STANLEY KEMP-WELCH ' I I m - - - .anaow a9?,0 fpt// In Solitary Confinement. 17 There was a general sturt. Horror was depicted on every countenance. " For more ! " said Mr. Limbkms. " Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary ? " " He did, sir," replied Bumble. " That boy will be hung," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. " I know that boy will bo hung." Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. An animated discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant con- finement ; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish. In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling. "I never was more convinced of anything in my life," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill next morning : " I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be hung." As I purpose to show in the sequel whether the white-waistcoated gentleman was right or not, I should perhaps mar the interest of this narrative (supposing it to possess any at all), if I ventured to hint just yet, whether the life of Oliver Twist had this violent termination or no. CHAPTEE III. RELATES HOW OLIVER TWIST WAS VERY NEAR GETTING A PLACE, WHICH WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A SINECURE. FOR a week after the commission of the impious and profane offence of asking for more, Oliver remained a close prisoner in the dark and solitary room to which he had been consigned by the wisdom and mercy of the board. It appears, at first sight, not unreasonable to suppose, that, if he had entertained a be coming feeling of respect for the prediction of the gentleman in the white waistcoat, he would have established that sage individual's prophetic character, once and for ever, by tying one end of his pocket-handkerchief to a hook in the wall, and attaching himself to the other. To the performance of this feat, however, there was one obstacle : namely, that pocket-handker- chiefs being decided articles of luxnry, had been, for all future times and ages, removed from the noses of paupers by the express order oi the board, in council assembled: solemnly given and pronounced under their hands and seals. There was a still greater obstacle in o 1 8 Oliver Twist. Oliver's youth and childishness. He only cried bitterly all day; and, when the long, dismal night carne on, spread his littlo hands before his eyes to shut out the darkness, and crouching in the corner, tried to sleep : ever and anon waking with a start and tremble, and drawing himself closer and closer to the wall, as if to feel even its cold hard surface were a protection in the gloom and loneliness which surrounded him. Let it not be supposed by the enemies of " the system," that, during the period of his solitary incarceration, Oliver was denied the benefit of exercise, the pleasure of society, or the advantages of religious con- solation. As for exercise, it was nice cold weather, and he was allowed to perform his ablutions every morning under the pump, in a stone yard, in the presence of Mr. Bumble, who prevented his catching cold, and caused a tingling sensation to pervade his frame, by repeated applications of the cane. As for society, he was carried every other day into the hall where the boys dined, and there sociably flogged as a public warning and example. And so far from being denied the advantages of religious consolation, he was kicked into the same apartment every evening at prayer-time, and there permitted to listen to, and console his mind with, a general supplication of the boys, con- taining a special clause, therein inserted by authority of the board, in which they entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented, and obedient, and to be guarded from the sins and vices of Oliver Twist : whom the supplication distinctly set forth to be under the exclusive patronage and protection of the powers of wickedness, and an article direct from the manufactory of the very Devil himself. It chanced one morning, while Oliver's affairs were in this auspicious and comfortable state, that Mr. Gainfield, chimney-sweep, went his way down the High Street, deeply cogitating in his mind his ways and means of paying certain arrears of rent, for which his landlord had become rather pressing. Mr. Gamfield's most sanguine estimate of his finances could not raise them within full five pounds of the desired amount ; and, in a species of arithmetical desperation, he was alternately cudgelling his brains and his donkey, when, passing the workhouse, his eyes encountered the bill on the gate. " Wo o ! " said Mr. Gamfield to the donkey. The donkey was in a state of profound abstraction : wondering, probably, whether he was destined to be regaled with a cabbage- stalk or two when he had disposed of the two sacks of soot with which the little cart was laden ; so, without noticing the word of command, he jogged onward. Mr. Gamfield growled a fierce imprecation on the donkey generally, but more particularly on his eyes ; and, running after him, bestowed a blow on his head, which would inevitably have beaten in any skull but a donkey's. Then, catching hold of the bridle, he gave his jaw a sharp wrench, by way of gentle reminder that he was not his own master j and by these means turned hjpi round. He then gave him A right pleasant Trade. 19 another blow on the head, just to stun him till he came back again. Having completed these arrangements, he walked np to the gate, to read the bill. The gentleman with the white waistcoat was standing at the gate with his hands behind him, after having delivered himself of some profound sentiments in the board-room. Having witnessed the little dispute between Mr. Gamfield and the donkey, he smiled joyously when that person came up to read the bill, for ho saw at once that Mr. Gamfield was exactly the sort of master Oliver Twist wanted. Mr. Gamfield smiled, too, as he perused the document ; for five pounds was just the sum he had been wishing for ; and, as to the boy with which it was encumbered, Mr. Gamfield, knowing what the dietary of the workhouse was, well knew he would be a nice small pattern, just the very thing for register stoves. So, he spelt the bill through again, from beginning to end ; and then, touching his fur cap in token of humility, accosted the gentleman in the white waistcoat. " This here boy, sir, wot the parish wants to 'prentis," said Mr. Gamfield. " Ay, my man," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, with a condescending smile. " What of him ? " " If the parish vould like him to learn a right pleasant trade, in a good 'spectuble chimbley-sweepin' bisness," said Mr. Gamfield, " I wants a 'prentis, and I am ready to take him." " Walk in," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. Mr. Gamfield having lingered behind, to give the donkey another blow on the head, and another wrench of the jaw, as a caution not to run away in his absence, followed the gentleman with the white waistcoat into the room where Oliver had first seen him. " It's a nasty trade," said Mr. Limbkins, when Gamfield had again stated his wish. " Young boys have been smothered in chimneys before now," said another gentleman. " That's acause they damped the straw afore they lit it in the chimbley to make 'em come down agin," said Gamfield ; " that's all smoke, and no blaze ; vereas smoke ain't o' no use at all in making a boy come down, for it only sinds him to sleep, and that's wot he likes. Boys is wery obstinit, and wery lazy, gen'lmen, and there's nofhink like a good hot blaze to make 'em come down vith a run. It's humane too, gen'lmen, acause, even if they've stuck in the chimbley, roasting their feet makes 'em struggle to hextricate their- selves." The gentleman in the white waistcoat appeared very much amused by this explanation ; but his mirth was speedily checked by a look from Mr. Limbkins. The board then proceeded to converse among themselves for a few minutes, but in so low a tone, that the words " saving of expenditure," " looked well in the accounts," " have a printed report published," were alone audible. These only chanced 20 Oliver Twist. to be heard, indeed, on account of their being very frequently repeated with great emphasis. At length the whispering ceased ; and the members of the board, having resumed their seats and their solemnity, Mr. Limbkins said : " We have considered your proposition, and we don't approve of it." Not at all," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. " Decidedly not," added the other members. As Mr. Gamfield did happen to labour under the slight imputation of having bruised three or four boys to death already, it occurred to him that the board had, perhaps, in some unaccountable freak, taken it into their heads that this extraneous circumstance ought to influence their proceedings. It was very unlike their general mode of doing business, if they had ; but still, as he had no particular wish to revive the rumour, he twisted his cap in his hands, and walked slowly from the table. " So you won't let me have him, gen'lmen ? " said Mr. Gamfield, pausing near the door. " No," replied Mr. Limbkius ; " at least, as it's a nasty business, we think you ought to take something less than the premium we offered." Mr. Gamfield's countenance brightened, as, with a quick step, he returned to the table, and said, " What'll you give, gen'lmen ? Come ! Don't be too hard on a poor man. What'll you give ? " " I should say, three pound ten was plenty," said Mr. Limbkins. " Ten shillings too much," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. " Come ! " said Gamfield ; " say four pound, gen'lmen. Say four pound, and you've got rid of him for good and all. There ! " " Three pound ten," repeated Mr. Limbkins, firmly. " Come ! I'll split the difference, gen'lmen," urged Gamfield. " Three pound fifteen." " Not a farthing more," was the firm reply of Mr. Limbkins. "You're desperate hard upon me, gen'lmen," said Gamfield, wavering. " Pooh ! pooh ! nonsense ! " said the gentleman in the white waist- coat. "He'd be cheap with nothing at all, as a premium. Take him, you silly fellow ! He's just the boy for you. He wants the stick, now and then : it'll do him good ; and his board needn't come very expensive, for he hasn't been over-fed since he was born. Ha ! ha ! ha!" Mr. Gamfield gave an arch look at the faces round the table, and, observing a smile on all of them, gradually broke into a smile himself. The bargain was made. Mr. Bumble was at once instructed that Oliver Twist and his indentures were to be conveyed before the magistrate, for signature and approval, that very afternoon. In pursuance of this determination, little Oliver, to his excessive fcstonishment, was released from bondage, and ordered to put himself into a clean shirt. He had hardly achieved this very unusual gym- Almost apprenticed. 