
terrible tales of Oliver's wickedness. To find now, after all this time,
that Oliver had not run away, and that Mr. Bumble's tales were lying
ones, was a joyful surprise to Mr. Brownlow.
After he had heard the whole, and when Oliver had gone into the garden,
Miss Rose told him of Nancy's visit and of the man Monks who still
pursued the boy to do him harm.
It was fortunate that she had come to Mr. Brownlow, for, as it happened,
he knew a great deal about Monks and his evil life. Years before the old
gentleman himself had been a friend of Oliver's father. He knew all
about his death in a foreign country, and had watched his older son's
career of shame with sorrow. The very trip he had made to the West
Indies had acquainted him with a crime Monks had committed there, from
which he had fled to England. But, while Mr. Brownlow knew of the
curious will Oliver's father had made, what had become of the baby to
which the latter referred he had never known. Now, from the story Miss
Rose told him, he was assured that Oliver was, indeed, this baby
half-brother of Monks.
But it was one thing to know this and quite another to enable Oliver to
prove it. The old gentleman was quick to see that they must get
possession of Monks and frighten him into confessing the fact--whose
only proofs had been lost when he threw the locket and ring into the
river. Mr. Brownlow, for this reason, agreed with Miss Rose that they
should both meet Nancy on the bridge on the coming Sunday to hear all
she had been able to find out.
They said not a word of this to Oliver, and when Sunday night came they
drove to the spot where Nancy had promised to meet them. She had kept
her word. She was there before them, and Mr. Brownlow heard her story
over again from her own lips.
But some one else was there, too, hidden behind a pillar, where he could
hear every word she said, and this listener was a spy of Fagin's.
Nancy had cried so much and acted so strangely that the old Jew had
grown suspicious and had set some one to watch her. And who do you
suppose this spy was? No other than the cowardly apprentice who had
bullied Oliver until he ran away from the undertaker's house. The
apprentice had finally run away, too, had come to London and begun a
wicked life. He was too big a coward to rob any one but little children
who had been sent to the shop to buy something, so Fagin had given him
spying work to do, and in this, being by nature a sneak, he proved very
successful.
The spy lay hid till he had heard all Nancy said; then he slipped out
and ran as fast as his legs would carry him back to Fagin. The latter
sent for Bill Sikes, knowing him to be the most brutal and bloodthirsty
ruffian of all, and told him what Nancy had done.
The knowledge, as the Jew expected, turned Sikes into a demon. He rushed
to where Nancy lived. She had returned and was asleep on her couch, but
she woke as he entered, and saw by his face that he meant to murder her.
Through all her evil career Nancy had been true to Sikes and would not
have betrayed him. But he would not listen now, though she pleaded with
him pitifully to come with her to some foreign country (as Miss Rose had
begged her to do), where they might both lead better lives. Fury had
made him mad. As she clung to his knees, he seized a heavy club and
struck her down.
So poor Nancy died, with only time for a feeble prayer to God for mercy.
Of all bad deeds that Sikes had ever done, that was the worst. The sun
shone through the window and lit the room where Nancy lay. He tried to
shut it out, but he could not. He grew suddenly afraid. Horror came
upon him. He crept out of the room, locked the door behind him, and
plunged into the crowded street.
He walked for miles and miles, here and there, without purpose.
Whichever way he went he could not rid himself of that horror. When
night came he crawled into a disused shed, but he could not sleep.
Whenever he closed his eyes he seemed to see Nancy's eyes looking at
him. He got up and wandered on again, desperately lonely for some one to
talk to.
He heard a man telling another about the murder as he read the account
in a newspaper, and knew that he must hide. He hastened then to a den he
knew in a house beside the river, dirty and dismal and the haunt of
thieves. Some of his old companions were there, but even they shrank
from him.
He had been seen to enter the place, however, and in a few minutes the
street was full of people, all yelling for his capture. He barred the
doors and windows, but they began to break down the shutters with
sledge-hammers.
He ran to the roof with a rope, thinking to let himself down on the side
next the river and so escape. Here he fastened one end of the rope to
the chimney, and, making a loop in the other end, put it over his head.
Just at that instant he imagined he saw Nancy's eyes again looking at
him. He staggered back in terror, missed his footing, and fell over the
edge of the roof. He had not had time to draw the noose down under his
arms, so that it slipped up around his neck, and there he hung, dead,
with a broken neck.
Meanwhile Mr. Brownlow had acted very quickly, so that Monks had got no
warning. He had had men watching for the latter and now, having found
out all he wanted to know, he had him seized in the street, put into a
coach and driven to his office, where he brought him face to face with
Oliver.
