A good supper Oliver had that night, and a heavy sleep, and a hearty
breakfast next morning.
When the breakfast was cleared away, Fagin, who was quite a merry old
gentleman, and the Dodger and another boy named Charley Bates, played at
a very curious game. The merry old gentleman, placing a snuffbox in one
pocket of his trousers, a note-book in the other, and a watch in his
waistcoat, and sticking a mock diamond pin in his shirt, and
spectacle-case and handkerchief in his coat-pocket, trotted up and down
the room in imitation of the manner in which old gentlemen walk about
the streets; while the Dodger and Charley Bates had to get all these
things out of his pockets without being observed. It was so very funny
that Oliver laughed till the tears ran down his face.
A few days later, and he understood the full meaning of the game.
The Dodger and Charley Bates had taken Oliver out for a walk, and after
sauntering along, they suddenly pulled up short on Clerkenwell Green, at
the sight of an old gentleman reading at a bookstall. So intent was he
over his book that he might have been sitting in an easy chair in his
study.
To Oliver's horror, the Dodger plunged his hand into the gentleman's
pocket, drew out a handkerchief, and handed it to Bates. Then both boys
ran away round the corner at full speed. Oliver, frightened at what he
had seen, ran off, too; the old gentleman, at the same moment missing
his handkerchief, and seeing Oliver scudding off, concluded he was the
thief, and gave chase, still holding his book in his hand.
The cry of "Stop thief!" was raised. Oliver was knocked down, captured,
and taken to the police-station by a constable.
The magistrate was still sitting, and Oliver would have been convicted
there and then but for the arrival of the bookseller.
"Stop, stop! Don't take him away! I saw it all! I keep the bookstall,"
cried the man. "I saw three boys, two others, and the prisoner here. The
robbery was committed by another boy. I saw that this one was amazed by
it."
Oliver was acquitted. But he had fainted. Mr. Brownlow, for that was the
name of the old gentleman, shocked and moved at the boy's deathly
whiteness, straightway carried the boy off in a cab to his own house in
a quiet, shady street near Pentonville.
_III.--Back in Fagin's Den_
For many days Oliver remained insensible to the goodness of his new
friends. But all that careful nursing could do was done, and he slowly
and surely recovered. Mr. Brownlow, a kind-hearted old bachelor, took
the greatest interest in his _protégé_, and Oliver implored him not to
turn him out of doors to wander in the streets.
"My dear child," said the old gentleman, moved by the warmth of Oliver's
appeal, "you need not be afraid of my deserting you. I have been
deceived before in people I have endeavored to benefit, but I feel
strongly disposed to trust you, nevertheless; and I am more interested
in your behalf than I can well account for. Let me hear your story;
speak the truth to me, and you shall not be friendless while I am
alive."
A certain unmistakable likeness in Oliver to a lady's portrait that was
on the wall of the room struck Mr. Brownlow. What connection could there
be between the original of the portrait, and this poor child?
But before Mr. Brownlow had heard Oliver's story he had lost the boy.
For Fagin, horribly uneasy lest Oliver should be the means of betraying
his late companions, resolved to get him back as quickly as possible. To
accomplish his evil purpose, Nancy, a young woman who belonged to
Fagin's gang, and who had seen Oliver, was prevailed upon to undertake
the commission.
Now, the very evening before Oliver was to tell his story to Mr.
Brownlow, the boy, anxious to prove his honesty, had set out with some
books on an errand to the bookseller at Clerkenwell Green.
"You are to say," said Mr. Brownlow, "that you have brought these books
back, and that you have come to pay the four pound ten I owe him. This
is a five-pound note, so you will have to bring me back ten shillings
change."
"I won't be ten minutes, sir," replied Oliver eagerly.
He was walking briskly along, thinking how happy and contented he ought
to feel, when he was startled by a young woman screaming out very loud,
"Oh, my dear brother!" He had hardly looked up when he was stopped by
having a pair of arms thrown tight round his neck.
"Don't!" cried Oliver, struggling. "Let go of me. Who is it? What are
you stopping me for?"
The only reply to this was a great number of loud lamentations from the
young woman who had embraced him.
"I've found him! Oh, Oliver, Oliver! Oh, you naughty boy to make me
suffer such distress on your account! Come home, dear, come. Oh, I've
found him! Thank gracious goodness heavens, I've found him!"