21 nastic performance, when Mr. Bumble brought him, with his cwn hands, a basin of gruel, and the holiday allowance of two ounces and a quarter of bread. At this tremendous sight, Oliver began to cry very piteously : thinking, not unnaturally, that the board must have determined to kill him for some useful purpose, or they never would have begun to fatten him up in that way. " Don't make your eyes red, Oliver, but eat your food and be thank- ful," said Mr. Bumble, in a tone of impressive pomposity. " You're a going to be made a 'prentice of, Oliver." " A 'prentice, sir ! " said the child, trembling. " Yes, Oliver," said Mr. Bumble. " The kind and blessed gentle- men which is so many parents to you, Oliver, when you have none of your own : are a going to 'prentice you : and to set you up in life, and make a man of you : although the expense to the parish is three pound ten! three pound ten, Oliver! seventy shillins one hundred and forty sixpences ! and all for a naughty orphan which nobody can't love." As Mr. Bumble paused to take breath, after delivering this address in an awful voice, the tears rolled down the poor child's face, and he sobbed bitterly. " Come," said Mr. Bumble, somewhat less pompously, for it waa gratifying to his feelings to observe the effect his eloquence had pro- duced ; " Come, Oliver ! Wipe your eyes with the cuffs of your jacket, and don't cry into your gruel ; that's a very foolish action, Oliver." It certainly was, for there was quite enough water in it already. On their way to the magistrate, Mr. Bumble instructed Oliver that all he would have to do, would be to look very happy, and say, when the gentleman asked him if he wanted to be apprenticed, that he should like it very much indeed ; both of which injunctions Oliver promised to obey : the rather as Mr. Bumble threw in a gentle hint, that if he failed in either particular, there was no telling what would be done to him. When they arrived at the office, he was shut up in a little room by himself, and admonished by Mr. Bumble to stay there, until he came back to fetch him. There the boy remained, with a palpitating heart, for half an hour. At the expiration of which time Mr. Bumble thrust in his head, un- adorned with the cocked hat, and said aloud : "Now, Oliver, my dear, come to the gentleman." As Mr. Bumble said this, he put on a grim and threatening look, and added, in a low voice, " Mind what I told you, you young rascal ! " Oliver stared innocently in Mr. Bumble's face at this somewhat contradictory style of address ; but that gentleman prevented his offering any remark thereupon, by leading him at once into an adjoin- ing room : the door of which was open. It was a large room, with a great window. Behind a desk, sat two old gentlemen with powdered heads : one of whom was reading the newspaper ; while the other was 22 Oliver Twist. perusing, with the aid of n pair of tortoise-shell spectacles, a small piece of parchment which lay before him. Mr. Limbkins was standing in front of the desk on one side ; and Mr. Garnfield, with a partially washed face, on the other ; while two or three bluff-looking men, in top-boots, were lounging about. The old gentleman with the spectacles gradually dozed off, over the little bit of parchment ; and there was a short pause, after Oliver had been stationed by Mr. Bumble in front of the desk. " This is the boy, your worship," said Mr. Bumble. The old gentleman who was reading the newspaper raised his head for a moment, and pulled the other old gentleman by the sleeve ; whereupon, the last-mentioned old gentleman woke up. " Oh, is this the boy ? " said the old gentleman. " This is him, sir," replied Mr. Bumble. " Bow to the magistrate, my dear." Oliver roused himself, and made his best obeisance. He had been wondering, with his eyes fixed on the magistrates' powder, whether all boards were born with that white stuff on their heads, and were boards from thenceforth on that account. " Well," said the old gentleman, " I suppose he's fond of chimney- sweeping ? " " He doats on it, your worship," replied Bumble ; giving Oliver a sly pinch, to intimate that he had better not say he didn't. " And he will be a sweep, will he ? " inquired the old gentleman. * ! If we was to bind him to any other trade to-morrow, he'd run away simultaneous, your worship," replied Bumble. " And this man that's to be his master you, sir you'll treat him well, and feed him, and do all that sort of thing, will you ? " said the old gentleman. "When I says I will, I means I will," replied Mr. Gamfield doggedly. " You're a rough speaker, my friend, but you look an honest, open- hearted man," said the old gentleman : turning his spectacles in the direction of the candidate for Oliver's premium, whose villainous countenance was a regular stamped receipt for cruelty. But the magistrate was half blind and half childish, so he couldn't reasonably be expected to discern what other people did. " I hope I am, sir,'' said Mr. Gamfield, with an ugly leer. " I have no doubt you are, my friend," replied the old gentleman : fixing his spectacles more firmly on his nose, and looking about him for the inkstand. It was the critical moment of Oliver's fate. If the inkstand had been where the old gentleman thought it was, he would have dipped his pen into it, and signed the indentures, and Oliver would have been straightway hurried off. But, as it chanced to be immediately tinder his nose, it followed, as a matter of course, that he looked all over his desk for it, without finding it ; and happening in the course Ate' Twist. was forced along them at a pace which rendered the few cries he dared to give utterance to, unintelligible. It was of little moment, indeed, whether they were intelligible or no ; for there was nobody to care for them, had they been ever so plain. ******* The gas-lamps were lighted ; Mrs. Bedwin was waiting anxiously at the open door ; the servant had run up the street twenty times to see if there were any traces of Oliver ; and still the two old gentle- men sat, perseveriugly, in the dark parlour, with the watch between them. CHAPTER XVI. 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 : this 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. 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 ; " 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 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. An Unpleasant Subject. 95 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 tliey 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 brains 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, 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 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 that was closed and apparently untenanted ; the house 96 Oliver Twist. was in a ruinous condition, and on 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," cried 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. Mr. Sikes then seized the terrified boy by the collar with very little ceremony ; and all three were quickly inside the house. The passage was perfectly dark. 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 ! " " 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. He bore 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 visitors to follow him down a flight of stairs. They crossed an empty kitchen ; and, opening the door of a low earthy- emelling 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 him- self 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, mean- time, who was of a rather saturnine disposition, and seldom gave way to merriment when it interfered with business, rifled Oliver's pockets with steady assiduity. Restored to Pleasant Company. 07 " Look at bis togs, Fagin ! " said Charley, putting the light so close to his 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 some- thing 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. Yon shall have the books." " If that ain't mine ! " said Bill 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. 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 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. If you an't, 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 ? " 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 98 Oliver Twist. me here all my life long; but pray, pray semi them back. He'll think I stole them ; the old lady : all of them who were so kind to me : will think I stole them. Oh, do have mercy upon me, and send them back ! " With those 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 kuow'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 after 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 head 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. " 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 Fagin, looking round. " The girl's gone mad, I think," replied Sikos, 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 Soul of Goodness in Things Evil. 99 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 fireplace ; " 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. She 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 discon- certed 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 per- sonal pride and influence interested in the immediate reduction of Miss Nancy to reason ; gave utterance to about a couple of score ot 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 IOO Oliver Twist. fifty thousand times that it is uttered below, would render blindness 1 as common a disorder as measles : rt 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 hysteri- cally ; 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 con- temptuous air, " to take up the humane and gen teel 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 had 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 remon- stratory 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 ! " " Aye, 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 passion, 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 Fun for Charley Bates. 101 have the disturbance over ; but neither he, nor Sikcs, 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 his 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 npon 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. 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 he soon fell sound asleep. CHAPTEK XVII. OLIVER'S DESTINY CONTINUING UNPROPITIOUS, BRINGS A GREAT MAN TO LONDON TO INJURE HIS REPUTATION. IT is the custom on the- stage, in all good murderous melodramas, to present the tragic and the comic scenes, in as regular alternation, as the layers of red and white in a side of streaky bacon. The hero sinks upon his straw bed, weighed down by fetters and misfortunes ; in the next scene, his faithful but unconscious squire regales the audience with a comic song. We behold, with throbbing bosoms, the heroine in the grasp of a proud and ruthless baron : her virtue and her life alike in danger, drawing forth her dagger to preserve the one at the cost of the other ; and just as our expectations are wrought up IO2 Oliver' Twist. to the highest pitch, a whistle is heard, and we are straightway trans- ported to the great hall of the castle : where a grey-headed seneschal sings a funny chorus with a funnier body of vassals, who are free of all sorts of places, from church vaults to palaces, and roam about in company, carolling perpetually. Such changes appear absurd ; but they are not so unnatural as they would seem at first sight. The transitions in real life from well- spread boards to death-beds, and from mourning-weeds to holiday garments, are not a whit less startling; only, there, we are busy actors, instead of passive lookers-on, which makes a vast difference. The actors in the mimic life of the theatre, are blind to violent transi- tions and abrupt impulses of passion or feeling, which, presented before the eyes of mere spectators, are at once condemned as outrageous and preposterous. As sudden shiftings of the scene, and rapid changes of time and place, are not only sanctioned in books by long usage, but are by many considered as the great art of authorship : an author's skill in his craft being, by such critics, chiefly estimated with relation to the dilemmas in which he leaves his characters at the end of every chapter : this brief introduction to the present one may perhaps be deemed unnecessary. If so, let it be considered a delicate intimation on the part of the historian that he is going back to the town in which Oliver Twist was born ; the reader taking it for granted that there are good and substantial reasons for making the journey, or he would not be invited to proceed upon such an expedition. Mr. Bumble emerged at early morning from the workhouse-gate, and walked with portly carriage and commanding steps, up the High Street. He was in the full bloom and pride of beadlehood ; his cocked hat and coat were dazzling in the morning sun ; he clutched his cane with the vigorous tenacity of health and power. Mr. Bumble always carried his head high ; but this morning it was higher than usual. There was an abstraction in his eye, an elevation in his air, which might have warned an observant stranger that thoughts were passing in the beadle's mind, too great for utterance. Mr. Bumble stopped not to converse with the small shopkeepers and others who spoke to him, deferentially, as he passed along. He merely returned their salutations with a wave of his hand, and relaxed not in his dignified pace, until he reached the farm where Mrs. Mann tended the infant paupers with parochial care. " Drat that beadle ! " said Mrs. Mann, hearing the well-known shaking at the garden-gate. " If it isn't him at this time in the morning ! Lauk, Mr. Bumble, only think of its being you ! Well, dear me, it is a pleasure, this is ! Come into the parlour, sir, please." The first sentence was addressed to Susan ; and the exclamations of delight were uttered to Mr. Bumble : as the good lady unlocked the garden gate : and showed him, with great attention and respect, into the house. Bumbledom fnll-blvwn. 