The old gentleman told Monks he could do one of two things: either he
could confess before witnesses the whole infamous plot he had framed
against Oliver, and so restore to him his rights and name, or else he
could refuse, in which case he would at once be arrested and sent to
prison. Seeing that Mr. Brownlow knew all about the part he had played,
Monks, to save himself, made a full confession--how he had planned to
keep his half-brother from his inheritance. And he also confessed what
no one there had guessed: that Miss Rose, who had been adopted in her
infancy, was really the sister of Oliver's dead mother--his aunt,
indeed. This was the happiest of all Oliver's surprises that day, for he
had learned to love Miss Rose very dearly.
Monks thus bought his own freedom, and cheap enough he probably thought
it, for before he had finished his story, word came that Fagin the Jew
had been captured by the police and was to be tried without delay for
his life.
Oliver no longer had anything to fear, and came into possession of his
true name and his fortune. Mr. Brownlow adopted him as his own son, and
moved to the village where Oliver had been cared for in the family of
Miss Rose, and where they all lived happily ever afterward.
The company of thieves was broken up with Fagin's arrest. Fagin himself
was found guilty, and died on the gallows shrieking with fear. Monks
sailed for America, where he was soon detected in crime and died in
prison.
The wicked apprentice, who had been the real cause of poor Nancy's
murder, was so frightened at the fate of Fagin that he reformed and
became a spy for the police, and by his aid the Artful Dodger, who
continued to pick pockets, soon found himself in jail.
As for Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, they, of course, lost their positions, and
sank from bad to worse till they finally became paupers and were sent to
the very same poorhouse where they had tortured little Oliver Twist.
BARNABY RUDGE
Published 1841
_Scene_: London and the Country
_Time_: 1775 to 1780
CHARACTERS
Barnaby Rudge A half-witted boy
Rudge His father
A murderer
Mrs. Rudge His mother
Geoffrey Haredale A country gentleman
Emma Haredale His niece
Sir John Chester An enemy of Haredale's
Edward Chester His son
In love with Emma Haredale
Varden A locksmith
Dolly Varden His daughter
A friend of Emma Haredale's
Simon Tappertit Varden's apprentice
Joe Willet The son of an innkeeper
In love with Dolly Varden
"Maypole Hugh" A giant hostler
In reality, the son of Sir John Chester
Lord George Gordon A deluded nobleman
Gashford His secretary
Dennis A hangman
"Grip" Barnaby's tame raven
BARNABY RUDGE
I
BARNABY'S BOYHOOD
Many years ago a gentleman named Haredale lived at a house called The
Warren, near London. His wife was dead and he had one baby daughter,
Emma.
One morning he was found murdered in his house, which had been robbed.
Both the gardener and the steward, Rudge, were missing, and some people
thought one had done it and some thought the other. But some days later
a disfigured body was found in a pond on the grounds which, by its
clothes and a watch and ring, was recognized as that of Rudge, the
missing steward. Then, of course, every one believed the gardener had
murdered both, and the police searched for him a long time, but he was
never found.
On the same day this cruel murder was discovered, a baby was born to
Mrs. Rudge, the wife of the steward--a pretty boy, though with a
birth-mark on the wrist as red as blood, and a strange look of terror on
the baby face. He was named Barnaby, and his mother loved him all the
more because it was soon seen he was weak-minded, and could never be in
his right senses. She herself, poor woman! seemed never able to forget
the horror of that day.
Geoffrey Haredale, the brother and heir of the murdered man, took up his
abode at The Warren and adopted the little Emma, his niece, as his own
daughter. He was kind to Mrs. Rudge also. Not only did he let her live
rent-free in a house he owned, but he did many a kind deed secretly for
her half-witted son as he grew older.
Barnaby Rudge grew up a strange, weird creature. His hair was long and
red and hung in disorder about his shoulders. His skin was pale, his
eyes bright and his clothes he trimmed most curiously with bits of gaudy
lace and bright ribbons and glass toys. He wore a cluster of broken
peacock feathers in his hat and girded at his side was the broken hilt
of an old sword without a blade. But strangest of all was a little
wicker basket he always carried on his back. When he set this down and
opened it, there hopped out a tame raven who would cock its head on one
side and say hoarsely and very knowingly:
"Hello! Hello! Hello! What's the matter here? Keep up your spirits.
Never say die. I'm a devil, I'm a devil, I'm a devil! Hurrah!"