The young woman burst out crying, and a couple of women standing by
asked what was the matter.
"Oh, ma'am," replied the young woman, "he ran away from his parents, and
went and joined a set of thieves and bad characters, and almost broke
his mother's heart."
"Young wretch!" said one woman.
"Go home, do, you little brute," said the other.
"I'm not," replied Oliver, greatly alarmed. "I don't know her. I haven't
any sister or father or mother. I'm an orphan; I live at Pentonville."
"Oh, only hear him, how he braves it out," cried the young woman. "Make
him come home, or he'll kill his dear mother and father, and break my
heart!"
"What the devil's this?" said a man, bursting out of a beer-shop, with a
white dog at his heels. "Young Oliver! Come home to your poor mother,
you young dog!"
"I don't belong to them. I don't know them! Help, help!" cried Oliver,
struggling in the man's powerful grasp.
"Help!" repeated the man. "Yes, I'll help you, you young rascal! What
books are these? You've been a-stealin' 'em, have you? Give 'em here!"
With these words the man tore the volumes from his grasp, and struck him
on the head.
Weak with recent illness, stupefied by the blows and the suddenness of
the attack, terrified by the brutality of the man--who was none other
than Bill Sikes, the roughest of all Fagin's pupils--what could one poor
child do? Darkness had set in; it was a low neighbourhood; resistance
was useless. Sikes and Nancy hurried the boy on between them through
courts and alleys till, once more, he was within the dreadful house
where the Dodger had first brought him. Long after the gas-lamps were
lighted, Mr. Brownlow sat waiting in his parlour. The servant had run up
the street twenty times to see if there were any traces of Oliver. The
housekeeper had waited anxiously at the open door. But no Oliver
returned.
_IV.--Oliver Falls among Friends_
Mr. Bill Sikes having an important house-breaking engagement with his
fellow-robber, Mr. Toby Crackit, at Shepperton, decided that Oliver must
accompany him.
It was a detached house, and the night was dark as pitch when Sikes and
Crackit, dragging Oliver along, climbed the wall and approached a
narrow, shuttered window. In vain Oliver implored them to let him go.
"Listen, you young limb," whispered Sikes, when a crowbar had overcome
the shutter, and the lattice had been opened. "I'm going to put you
through there." Drawing a dark lantern from his pocket, he added, "Take
this light; go softly up the steps straight afore you, and along the
hall to the street door; unfasten it, and let us in."
The boy was put through the window, and Sikes, pointing to the door with
his pistol, told him if he faltered he would shoot him.
Hardly had Oliver advanced a few yards before Sikes called out, "Back!
back!"
Startled, the boy dropped the lantern, uncertain whether to advance or
fly.
The cry was repeated--a light appeared--a vision of two terrified,
half-dressed men at the top of the stairs swam before his eyes--a
flash--a loud noise--and he staggered back.
Sikes got him out of the window before the smoke cleared away, and fired
his pistol after the men, who were already in retreat.
"Clasp your arm tighter," said Sikes. "Give me a shawl here. They've hit
him. Quick! The boy is bleeding."
Then came the loud ringing of a bell, and the shouts of men, and the
sensation of being carried over uneven ground at a rapid pace. And then
the noises grew confused in the distance, and Oliver saw and heard no
more.
Sikes, finding the chase too hot, was compelled to leave Oliver in a
ditch and make his escape with his friend Crackit.
It was morning when Oliver awoke. His left arm was rudely bandaged in a
shawl, and the bandage was saturated with blood. Weak and dizzy, he yet
felt that if he remained where he was he would surely die, and so he
staggered to his feet. The only house in sight was the one he had
entered a few hours earlier, and he bent his steps towards it. He pushed
against the garden-gate--it was unlocked. He tottered across the lawn,
climbed the steps, knocked faintly at the door, and, his whole strength
failing him, sank down against the little portico.
Mr. Giles, the butler and general steward of the house, who had fired
the shot and led the pursuit, was just explaining the exciting events of
the night to his fellow-servants of the kitchen when Oliver's knock was
heard. With considerable reluctance the door was opened, and then the
group, peeping timorously over each other's shoulders, beheld no more
formidable object than poor little Oliver Twist, speechless and
exhausted.