103 " Mrs. Mann," said Mr. Bumble ; not sitting upon, or dropping himself into a seat, as any common jackanapes would: but letting biiuself gradually and slowly down into a chair ; " Mrs. Mann, ma'am, good morning." " Well, and good morning to you, sir," replied Mrs. Mann, with many smiles ; " and hoping you find yourself well, sir ! " " So-so, Mrs. Mann," replied the beadle. " A porochial life is not a bed of roses, Mrs. Mann." " Ah, that it isn't indeed, Mr. Bumble," rejoined the lady. And all the infant paupers might have chorussed the rejoinder with great propriety, if they had heard it. "A porochial life, ma'am," continued Mr. Bumble, striking the table with his cane, " is a life of worrit, and vexation, and hardihood ; but all public characters, as I may say, must suffer prosecution." Mrs. Mann, not very well knowing what the beadle meant, raised her hands with a look of sympathy, and sighed. " Ah ! You may well sigh, Mrs. Mann ! " said the beadle. Finding she had done right, Mrs. Mann sighed again : evidently to the satisfaction of the public character : who, repressing a complacent smile by looking sternly at his cocked hat, said, " Mrs. Mann, I am a going to London." " Lank, Mr. Bumble ! " cried Mrs. Mann, starting back. " To London, ma'am," resumed the inflexible beadle, " by coach. I and two paupers, Mrs. Mann ! A legal action is a coming on, about a settlement ; and the board has appointed me me, Mrs. Mann to depose to the matter before the quarter-sessions at Clerkinwell. And I very much question," added Mr. Bumble, drawing himself up, "whether the Clerkinwell Sessions will not find themselves in the wrong box before they have done with me." " Oh ! you mustn't be too hard upon them, sir," said Mrs. Mann, coaxingly. "The Clerkinwell Sessions have brought it upon themselves, ma'am," replied Mr. Bumble ; " and if the Clerkinwell Sessions find that they come off rather worse than they expected, the Clerkinwell Sessions have only themselves to thank." There was so much determination and depth of purpose about the menacing manner in which Mr. Bumble delivered himself of these words, that Mrs. Mann appeared quite awed by them. At length she said, " You're going by coach, sir ? I thought it was always usual to send them paupers in carts." " That's when they're ill, Mrs. Mann," said the beadle. " We put the sick paupers into open carts in the rainy weather, to prevent their taking cold." " Oh ! " said Mrs. Mann. " The opposition coach contracts for these two ; and takes them cheap," said Mr. Bumble. " They are both in a very low state, ana IO4 Oliver Tivist. we find it would como two pound cheaper to move 'em than to bury 'em that is, if we can throw 'em upon another parish, which I think we shall be able to do, if they don't die upon the road to spite us. Ha! ha! ha!" When Mr. Bumble had laughed a little while, his eyes agaiu encountered the cocked hat ; and he became grave. "We are forgetting business, ma'am," said the beadle; "hero is your porochial stipend for the month." Mr. Bumble produced some silver money rolled up in paper, from his pocket-book ; and requested a receipt : which Mrs. Mann wrote. " It's very much blotted, sir," said the farmer of infants ; " but it's formal enough, I dare say. Thank you, Mr. Bumble, sir, I am very much obliged to you, I'm sure." Mr. Bumble nodded, blandly, in acknowledgment of Mrs. Mann's curtsey ; and inquired how the children were. " Bless their dear little hearts ! " said Mrs. Mann with emotion, " they're as well as can be, the dears ! Of course, except the two that died last week. And little Dick." " Isn't that boy no better ? " inquired Mr. Bumble. Mrs. Mann shook her head. " He's a ill-conditioned, wicious, bad-disposed porochial child that," said Mr. Bumble angrily. " Where is he ? " " I'll bring him to you in one minute, sir," replied Mrs. Mann. " Hero, you Dick ! " After some calling, Dick was discovered. Having had his face put under the pump, and dried upon Mrs. Mann's gown, ho was led into the awful presence of Mr. Bumble, the beadle. The child was pale and thin ; his cheeks were sunken ; and his eyes large and bright. The scanty parish dress, the livery of his misery, hung loosely on his feeble body ; and his young limbs had wasted away, like those of an old man. Such was the little being who stood trembling beneath Mr. Bumble's glance ; not daring to lift his eyes from the floor ; and dreading even to hear the beadle's voice. " Can't you look at the gentleman, you obstinate boy ? " said Mrs. Mann. The child meekly raised his eyes, and encountered those of Mr. Bumble. " What's the matter with you, porochial Dick ? " inquired Mr. Bumble, with well-timed jocularity. " Nothing, sir," replied the child faintly. " I should think not," said Mrs. Mann, who had of course laughed very much at Mr. Bumble's humour. " You want for nothing, I'm sure." " I should like " faltered the child. " Heyday ! " interposed Mrs. Mann, " I suppose you're going to say that you do want for something, now ? Why, you little wretch ~ " A very Bad Boy indeed. 105 " Stop, Mrs. Mann, stop ! " said the beadle, raising his hand with a show of authority. " Like what, sir, eh ? " " I should like," faltered the child, " if somebody that can write, would put a few words down for me on a piece of paper, and fold it up and seal it, and keep it for me, after I am laid in the ground." " Why, what does the boy mean ? " exclaimed Mr. Bumble, on whom the earnest manner and wan aspect of the child had made some impression : accustomed as he was to such things. " What do you mean, sir ? " " I should like," said the child, " to leave my dear love to poor Oliver Twist ; and to let him know how often I have sat by myself and cried to think of his wandering about in the dark nights with nobody to help him. And I should like to tell him," said the child, pressing his small hands together, and speaking with great fervour, " that I was glad to die when I was very young ; for, perhaps, if I had lived to be a man, and had grown old, my little sister who is in Heaven, might forget me, or be unlike me ; and it would be so much happier if wo were both children there together." Mr. Bumble surveyed the little speaker, from head to foot, with indescribable astonishment ; and, turning to his companion, said, " They're all in one story, Mrs. Mann. That out-dacious Oliver has domogalized them all ! " " I couldn't have believed it, sir ! " said Mrs. Mann, holding up her hands, and looking malignantly at Dick. " I never see such a hardened little wretch ! " " Take him away, ma'am ! " said Mr. Bumble imperiously. " This must be stated to the board, Mrs. Mann." " I hope the gentlemen will understand that it isn't my fault, sir ? " said Mrs. Mann, whimpering pathetically. " They shall understand that, ma'am ; they shall be acquainted with the true state of the case," said Mr. Bumble. " There ; take him away, I can't bear the sight on him." Dick was immediately taken away, and locked up in the coal-cellar. Mr. Bumble shortly afterwards took himself off, to prepare for his journey. At six o'clock next morning, Mr. Bumble : having exchanged his cocked hat for a round one, and encased his person in a blue great- coat with a cape to it: took his place on the outside of the coach, accompanied by the criminals whose settlement was disputed ; with whom, in due course of time, he arrived in London. He experienced uo other crosses on the way, than those which originated in the perverse behaviour of the two paupers, who persisted in shivering, and complaining of the cold, in a manner which, Mr. Bumble declared, caused his teeth to chatter in his head, and made him feel quite uncomfortable ; although he had a great-coat on. Having disposed of these evil-minded persons for the night, Mr. Bumble sat himself down in the house at which the coach stopped ; io6 Oliver Twist. and took a temperate dinner of steaks, oyster sauce, and porter. Putting a glass of hot gin-and-water on the chimney-picco, he drew his chair to the fire ; and, with sundry moral reflections on the too- prevalent sin of discontent and complaining, composed himself to read the paper. The very first paragraph upon which Mr. Bumble's eye rested, was the following advertisement. " FIVE GUINEAS REWAED. " Whereas a young boy, named Oliver Twist, absconded, or was enticed, on Thursday evening last, from his home, at Pentonville ; and has not since been heard of. The above reward will be paid to any person who will give such information as will lead to the dis- covery of the said Oliver Twist, or tend to throw any light upon his previous history, in which the advertiser is, for many reasons, warmly interested." And then followed a full description of Oliver's dress, person, appearance, and disappearance : with the name and address of Mr. Brownlow at full length. Mr. Bumble opened his eyes ; read the advertisement, slowly and carefully, three several times ; and in something more than five minutes was on his way to Pentonville : having actually, in his excitement, left the glass of hot gin-and-water, untasted. "Is Mr. Brownlow at home?" inquired Mr. Bumble of the girl who opened the door. To this inquiry the girl returned the not uncommon, but rather evasive reply of " I don't know ; where do you come from ? " Mr. Bumble no sooner uttered Oliver's name, in explanation of his errand, than Mrs. Bedwin, who had been listening at the parlour door, hastened into the passage in a breathless state. " Come in, come in," said the old lady : " I knew we should hear of him. Poor dear ! I knew we should ! I was certain of it. Bless his heart ! I said so, all along." Having said this, the worthy old lady hurried back into the parlour again ; and seating herself on a sofa, burst into tears. The girl, who was not quite so susceptible, had run up-stairs meanwhile ; and now returned with a request that Mr. Bumble would follow her imme- diately : which he did. He was shown into the little back study, where sat Mr. Brownlow and his friend Mr. Grimwig, with decanters and glasses before them. The latter gentleman at once burst into the exclamation : " A beadle ! A parish beadle, or I'll eat my head." " Pray don't interrupt just now," said Mr. Brownlow. " Take a seat, will you ? " Mr. Bumble sat himself down ; quite confounded by the oddity of Mr. Grrimwig's manner. Mr. Brownlow moved the lamp, so as to Five Guineas for Bumble. 1 07 obtain an uninterrupted view of the Beadle's countenance ; and said, with a little impatience, " Now, sir, you come in consequence of having seen the advertise- ment ? " " Yes, sir," said Mr. Bumble. " And you are a beadle, are you not ? " inquired Mr. Grim wig. "I am a porochial beadle, gentlemen," rejoined Mr. Bumble, proudly. " Of course," observed Mr. Grimwig aside to his friend, " I knew ho was. A beadle all over ! " Mr. Brownlow gently shook his head to impose silence on his friend, and resumed : " Do you know where this poor boy is now ? " " No more than nobody," replied Mr. Bumble. " Well, what do you know of him ? " inquired the old "gentleman. " Speak out, my friend, if you have anything to say. What do you know of him ? " " You don't happen to know any good of him, do you ? " said Mr. Grimwig, caustically ; after an attentive perusal of Mr. Bumble's features. Mr. Bumble, catching at the inquiry very quickly, shook his head with portentous solemnity. " You see ? " said Mr. Grimwig, looking triumphantly at Mr. Brownlow. Mr. Brownlow looked apprehensively at Mr. Bumble's pnrsed-up countenance; and requested him to communicate what he knew regarding Oliver, in as few words as possible. Mr. Bumble put down his hat ; unbuttoned his coat ; folded his arms ; inclined his head in a retrospective manner ; and, after a few moments' reflection, commenced his story. It would be tedious if given in the beadle's words : occupying, as it did, some twenty minutes in the telling ; but the sum and substance of it was, That Oliver was a foundling, born of low and vicious parents. That he had, from his birth, displayed no better qualities than treachery, ingratitude, and malice. That he had terminated his brief career in the place of his birth, by making a sanguinary and cowardly attack on an unoffending lad, and. running away in the night-time from his master's house. In proof of his really being the person he represented himself, Mr. Bumble laid upon the table the papers he had brought to town. Folding his arms again, he then awaited Mr. Brownlow's observations. "I fear it is all too true," said the old gentleman sorrowfully, after looking over the papers. " This is not much for your intelli- gence ; but I would gladly have given you treble the money, if it had been favourable to the boy." It is not improbable that if Mr. Bumble had been possessed of this information at an earlier period of the interview, he might have io8 Oliver Twist. imparted a very different colouring to his little history. It was too late to do it now, however ; so he shook his head gravely, and, pocket- ing the five guineas, withdrew. Mr. Brownlow paced the room to and fro for some minutes; evidently so much disturbed 'by the beadle's tale, that even Mr. Grimwig forbore to vex him further. At length he stopped, and rang the bell violently. " Mrs. Bed win," said Mr. Brownlow, when the housekeeper appeared ; " that boy, Oliver, is an impostor." " It can't be, sir. It cannot be," said the old lady energetically. " I tell you he is," retorted the old gentleman. " What do you mean by can't bo ? We have just heard a full account of him from his birth ; and he has been a thorough-paced little villain, all his life." " I never will believe it, sir," replied the old lady, firmly. " Never ! " " You old women never believe anything but quack-doctors, and lying story-books," growled Mr. Grimwig. "I knew it all along. Why didn't you take my advice in the beginning ; you would if ho hadn't had a fever, I suppose, eh ? He was interesting, wasn't he ? Interesting ! Bah ! " And Mr. Grimwig poked the fire with a flourish. " He was a dear, grateful, gentle child, sir," retorted Mrs. Bedwin, indignantly. " I know what children are, sir ; and have done these forty years ; and people who can't say the same, shouldn't say any- thing about them. That's my opinion ! " This was a hard hit at Mr. Grimwig, who was a bachelor. As it extorted nothing from that gentleman but a smile, the old lady tossed her head, and smoothed down her apron preparatory to another speech, when she was stopped by Mr. Brownlow. " Silence ! " said the old gentleman, feigning an anger he was far from feeling. " Never let me hear the boy's name again. I rang to tell you that. Never. Never, on any pretence, mind! You may leave the room, Mrs. Bedwin. Remember ! I am in earnest." There were sad hearts at Mr. Brownlow's that night. Oliver's heart sank within him, when he thought of his good kind friends ; it was well for him that he could not know what they had heard, or it might have broken outright. CHAPTER XVIII. BOW OLIVER PASSED HIS TIME IN THE IMPROVING SOCIETY OF HIS REPUTABLE FRIENDS. ABOUT noon next day, when the Dodger and Master Bates had gone out to pursue their customary avocations, Mr. Fagin took the oppor- tunity of reading Oliver a long lecture on the crying sin of ingratitude ; of which he clearly demonstrated he had been guilty, to no ordinary extent, in wilfully absenting himself from the society of his anxious friends ; and, still more, in endeavouring to escape from them after so much trouble and expense had been incurred in his recovery. Mr. Fagin laid great stress on the fact of his having taken Oliver in, and cherished him, when, without his timely aid, he might have perished with hunger ; and he related the dismal and affecting history of a young lad whom, in his philanthropy, he had succoured under parallel circumstances, but who, proving unworthy of his confidence and evincing a desire to communicate with the police, had unfortunately come to be hanged at the Old Bailey one morning. Mr. Fagin did not seek to conceal his share in the catastrophe, but lamented with tears in his eyes that the wrong-headed and treacherous behaviour of the young person in question, had rendered it necessary that he should become the victim of certain evidence for the crown : which, if it were not precisely true, was indispensably necessary for the safety of him (Mr. Fagin) and a few select friends. Mr. Fagin concluded by drawing a rather disagreeable picture of the discomforts of hanging ; and, with great friendliness and politeness of manner, expressed his anxious hopes that he might never be obliged to submit Oliver Twist to that unpleasant operation. Little Oliver's blood ran cold, as he listened to the Jew's words, and imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them. That it was possible even for justice itself to confound the innocent with the guilty when they were in accidental companionship, he knew already; and that deeply-laid plans for the destruction of incon- veniently knowing or over-communicative persons, had been really devised and carried out by the old Jew on more occasions than one, he thought by no means unlikely, when he recollected the general nature of the altercations between that gentleman and Mr. Sikes: which seemed to bear reference to some foregone conspiracy of the kind. As he glanced timidly up, and met the Jew's searching look, he felt that his pale face and trembling limbs were neither unnoticed nor unrelished by that wary old gentleman. The Jew, smiling hideously, patted Oliver on the head, and said, that if he kept himself quiet, and applied himself to business, he saw they would be very good friends yet. Then, taking his hat, and no Oliver Tivtst. covering himself with an old patched great-coat, he went out, and locked the room-door behind him. And so Oliver remained all that day, and for the greater part of many subsequent days, seeing nobody, between early morning and midnight, and left during the long hours to commune with his own thoughts. Which, never failing to revert to his kind friends, and the opinion they must long ago have formed of him, were sad indeed. After the lapse of a week or so, the Jew left the room-door un- locked ; and he was at liberty to wander about the house. It was a very dirty place. The rooms up-stairs had great high wooden chimney-pieces and large doors, with panelled walls and cornices to the ceiling ; which, although they were black with neglect and dust, were ornamented in various ways. From all of these tokens Oliver concluded that a long time ago, before the old Jew was born, it had belonged to better people, and had perhaps been quite gay and handsome : dismal and dreary as it looked now. Spiders had built their webs in the angles of the walls and ceilings ; and sometimes, when Oliver walked softly into a room, the mice would scamper across the floor, and run back terrified to their holes. With these exceptions, there was neither sight nor sound of any living thing ; and often, when it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from room to room, he would crouch in the corner of the passage by the street-door, to be as near living people as he could ; and would remain there, listening and counting the hours, until the Jew or the boys returned In all the rooms, the mouldering shutters were fast closed : the bars which held them were screwed tight into the wood ; the only light which was admitted, stealing it* way through round holes at the top : which made the rooms more gloomy, and filled tfiem with strange shadows. There was a back-garret window with rusty bars outside, which had no shutter ; and out of this, Oliver often gazed with a melancholy face for hours together ; but nothing was to be descried from it but a confused and crowded mass of house-tops, blackened chimneys, and gable-ends. Sometimes, indeed, a grizzly head might be seen, peering over the parapet-wall of a distant house : but it was quickly withdrawn again ; and as the window of Oliver's observatory was nailed down, and dimmed with the rain and smoke of years, it was as much as he could do to make out the forms of the different objects beyond, without making any attempt to be seen or heard, which he had as much chance of being, as if he had lived inside the ball of St. Paul's Cathedral. One afternoon, the Dodger and Master Bates being engaged out that evening, the first-named young gentleman took it into his head to evince some anxiety regarding the decoration of his person (to do him justice, this was by no means an habitual weakness with him) ; and, with this end and aim, he condescendingly commanded Oliver to assist him in his toilet, straightway. An Out-and-Ont Christian. ill Oliver was but too glad to make himself useful ; too happy to have some faces, however bad, to look upon ; too desirous to conciliate those about him when he could honestly do so ; to throw any objec- tion in the way of this proposal. So he at once expressed his readi- ness ; and, kneeling on the floor, while the Dodger sat upon the table so that he could take his foot in his lap, he applied himself to a process which Mr. Dawkins designated as "japanning his trotter- cases." The phrase, rendered into plain English, signifieth, cleaning his boots. Whether it was the sense of freedom and independence which a rational animal may be supposed to feel when he sits on a table in an easy attitude smoking a pipe, swinging one leg carelessly to and fro, and having his boots cleaned all the time, without even the past trouble of having taken them off, or the prospective misery of putting them on, to disturb his reflections ; or whether it was the goodness of the tobacco that soothed the feelings of the Dodger, or the mildness of the beer that mollified his thoughts ; he was evidently tinctured, for the nonce, with a spice of romance and enthusiasm, foreign to his general nature. He looked down on Oliver, with a thoughtful counte- nance, for a brief space; and then, raising his head, and heaving a gentle sigh, said, half in abstraction, and half to Master Bates : " What a pity it is he isn't a prig ! " " Ah ! " said Master Charles Bates ; " he don't know what's good for him." The Dodger sighed again, and resumed his pipe : as did Charley Bates. They both smoked, for some seconds, in silence. " I suppose you don't even know what a prig is ? " said the Dodger mournfully. " I think I know that," replied Oliver, looking up. " It's a th ; you're one, are you not ? " inquired Oliver, checking himself. " I am," replied the Dodger. " I'd scorn to be anything else." Mr. Dawkins gave his hat a ferocious cock, after delivering this senti- ment, and looked at Master Bates, as if to denote that he would feel obliged by his saying anything to the contrary. " I am," repeated the Dodger. " So's Charley. So's Fagin. So's Sikes. So's Nancy. So's Bet. So we all are, down to the dog. And he's the downiest one of the lot ! " " And the least given to peaching," added Charley Bates. " He wouldn't so much as bark in a witness-box, for fear of com- mitting himself ; no, not if you tied him up in one, and left him there without wittles for a fortnight," said the Dodger. " Not a bit of it," observed Charley. " He's a rum dog. Don't he look fierce at any strange cove that laughs or sings when he's in company!" pursued the Dodger. " Won't he growl at all, when he hears a fiddle playing ! And don't he hate other dogs as ain't of his breed ! Oh, no ! " " He's an out-and-out Christian," said Charley. Ill Oliver Twist, This was merely intended as a tribute to the animal's abilities, but it was an appropriate remark in another sense, if Master Bates had only known it ; for there are a good many ladies and gentlemen, claiming to be out-and-out Christians, between whom, and Mr. Sikes' dog, there exist strong and singular points of resemblance. " Well, well," said the Dodger, recurring to the point from which they had strayed : with that mindfulness of his profession which influenced all his proceedings. " This hasn't got anything to do with young Green here." " No more it has," said Charley. " Why don't you put yourself nuder Fagin, Oliver ? " " And make your fortun' out of hand ? " added the Dodger, with a grin. " And so be able to retire on your property, and do the gen-teel : as I mean to, in the very next leap-year but four that ever comes, and the forty-second Tuesday in Trinity-week," said Charley Bates. " I don't like it," rejoined Oliver, timidly ; " I wish they would let me go. I I would rather go." " And Fagin would rather not ! " rejoined Charley. Oliver knew this too well ; but thinking it might be dangerous to express his feelings more openly, he only sighed, and went on with his boot-cleaning. " Go ! " exclaimed the Dodger. " Why, where's your spirit ? Don't you take any pride out of yourself ? Would you go and be dependent on your friends ? " " Oh, blow that ! " said Master Bates : drawing two or three silk handkerchiefs from his pocket, and tossing them into a cupboard, " that's too mean ; that is." " I couldn't do it," said the Dodger, with an air of haughty disgust. " You can leave your friends, though," said Oliver with a half smile ; " and let them be punished for what you did." " That," rejoined the Dodger, with a wave of his pipe, " That was all out of consideration for Fagin, 'cause the traps know that we work together, and he might have got into trouble if we hadn't made our lucky; that was the move, wasn't it, Charley?" Master Bates nodded assent, and would have spoken ; but the recol- lection of Oliver's flight came so suddenly upon him, that the smoke he was inhaling got entangled with a laugh, and went up into his head, and down into his throat : and brought on a fit of coughing and stamping, about five minutes long. " Look here ! " said the Dodger, drawing forth a handful of shillings and halfpence. "Here's a jolly life! What's the odds where it comes from ? Here, catch hold ; there's plenty more where they were took from. You won't, won't you ? Oh, yoxi precious flat ! " " It's naughty, ain't it, Oliver ? " inquired Charley Bates. " He'll come to be scragged, won't he ? " " I don't know what that means," replied Oliver, Improving Advice. 