"Here he is!" bawled Giles. "Here's one of the, thieves, ma'am! Wounded,
miss! I shot him!"
They lugged the fainting boy into the hall, and then in the midst of all
the noise and commotion, there was heard a sweet and gentle voice, which
quelled it in an instant.
"Giles!" whispered the voice from the stairhead. "Hush! You frighten my
aunt as much as the thieves did. Is the poor creature much hurt?"
"Wounded desperate, miss," replied Giles.
After a hasty consultation with her aunt, the same gentle speaker bade
them carry the wounded person upstairs, and send to Chertsey at all
speed for a constable and a doctor. The latter arrived when the young
lady and her aunt, Mrs. Maylie, were at breakfast, and his visit to the
sick-room changed the state of affairs. On his return he begged Mrs.
Maylie and her niece to accompany him upstairs.
In lieu of the dogged, black-visaged ruffian they had expected to see,
there lay a mere child, sunk in a deep sleep.
The ladies could not believe this delicate boy was a criminal, and when,
on waking up, he told them his simple history, they were determined to
prevent his arrest.
The doctor undertook to save the boy, and to that end entered the
kitchen where Mr. Giles, Brittles, his assistant, and the constable were
regaling themselves with ale.
"How is the patient, sir?" asked Giles.
"So-so," returned the doctor. "I'm afraid you've got yourself into a
scrape there, Mr. Giles. Are you a Protestant? And what are _you_?"
turning sharply on Brittles.
"Yes, sir; I hope so," faltered Mr. Giles, turning very pale, for the
doctor spoke with strange severity.
"I'm the same as Mr. Giles, sir," said Brittles, starting violently.
"Then tell me this, both of you," said the doctor. "Are you going to
take upon yourselves to swear that that boy upstairs is the boy that was
put through the little window last night? Come, out with it! Pay
attention to the reply, constable. Here's a house broken into, and a
couple of men catch a moment's glimpse of a boy in the midst of
gunpowder-smoke, and in all the distraction of alarm and darkness.
Here's a boy comes to that very same house next morning, and because he
happens to have his arm tied up, these men lay violent hands upon him,
place his life in danger, and swear he is the thief. I ask you again,"
thundered the doctor, "are you, on your solemn oaths, able to identify
that boy?"
Of course, under these circumstances, as Mr. Giles and Brittles couldn't
identify the boy, the constable retired, and the attempted robbery was
followed by no arrests.
Oliver Twist grew up in the peaceful and happy home of Mrs. Maylie,
under the tender affection of two good women. Later on, Mr. Brownlow was
found, and Oliver's character restored. It was proved, too, that the
portrait Mr. Brownlow possessed was that of Oliver's mother, whom its
owner had once esteemed dearly. Betrayed by fate, the unhappy woman had
sought refuge in the workhouse, only to die in giving birth to her son.
In that same workhouse, where his authority had formerly been so
considerable, Mr. Bumble came--as a pauper--to die.
Tragic was the fate of poor Nancy. Suspected by Fagin of plotting
against her accomplices, the Jew so worked on Sikes that the savage
housebreaker murdered her.
But neither Fagin nor Sikes escaped.
For the Jew was taken and condemned to death, and in the condemned cell
came the recollection to him of all the men he had known who had died
upon the scaffold, some of them through his means.
Sikes, when the news of Nancy's murder got abroad, was hunted by a
furious crowd. He had taken refuge in an old, disreputable uninhabited
house, known to his accomplices, which stood right over the Thames, in
Jacob's Island, not far from Dockhead; but the pursuit was hot, and the
only chance of safety lay in getting to the river.
At the very moment when the crowd was forcing its way into the house,
Sikes made a running noose to slip beneath his arm-pits, and so lower
himself to a ditch beneath. He was out on the roof, and then, when the
loop was over his head, the face of the murdered girl seemed to stare at
him.
"The eyes again!" he cried, in an unearthly screech, and threw up his
arms in horror.
Staggering, as if struck by lightning, he lost his balance and tumbled
over the parapet. The noose was on his neck. It ran up with his weight,
tight as a bowstring. He fell for five-and-thirty feet, and then, after
a sudden jerk, and a terrible convulsion of the limbs, swung lifeless
against the wall.
* * * * *