113 " Something in this way, old feller," said Charley. As lie said it, Master Bates caught up an end of his neckerchief; and, holding it erect in the air, dropped his head on his shoulder, and jerked a curious sound through his teeth ; thereby indicating, by a lively pantomimic representation, that scragging and hanging were one and the same thing. " That's what it means," said Charley. " Look how he stares, Jack ! I never did see such prime company as that 'ere boy ; he'll be the death of me, I know he will." Master Charles Bates, having laughed heartily again, resumed his pipe with tears in his eyes. " You've been brought up bad," said the Dodger, surveying his boots with much satisfaction when Oliver had polished them. " Fagin will make something of you, though, or you'll be the first he ever had that turned out unprofitable. You'd better begin at once ; for you'll come to the trade long before you think of it ; and you're only losing time, Oliver." Master Bates backed this advice with sundry moral admonitions of his own : which, being exhausted, he and his friend Mr. Dawkins launched into a glowing description of the numerous pleasures incidental to the life they led, interspersed with a variety of hints to Oliver that the best thing he could do, would be to secure Fagin's favour without more delay, by the means which they themselves had employed to gain it. " And always put this in your pipe, Nolly," said the Dodger, as the Jew was heard unlocking the door above, " if you don't take fogies and tickers " "What's the good of talking in that way?" interposed Master Bates : " he don't know what you mean." " If you don't take pocket-handkechers and watches," said the Dodger, reducing his conversation to the level of Oliver's capacity, " some other cove will ; so that the coves that lose 'em will be all the worse, and you'll be all the worse too, and nobody half a ha'p'orth the better, except the chaps wot gets them and you've just as good a right to them as they have." " To be sure, to be sure ! " said the Jew, who had entered, unseen by Oliver. " It all lies in a nutshell, my dear ; in a nutshell, take the Dodger's word for it. Ha ! ha ! ha ! He understands the catechism of his trade." The old man rubbed his hands gleefully together, as he corroborated the Dodger's reasoning in these terms ; and chuckled with delight at his pupil's proficiency. The conversation proceeded no farther at this time, for the Jew had returned home accompanied by Miss Betsy, and a gentleman whom Oliver had never seen before, but who was accosted by the Dodger as Tom Chitling ; and who, having lingered on the stairs to exchange a few gallantries with the lady, now made his appearance. Mr. Chitling was older in years than the Dodger : having perhaps numbered eighteen winters ; but there was a degree of deference in i U4 Oliver Twist. his deportment towards that young gentleman which seemed to indicate that he felt himself conscious of a slight inferiority in point of genius and professional acquirements. He had small twinkling eyes, and a pock-marked face; wore a fur cap, a dark corduroy jacket, greasy fustian trousers, and an apron. His wardrobe was, in truth, rather out of repair ; but he excused himself to the company by stating that his "time" was only out an hour before; and that, in consequence of having worn the regimentals for six weeks past, he had not been able to bestow any attention on his private clothes. Mr. Chitliug added, with strong marks of irritation, that the new way of fumigating clothes up yonder was infernal unconstitutional, for it burnt holes in them, and there was no remedy against the County. The same remark he considered to apply to the regulation mode of cutting the hair : which he held to be decidedly unlawful. Mr. Chitling wound up his observa- tions by stating that he had not touched a drop of anything for forty- two moral long hard-working days ; and that he " wished he might be busted if he warn't as dry as a lime-basket." > . "Where do you think the gentleman has come from, Oliver?" inquired the Jew, with a grin, as the other boys put a bottle of spirits on the table. " I I don't know, sir," replied Oliver. " Who's that ? " inquired Tom Chitling, casting a contemptuous look at Oliver. " A young friend of mine, my dear," replied the Jew. " He's in luck, then," said the young man, with a meaning look at Fagin. " Never mind where I came from, young 'un ; you'll find your way there, soon enough, I'll bet a crown ! " At this sally, the boys laughed. After some more jokes on the same subject, they exchanged a few short whispers with Fagin ; and with- drew.- After some words apart between the last comer and Fagin, they drew their chairs towards the fire ; and the Jew, telling Oliver to come and sit by him, led the conversation to the topics most calculated to interest his hearers. These were, the great advantages of the trade, the proficiency of the Dodger, the amiability of Charley Bates, and the liberality of the Jew himself. At length these subjects displayed signs of being thoroughly exhausted ; and Mr. Chitling did the same : for the house of correction becomes fatiguing after a week or two. Miss Betsy accordingly withdrew ; and left the party to their repose. From this day, Oliver was seldom left alone ; but was placed in almost constant communication with the two boys, who played the old game with the Jew every day : whether for their own improvement or Oliver's, Mr. Fagin best knew. At other times the old man would tell them stories of robberies he had committed in his younger days : mixed up with so much that was droll and curious, that Oliver could not help laughing heartily, and showing that he was amused in spite of all his better feelings. Business afoot. \ \ 5 In short, the wily old Jew had the boy in his toils. Having pre- pared his mind, by solitude and gloom, to prefer any society to the companionship of bis own sad thoughts in such a dreary place, he was now slowly instilling into his soul the poison which he hoped would blacken it, and change its hue for ever. CHAPTER XIX. ' IN WHICH A NOTABLE PLAN IS DISCUSSED AND DETERMINED ON, IT was a chill, damp, windy night, when the Jew : buttoning his great-coat tight round his shrivelled body, and pulling the collar up over his ears so as completely to obscure the lower part of his face : emerged from his den. He paused on the step as the door was locked and chained behind him ; and having listened while the boys made all secure, and until their retreating footsteps were no longer audible, slunk down the street as quickly as he could. The house to which Oliver had been conveyed, was in the neigh- bourhood of Whitechapel. The Jew stopped for an instant at the corner of the street ; and, glancing suspiciously round, crossed the road, and struck off in the direction of Spitalfields. The mud lay thick upon the stones, and a black mist hung over the streets ; the rain fell sluggishly down, and everything felt cold and clammy to the touch. It seemed just the night when it befitted such a being as the Jew to be abroad. As he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved : crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal for a meal. He kept on his course, through many winding and narrow ways, until he reached Bethnal Green ; then, turning suddenly off to the left, he soon became involved in a maze of the mean and dirty streets which abound in that close and densely-populated quarter. The Jew was evidently too familiar with the ground he traversed to be at all bewildered, either by the darkness of the night, or the intricacies of the way. He hurried through several alleys and streets, and at length turned into one, lighted only by a single lamp at the farther end. At the door of a house in this street, he knocked ; having exchanged a few muttered words with the person who opened it, he walked up-stairs. A dog growled as ho touched the handle of a room-door ; and a man's voice demanded who was there. ' Only me, Bill ; only me, my dear," said the Jew, looking in. Oliver Twist. " Bring in your body then," said Sikos. " Lie down, you stupid brute ! Don't you know the devil when he's got a great-coat on ? " Apparently, the dog had been somewhat deceived by Mr. Fagin's outer garment ; for as the Jew unbuttoned it, and threw it over the back of a chair, he retired to the corner from which he had risen : wagging his tail as he went, to show that he was as well satisfied as it was in his nature to be. " Well ! " said Sikes. " Well, my dear," replied the Jew. "Ah ! Nancy." The latter recognition was uttered with just enough of embarrassment to imply a doubt of its reception ; for Mr. Fagin and his young friend had not met, since she had interfered in behalf of Oliver. All doubts upon the subject, if he had any, were speedily removed by the young lady's behaviour. She took her feet off the fender, pushed back her chair, and bade Fagin draw up his, without saying more about it : for it was a cold night, and no mistake. " It is cold, Nancy dear," said the Jew, as he warmed his skinny hands over the fire. " It seems to go right through one," added the old man, touching his side. "It must be a piercer, if it finds its way through your heart," said Mr. Sikes. " Give him something to drink, Nancy. Burn my body, make haste ! It's enough to turn a man ill, to see his lean old car- case shivering in that way, like a Tigly ghost just rose from the grave." Nancy quickly brought a bottle from a cupboard, in which there were many : which, to judge from the diversity of their appearance, were filled with several kinds of liquids. Sikes pouring out a glass of brandy, bade the Jew drink it off. " Quite enough, quite, thankye, Bill," replied the Jew, putting down the glass after just setting his lips to it. " What ! You're afraid of our getting the better of you, are you ? " inquired Sikes, fixing his eyes on the Jew. " Ugh ! " With a hoarse grunt of contempt, Mr. Sikes seized the glass, and threw the remainder of its contents into the ashes : as a preparatory ceremony to filling it again for himself: which he did at once. The Jew glanced round the room, as his companion tossed down the second glassful ; not in curiosity, for he had seen it often before ; but in a restless and suspicious manner habitual to him. It was a meanly furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a work- ing man ; and with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner, and a " life- preserver " that hung over the chimney-piece. " There," said Sikes, smacking his lips. " Now I'm ready." For business ? " inquired the Jew. " For business/' replied Sikes ; " so say what you've got to say." "About the crib at Chertsey, Bill?" said the Jew, drawing his chair forward, and speaking in a very low voice. The Business discussed. 1 17 u Yes. Wot about it," inquired Sikes. " Ah ! you know what I mean, my dear," said the Jew. " He knows what I mean, Nancy ; don't he ? " " No, he don't," sneered Mr. Sikes. " Or he won't, and that's the same thing. Speak out, and call things by their right names ; don't sit there, winking and blinking, and talking to me in hints, as if you warn't the very first that thought about the robbery. Wot d'ye mean ? " " Hush, Bill, hush ! " said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of indignation ; " somebody will hear us, my dear. Somebody will hear us." " Let 'em hear ! " said Sikes ; " I don't care." But as Mr. Sikes did care, on reflection, he dropped his voice as he said the words, and grew calmer. " There, there," said the Jew, coaxingly. " It was only my caution, nothing more. Now, my dear, about that crib at Chertsey ; when is it to be done, Bill, eh ? When is it to be done ? Such plate, my dear, such plate!" said the Jew: rubbing his hands, and elevating his eyebrows in a rapture of anticipation. " Not at all," replied Sikes coldly. " Not to be done at all ! " echoed the Jew, leaning back in his chair. "No, not at all," rejoined Sikes. "At least it can't be a put-up job, as we expected." " Then it hasn't been properly gone about," said the Jew, turning pale with anger. " Don't tell me ! " " But I will tell you," retorted Sikes. " Who are you that's not to be told ? I tell you that Toby Crackit has been hanging about the place for a fortnight, and he can't get one of the servants into a line." " Do you mean to tell me, Bill," said the Jew : softening as tho other grew heated : " that neither of the two men in the house can be got over ? " " Yes, I do mean to tell you so," replied Sikes. " The old lady has had 'em these twenty year; and if you were to give 'em five hundred pound, they wouldn't be in it." " But do you mean to say, my dear," remonstrated the Jew, " that the women can't be got over ? " " Not a bit of it," replied Sikes. " Not by flash Toby Crackit ? " said the Jew incredulously. " Think what women are, Bill." " No ; not even by flash Toby Crackit," replied Sikes. " He says he's worn sham whiskers, and a canary waistcoat, the whole blessed time he's been loitering down there, and it's all of no use." " He should have tried mustachios and a pair of military trousers, my dear," said the Jew. " So he did," rejoined Sikes, " and they warn't of no more use than the other plant." The Jew looked blank at this information, After ruminating for Oliver Twist. some minutes with his chin sunk on his breast, he raised his head and said, with a deep sigh, that if flash Toby Crackit .reported aright, he feared the game was up. "And yet," said the old man, dropping his hands on his knees, " it's a sad thing, my dear, to lose so much when we had set our hearts upon it." " So it is," said Mr. Sikes. " Worse luck ! " A long silence ensued ; during which the Jew was plunged in deep thought, with his face wrinkled into an expression of villainy per- fectly demoniacal. Sikes eyed him furtively from time to time. Nancy, apparently fearful of irritating the housebreaker, sat with her eyes fixed upon the fire, as if she had been deaf to all that passed. " Fagin," said Sikes, abruptly breaking the stillness that prevailed ; " is it worth fifty shiners extra, if it's safely done from the outside ? " " Yes," said the Jew, as suddenly rousing himself. " Is it a bargain ? " inquired Sikes. " Yes, my dear, yes," rejoined the Jew ; his eyes glistening, and every muscle in his face working, with the excitement that the inquiry had awakened. "Then," said Sikes, thrusting aside the Jew's hand, with some disdain, " let it come off as soon as you like. Toby and me were over the garden- wall the night afore last, sounding the panels of the door and shutters. The crib's barred up at night like a jail ; but there's one part we can crack, safe and softly." " Which is that, Bill ? " asked the Jew eagerly. " Why," whispered Sikes, " as you cross the lawn " " Yes ? " said the Jew, bending his head forward, with his eyes almost starting out of it. " Umph ! " cried Sikes, stopping short, as the girl, scarcely moving her head, looked suddenly round, and pointed for an instant to (the Jew's face. " Never mind which part it is. You can't do it without me, I know ; but it's best to be on the safe side when one deals with you." " As you like, my dear, as you like," replied the Jew. " Is there no help wanted, but yours and Toby's ? " "None," said Sikes. "'Copt a centre-bit and a boy. The first we've both got ; the second you must find us." " A boy ! " exclaimed the Jew. " Oh ! then it's a panel, eh ? " " Never mind wot it is ! " replied Sikes. " I want a boy, and he mustn't be a big un. Lord ! " said Mr. Sikes, reflectively, " if I'd only got that young boy of Ned, the chimbley-sweeper's ! He kept him small on purpose, and let him out by the job. But the father gets lagged ; and then the Juvenile Delinquent Society comes, and takes the boy away from a trade where he was arning money, teaches him to read and write, and in time makes a 'prentice of him. And so they go on," said Mr. Sikes, his wrath rising with the recollection of his wrongs, " so they go on ; and, if they'd got money enough (which The very Boy for the Purpose. 119 it's ft Providence they haven't,) we shouldn't have half-a-dozen boys loft in the whole trade, in a year or two." " No more we should," acquiesced the Jew, who had been considering during this speech, and had only caught the last sentence. " Bill ! " " What now ? " inquired Sikes. The Jew nodded his head towards Nancy, who was still gazing at the fire; and intimated, by a sign, that he would have her told to leave the room. Sikes shrugged his shoulders impatiently, as if he thought the precaution unnecessary; but complied, nevertheless, by requesting Miss Nancy to fetch him a jug of beer. "You don't want any beer," said Nancy, folding her arms, and retaining her seat very composedly. " I tell you I do ! " replied Sikes. "Nonsense," rejoined the girl coolly. "Go on, Fagin. I know what he's going to say, Bill ; he needn't mind me." The Jew still hesitated. Sikes looked from one to the other in some surprise. " Why, you don't mind the old girl, do you, Fagin ? " he asked at length. " You've known her long enough to trust her, or the Devil's in it. She ain't one to blab. Are you, Nancy ? " " I should think not ! " replied the young lady : drawing her chair up to the table, and putting her elbows upon it. " No, no, my dear, I know you're not," said the Jew ; " but " and again the old man paused. " But wot ? " inquired Sikes. " I didn't know whether she mightn't p'r'aps be out of sorts, you know, my dear, as she was the other night," replied the Jew. At this confession, Miss Nancy burst into a loud laugh ; and, swal- lowing a glass of brandy, shook her head with an air of defiance, and burst into sundry exclamations of " Keep the game a-going ! " " Never say die ! " and the like. These seemed to have the effect of re-assur- ing both gentlemen ; for the Jew nodded his head with a satisfied air, and resumed his seat : as did Mr. Sikes likewise. " Now, Fagin," said Nancy with a laugh. " Tell Bill at once, about Oliver ! " " Ha ! you're a clever one, my dear : the sharpest girl I ever saw ! " said the Jew, patting her on the neck. " It was about Oliver I was going to speak, sure enough. Ha ! ha ! ha ! " " What about him ? " demanded Sikes. " He's the boy for you, my dear," replied the Jew in a hoarse whisper; laying his. finger on the side of his nose, and grinning frightfully. " He ! " exclaimed Sikes. " Have him, Bill ! " said Nancy. " I would, if I was in your place. He mayn't be so much up, as any of the others ; but that's not what you want, if he's only to open a door for you. Depend upon it he's e safe one, Bill." 120 Oliver Twist. " I know he is," rejoined Fagin. " He's been in good training these last few weeks, and it's time he began to work for his bread. Besides, the others are all too big." " Well, he is just the size I want," said Mr. Sikes, ruminating. " And will do everything you want, Bill, my dear," interposed the Jew ; " he can't help himself. That is, if you frighten him enough." " Frighten him ! " echoed Sikes. " It'll be no sham frightening, mind you. If there's anything queer about him when we once get into the work ; in for a penny, in for a pound. You won't see him alive again, Fagin. Think of that, before you send him. Mark my words ! " said the robber, poising a crowbar, which he had drawn from under the bedstead. " I've thought of it all," said the Jew with energy. " I've I've had my eye upon him, my dears, close close. Once let him feel that he is one of us ; once fill his mind with the idea that he has been a thief; and he's ours! Ours for his life. Oho! It couldn't have come about better ! " The old man crossed his arms upon his breast ; and, drawing his head and shoulders into a heap, literally hugged himself for joy. " Ours ! " said Sikes. " Yours, you mean." " Perhaps I do, my dear," said the Jew, with a shrill chuckle. " Mine, if you like, Bill." " And wot," said Sikes, scowling fiercely on his agreeable friend, " wot makes you take so much pains about one chalk-faced kid, when you know there are fifty boys snoozing about Common Garden every night, as you might pick and choose from ? " " Because they're of no use to me, my dear," replied the Jew, with some confusion, " not worth the taking. Their looks convict 'em when they get into trouble, and I lose 'em all. With this boy, properly managed, my dears, I could do what I couldn't with twenty of them. Besides," said the Jew, recovering his self-possession, " he has us now if he could only give us leg-bail again ; and he must be in the same boat with us. Never mind how he came there ; it's quite enough for my power over him that he was in a robbery ; that's all I want. Now, how much better this is, than being obliged to put the poor leetle boy out of the way which would be dangerous, and we should lose by it besides." " When is it to be done ? " asked Nancy, stopping some turbulent exclamation on the part of Mr. Sikes, expressive of the disgust with which he received Fagin's affectation of humanity. " Ah, to be sure," said the Jew ; " when is it to be done, Bill ? " " I planned with Toby, the night arter to-morrow," rejoined Sikes in a surly voice, " if he heerd nothing from me to the contrairy." " Good," said the Jew ; " there's no moon." " No," rejoined Sikes. " It's all arranged about bringing off the swag, is it ? " asked the Jew. Preliminaries adjusted. 121 Sikes nodded. " And about " "Oh, ah, it's all planned," rejoined Sikes, interrupting him. " Never mind particulars. You'd better bring the boy here to-morrow night. I shall get off the stones an hour arter daybreak. Then you hold your tongue, and keep the melting-pot ready, and that's all you'll have to do." After some discussion, in which all three took an active part, it was decided that Nancy should repair to the Jew's next evening when tho night had set in, and bring Oliver away with, her; Fagin craftily observing, that, if he evinced any disinclination to the task, he would be more willing to accompany the girl who had so recently interfered in his behalf, than anybody else. It was also solemnly arranged that poor Oliver should, for the purposes of the contemplated expedition, be unreservedly consigned to the care and custody of Mr. William Sikes ; and further, that the said Sikes should deal with him as he thought fit ; and should not be held responsible by the Jew for any mischance or evil that might befall him, or any punishment with which it might be necessary to visit him : it being understood that, to render the compact in this respect binding, any representations made by Mr. Sikes on his return should be required to be confirmed and corroborated, in all important particulars, by the testimony of flash Toby Crackit. These preliminaries adjusted, Mr. Sikes proceeded to drink brandy at a furious rate, and to flourish the crowbar in an alarming manner ; yelling forth, at the same time, most unmusical snatches of song, mingled with wild execrations. At length, in a fit of professional enthusiasm, he insisted upon producing his box of housebreaking tools : which he had no sooner stumbled in with, and opened for the purpose of explaining the nature and properties of the various imple- ments it contained, and the peculiar beauties of their construction, than he fell over the box upon the floor, and went to sleep where he fell. " Good-night, Nancy," said the Jew, muffling himself up as before. " Good-night." Their eyes met, and the Jew scrutinised her, narrowly. There was no flinching about the girl. She was as true and earnest in the matter as Toby Crackit himself could be. The Jew again bade her good-night, and, bestowing a sly kick upon the prostrate form of Mr. Sikes while her back was turned, groped down-stairs. " Always the way ! " muttered the Jew to himself as he turned homeward. " The worst of these women is, that a very little thing serves to call up some long-forgotten feeling ; and the best of them is, that it never lasts. Ha ! ha ! The man against the child, for a bag of gold ! " Beguiling the time with these pleasant reflections, Mr. Fagin wended 122 Oliver Twisf. his way, through mud and miro, to his gloomy abode : where the Dodger was sitting up, impatiently awaiting his return. " Is Oliver a-bed ? I want to speak to him," was his first remark as they descended the stairs. " Hours ago," replied the Dodger, throwing open a door. " Here ho is ! " The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor ; so Eale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that e looked like death ; not death as it shows in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed ; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven, and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed. " Not now," said the Jew, turning softly away. " To-morrow. To-morrow." CHAPTER XX. WHEREIN OLIVER IS DELIVERED OVER TO MR. WILLIAM SIKES. WHEN Oliver awoke in the morning, he was a good deal surprised to find that a new pair of shoes, with strong thick soles, had been placed at his bedside ; and that his old shoes had been removed. At first, he was pleased with the discovery: hoping that it might be the fore- runner of his release ; but such thoughts were quickly dispelled, on his sitting down to breakfast along with the Jew, who told him, in a tone and manner which increased his alarm, that he was to be taken to the residence of Bill Sikes that night. " To to stop there, sir ? " asked Oliver, anxiously. "No, no, my dear. Not to stop there," replied the Jew. "We shouldn't like to lose you. Don't be afraid Oliver, you shall come back to us again. Ha ! ha ! ha I We won't be so cruel as to send you away, my dear. Oh no, no ! " The old man, who was stooping over the fire toasting a piece of bread, looked round as he bantered Oliver thus ; and chuckled as if to show that he knew he would still be very glad to get away if he could. " I suppose," said the Jew, fixing his eyes on Oliver, " you want to know what you're going to Bill's for eh, my dear ? " Oliver coloured, involuntarily, to find that the old thief had been reading his thoughts ; but boldly said, Yes, he did want to know. " Why, do you think ? " inquired Fagin, parrying the question. ' Indeed I don't know, sir," replied Oliver. " Bah ! " said the Jew, turning away with a disappointed countenance The Jew's Admonition. 123 from a close perusal of the boy's face. " Wait till Bill tells you, then." The Jew seemed much vexed by Oliver's not expressing any greater curiosity on the subject ; but the truth is, that, although Oliver felt very anxious, he was too much confused by the earnest cunning of Fagin's looks, and his own speculations, to make any further inquiries just then. He had no other opportunity : for the Jew remained very surly and silent till night : when he prepared to go abroad. " You may burn a candle," said the Jew, putting one upon the table. " And here's a book for you to read, till they come to fetch you. Good-night ! " " Good-night ! " replied Oliver, softly. The Jew walked to the door : looking over his shoulder at the boy as he went. Suddenly stopping, he called him by his name. Oliver looked up ; the Jew, pointing to the candle, motioned him to light it. He did so ; and, as he placed the candlestick upon the table, saw that the Jew was gazing fixedly at him, with lowering and contracted brows, from the dark end of the room. " Take heed, Oliver ! take heed ! " said the old man, shaking his right hand before him in a warning manner. " He's a rough man, and thinks nothing of blood when his own is up. Whatever falls out, say nothing ; and do what he bids yon. Mind ! " Placing a strong emphasis on the last word, he suffered his features gradually to resolve themselves into a ghastly grin, and, nodding his head, left the room. . Oliver leaned his head upon his hand when the old man disappeared, and pondered, with a trembling heart, on the words he had just heard. The more he thought of the Jew's admonition, the more he was at a loss to divine its real purpose and meaning. He could think of no bad object to be attained by sending him to Sikes, which would not be equally well answered by his remaining with Fagin; and after meditating for a long time, concluded that he had been selected to perform some ordinary menial offices for the housebreaker, until another boy, better suited for his purpose, could be engaged. He was too well accustomed to suffering, and had suffered too much where he was, to bewail the prospect of change very severely. He remained lost in thought for some minutes ; and then, with a heavy sigh, snuffed the candle, and, taking up the book which the Jew had left with him, began to read. He turned over the leaves. Carelessly at first ; but, lighting on a passage which attracted his attention, he soon became intent upon the volume. It was a history of the lives and trials of great criminals ; and the pages were soiled and thumbed with use. Here, he read of dreadful crimes that made the blood run cold ; of secret murders that had been committed by the lonely wayside ; of bodies hidden from the eye of man in deep pits and wells : which would not keep them down, deep as they were, but had yielded them up at last, after many 124 Oliver Twist. years, and so maddened the murderers with the sight, that in their horror they had confessed their guilt, and yelled for the gibbet to end their agony. Here, too, he read of men who, lying in their beds at dead of night, had been tempted (so they said) and led on, by their own bad thoughts, to such dreadful bloodshed as it made the flesh creep, and the limbs quail, to think of. The terrible descriptions were so real and vivid, that the sallow pages seemed to turn red with gore ; and the words upon them, to be sounded in his ears, as if they were whispered, in hollow murmurs, by the spirits of the dead. In a paroxysm of fear, the boy closed the book, and thrust it from him. Then, falling upon his knees, he prayed Heaven to spare him from such deeds ; and rather to will that he should die at once, than be reserved for crimes, so fearful and appalling. By degrees, he grew more calm, and besought, in a low and broken voice, that he might be rescued from his present dangers ; and that if any aid were to be raised up for a poor outcast boy who had never known the love of friends or kindred, it might come to him now, when, desolate and deserted, he stood alone in the midst of wickedness and guilt. He had concluded his prayer, but still remained with his head buried in his hands, when a rustling noise aroused him. " What's that ! " he cried, starting up, and catching sight of a figure standing by the door. " Who's there ? " " Me. Only me," replied a tremulous voice. Oliver raised the candle above his head : and looked towards the door. It was Nancy. " Put down the light," said the girl, turning away her head. " It hurts my eyes." Oliver saw that she was very pale, and gently inquired if she were ill. The girl threw herself into a chair, with her back towards him : and wrung her hands ; but made no reply. " God forgive me ! " she cried after a while, " I never thought of this." " Has anything happened ? " asked Oliver. " Can I help you ? 1 will if I can. I will, indeed." She rocked herself to and fro ; caught her throat ; and, uttering a gurgling sound, gasped for breath. " Nancy ! " cried Oliver, " What is it ? " The girl beat her hands upon her knees, and her feet upon the ground ; and, suddenly stopping, drew her shawl close round her : and shivered with cold. Oliver stirred the fire. Drawing her chair close to it, she sat there, for a little time, without speaking ; but at length she raised her head, and looked round. " I don't know what comes over me sometimes," said she, affecting to busy herself in arranging her dress ; " it's this damp dirty room, I think. Now, Nolly, dear, are you ready ? H " Am I to go with you ? " asked Oliver. A Caution from Nancy. 125 " Yes. I have come from Bill," replied the girl. " You arc to go with me." " What for ? " asked Oliver, recoiling. " What for ? " echoed the girl, raising her eyes, and averting them again, the moment they encountered the boy's face. " Oh ! For no harm." " I don't believe it," said Oliver : who had watched her closely. "Have it your own way," rejoined the girl, affecting to laugh. " For no good, then." Oliver could see that he had some power over the girl's better feelings, and, for an instant, thought of appealing to her compassion for his helpless state. But, then, the thought darted across his mind that it was barely eleven o'clock ; and that many people were still in the streets : of whom surely some might be found to give credence to his tale. As the reflection occurred to him, he stepped forward : and said, somewhat hastily, that he was ready. Neither his brief consideration, nor its purport, was lost on his companion. She eyed him narrowly, while he spoke ; and cast upon him a look of intelligence which sufficiently showed that she guessed what had been passing in his thoughts. " Hush ! " said the girl, stooping over him, and pointing to the door as she looked cautiously round. " You can't help yourself. I have tried hard for you, but all to no purpose. You are hedged round and round. If ever you are to get loose from here, this is not the time." Struck by the energy of her manner, Oliver looked up in her face with great surprise. She seemed to speak the truth ; her countenance was white and agitated ; and she trembled with very earnestness. " I have saved you from being ill-used once, and I will again, and I do now," continued the girl aloud ; " for those who would have fetched you, if I had not, would have been far more rough than me. I have promised for your being quiet and silent ; if you are not, you will only do harm to yourself and me too, and perhaps be my death. See here ! I have borne all this for you already, as true as God sees me show it." She pointed, hastily, to some livid bruises on her neck and arms ; and continued, with great rapidity : " Remember this ! And don't let me suffer more for you, just now. If I could help you, I would ; but I have not the power. They don't mean to harm you ; whatever they make you do, is no fault of yours. Hush ! Every word from you is a blow for me. Give me your hand. Make haste ! Your hand ! " She caught the hand which Oliver instinctively placed in hers, and, blowing out the light, drew him after her up the stairs. The door was opened, quickly, by some one shrouded in the darkness, and was as quickly closed, when they had passed out. A hackney-cabriolet was in waiting; with the same vehemence which she had exhibited in addressing Oliver, the girl pulled him in with her, and drew the 126 Oliver Twist. curtains close. The driver wanted no directions, but lashed his horse into full speed, without the delay of an instant. The girl still held Oliver fast by the hand, and continued to pour into his ear, the warnings and assurances she had already imparted. All was so quick and hurried, that he had scarcely time to recollect where ho was, or how he came there, when the carriage stopped at the house to which the Jew's steps had been directed on the previous evening. For one brief moment, Oliver cast a hurried glance along the empty street, and a cry for help hung upon his lips. But the girl's voice was in his ear, beseeching him in such tones of agony to remember her, that he had not the heart to utter it. While he hesitated, the opportunity was gone; he was already in the house, and the door was shut. " This way," said the girl, releasing her hold for the first time. " Bill ! " " Hallo ! " replied Sikes : appearing at the head of the stairs, with a candle. " Oh ! That's the time of day. Come on 1 " This was a very strong expression of approbation, an uncommonly hearty welcome, from a person of Mr. Bikes' temperament. Nancy, appearing much gratified thereby, saluted him cordially. " Bull's-eye's gone home with Tom," observed Sikes, as he lighted them up. " He'd have been in the way." " That's right," rejoined Nancy. " So you've got the kid," said Sikes, when they had all reached the room : closing the door as he spoke. " Yes. here he is," replied Nancy. " Did he come quiet ? " inquired Sikes. " Like a lamb," rejoined Nancy. " I'm glad to hear it," said Sikes, looking grimly at Oliver ; " for the sake of his young carcase : as would otherways have suffered for it. Come here, young 'un ; and let me read you a lectur', which is as well got over at once." Thus addressing his new pupil, Mr. Sikes pulled off Oliver's cap and threw it into a corner ; and then, taking him by the shoulder, sat himself down by the table, and stood the boy in front of him. " Now, first : do you know wot this is ? " inquired Sikes, taking up a pocket-pistol which lay on the table. Oliver replied in the affirmative. " Well, then, look here," continued Sikes. " This is powder ; that 'ere's a bullet ; and this is a little bit of a old hat for waddin'." Oliver murmured his comprehension of the different bodies referred to ; and Mr. Sikes proceeded to load the pistol, with great nicety and deliberation. " Now it's loaded," said Mr. Sikes, when he had finished. " Yes, I see it is, sir," replied Oliver. " Well," said the robber, grasping Oliver's wrist, and putting the At the Robbers House, 127 barrel so close to his temple that they touched ; at which moment the boy could not repress a start ; " if you speak a word when you're out o' doors with me, except when I speak to you, that loading will be in your head without notice. So, if you do make up your mind to speak without leave, say your prayers first." Having bestowed a scowl upon the object of this warning, to increase its effect, Mr. Sikes continued. " As near as I know, there isn't anybody as would be asking very partickler arter you, if you was disposed of ; so I needn't take this devil-and-all of trouble to explain matters to you, if it warn't for your own good. D'ye hear me ? " " The short and the long of what you mean," said Nancy : speaking very emphatically, and slightly frowning at Oliver as if to bespeak his serious attention to her words : " is, that if you're crossed by him in this job you have on hand, you'll prevent his ever telling tales after- wards, by shooting him through the head, and will take your chance of swinging for it, as you do for a great many other things in the way of business, every month of your life." " That's it ! " observed Mr. Sikes, approvingly ; " women can always put things in fewest words. Except when it's blowing up ; and then they lengthens it out. And now that he's thoroughly up to it, let's have some supper, and get a snooze before starting." In pursuance of this request, Nancy quickly laid the cloth ; dis- appearing for a few minutes, she presently returned with a pot of porter and a 'dish of .sheep's heads: which gave occasion to several pleasant witticisms on the part of Mr. Sikes, founded upon the singular coincidence of " jemmies " being a cant name, common to them, and also to an ingenious implement much used in his profession. Indeed, the worthy gentleman, stimulated perhaps by the immediate prospect of being on active service, was in great spirits and good humour ; in proof whereof, it may be here remarked, that he humorously drank all the beer at a draught, and did not utter, on a rough calculation, more than four-score oaths during the whole progress of the meal. Supper being ended it may be easily conceived that Oliver had no great appetite for it Mr. Sikes disposed of a couple of glasses of spirits and water, and threw himself on the bed ; ordering Nancy, with many imprecations in case of failure, to call him at five pre- cisely. Oliver stretched himself in his clothes, by command of the same authority, on a mattress upon the floor ; and the girl, mending the fire, sat before it, in readiness to rouse them at the appointed time. For a long time Oliver lay awake, thinking it not impossible that Nancy might seek that opportunity of whispering some further advice ; but the girl sat brooding over the fire, without moving, save now and then to trim the light. Weary with watching and anxiety, he at length fall asleep. When he awoke, the table was covered with tea-things, and Sikes was thrusting various articles into the pockets of his great-coat, which jog Oliver Twist. hung over the back of a chair. Nancy was busily engaged in pre- paring breakfast. It was not yet daylight ; for the candle was still burning, and it was quite dark outside. A sharp rain, too, was beating Oliver was not long in making his toilet ; having taken some breakfast, he replied to a surly inquiry from Sikes, by saying that he was quite ready. Nancy, scarcely looking at the boy, threw him a handkerchief to tie round his throat ; Sikes gave him a large rough cape to button over his shoulders. Thus attired, he gave his hand to the robber, who, merely pausing to show him with a menacing gesture that he had that same pistol in a side-pocket of his great-coat, clasped it firmly in his, and, exchanging a farewell with Nancy, led him away. Oliver turned, for an instant, when they reached the door, in the hope of meeting a look from the girl. But she had resumed her old seat in front of the fire, and sat, perfectly motionless before it. CHAPTER XXI. THE EXPEDITION. IT was a cheerless morning when they got into the street ; blowing and raining hard ; and the clouds looking dull and stormy. The night had been very wet : large pools of water had collected in the road : and the kennels were overflowing. There was a faint glimmer- ing of the coming day in the sky; but it rather aggravated than relieved the gloom of the scene : the sombre light only serving to pale that which the street lamps afforded, without shedding any warmer or brighter tints upon the wet housetops, and dreary streets. There appeared to be nobody stirring in that quarter of the town ; the windows of the houses were all closely shut; and the streets through which they passed, were noiseless and empty. By the time they had turned into the Bethnal Green Road, the day had fairly begun to break. Many of the lamps were already ex- tinguished ; a few country waggons were slowly toiling on, towards London ; now and then, a stage-coach, covered with mud, rattled briskly by : the driver bestowing, as he passed, an admonitory lash upon the heavy waggoner who, by keeping on the wrong side of the road, had endangered his arriving at the office, a quarter of a minute after his time. The public-houses, with gas-lights burning inside, were already open. By degrees, other shops began to be unclosed, On the Road out of Town. 129 and a few scattered people were met with. Then, came straggling groups of labourers going to their work ; then, men and women with fish-baskets ' on their heads ; donkey-carts laden with vegetables ; chaise-carts filled with live-stock or whole carcasses of 'meat ; milk- women with pails ; an unbroken concourse of people, trudging out with various supplies to the eastern suburbs of the town. As they approached the City, the noise and traffic gradually increased ; when they threaded the streets between Shoreditch and Smithfield, it had swelled into a roar of sound and bustle. It was as light as it was likely to be, till night came on again, and the busy morning of half the London population had begun. Turning down Sun Street and Crown Street, and crossing Finsbury Square, Mr. Sikes struck, by way of Chiswell Street, into Barbican : thence into Long Lane, and so into Smithfield ; from which latter place arose a tumult of discordant sounds that filled Oliver Twist with amazement. It was market-morning. The ground was covered, nearly ankle- deep, with filth and mire ; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary pens as could bo crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep. Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass; the whistling of drovers, the barking of dogs, the bellowing and plunging of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeak- ing of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides ; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house ; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whoop- ing, and yelling ; the hideous and discordant din that resounded from every corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng ; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite confounded the senses. Mr. Sikes, dragging Oliver after him, elbowed his way through the thickest of the crowd, and bestowed very little attention on the numerous sights and sounds, which so astonished the boy. He nodded, twice or thrice, to a passing friend ; and, resisting as many invitations to take a morning dram, pressed steadily onward, until they were clear of the turmoil, and had made their way through Hosier Lane into Holborn. " Now, young 'un ! " said Sikes, looking up at the clock of St. Andrew's Church, "hard upon seven! you must step out. Come, don't lag behind already, Lazy-legs ! " Mr. Sikes accompanied this speech with a jerk at his little com- panion's wrist ; Oliver, quickening his pace into a kind of trot 130 Oliver Twist. between a fast walk and a run, kept up with the rapid strides of the housebreaker as well as he could. They held their course at this rate, until they had passed Hyde Park corner, and were on their way to Kensington: when Bikes relaxed his pace, until an empty cart which was at some little distance behind, came up. Seeing " Hounslow " written on it, he asked the driver with as much civility as he conld assume, if he would give them a lift as far as Isle worth. " Jump up," said the man. " Is that your boy ? " " Yes ; he's my boy," replied Sikes, looking hard at Oliver, and putting his hand abstractedly into the pocket where the pistol was. " Your father walks rather too quick for you, don't he, my man ? " inquired the driver : seeing that Oliver was out of breath. "Not a bit of it," replied Sikes, interposing. "He's used to it. Here, take hold of my hand, Ned. In with you ! " Thus addressing Oliver, ho helped him into the cart ; and the driver, pointing to a heap of sacks, told him to lie down there, and rest himself. As they passed the different mile-stones, Oliver wondered, more and more, where his companion meant to take him. Kensington, Hammersmith, Chiswick, Kew Bridge, Brentford, were all passed; and yet they went on as steadily as if they had only just begun their journey. At length, they came to a public-house called the Coach and Horses : a little way beyond which, another road appeared to turn off. And here, the cart stopped. Sikes dismounted with great -precipitation, holding Oliver by the hand all the while ; and lifting him down directly, bestowed a furious look upon him, and rapped the side-pocket with his fist, in a significant manner. " Good-bye, boy," said the man. " He's sulky," replied Sikes, giving him a shake ; " he's sulky. A young dog ! Don't mind him." "Not I!" rejoined the other, getting into his cart. "It's a fine day, after all." And he drove away. Sikes waited until he had fairly gone ; and then, telling Oliver he might look about him if he wanted, once again led him onward on his journey. They turned round to the left, a short way past the public-house ; and then, taking a right-hand road, walked on for a long time : passing many large gardens and gentlemen's houses on both sides of the way, and stopping for nothing but a little beer, until they reached a town. Here against the wall of a house, Oliver saw written up in pretty large letters, "Hampton." They lingered about, in the fields, for Borne hours. At length, they came back into the town ; and, turning into an old public-house with a defaced sign-board, ordered some dinner by the kitchen fire. The kitchen was an old, low-roofed room ; with a great beam across A Fresh Start. 131 the middle of the ceiling, and benches, with high backs to them, by the fire ; on which were seated several rough men in smock-frocks, drinking and smoking. They took no notice of Oliver; and very little of Sikcs ; and, as Sikes took very little notice of them, he and his young comrade sat in a corner by themselves, without being much troubled by their company. They had Borne cold meat for dinner, and sat so long after it, while Mr. Sikes indulged himself with three or four pipes, that Oliver began to feel quite certain they were not going any further. Being much tired with the walk, and getting up so early, he dozed a little at first ; then, quite overpowered by fatigue and the fumes of the tobacco, fell asleep. It was quite dark when he was awakened by a push from Sikes. Rousing himself sufficiently to sit up and look about him, he found that worthy in close fellowship and communication with a labouring man, over a pint of ale. " So, you're going on to Lower Halliford, are you ? " inquired Sikes. " Yes, I am," replied the man, who seemed a little the worse or better, as the case might be for drinking ; " and not slow about it neither. My horse hasn't got a load behind him going back, as he had coming up in the ruornin' ; and he won't be long a-doing of it. Here's luck to him ! Ecod ! he's a good 'un ! " " Could you give my boy and me a lift as far as there ? " demanded Sikes, pushing the ale towards his new friend. " If you're going directly, I can," replied the man, looking out of the pot. " Are you going to Halliford ? " " Going on to Shepperton," replied Sikes. " I'm your man, as far as I go," replied the other. " Is all paid, Becky ? " " Yes, the other gentleman's paid," replied the girl. " I say ! " said the man, with tipsy gravity ; " that won't do, you know." " Why not ? " rejoined Sikes. " You're a-going to accommodate nn, and wot's to prevent my standing treat for a pint or so, in return?" The stranger reflected upon this argument, with a very profound face ; having done so, he seized Sikes by the hand : and declared he was a real good fellow. To which Mr. Sikes replied, he was joking ; as, if he had been sober, there would have been strong reason to suppose ho was. After the exchange of a few more compliments, they bade the company good-night, and weut out ; the girl gathering up the pots and glasses as they did so, and lounging out to the door, with her hands full, to see the party start. The horse, whose health had been drunk in his absence, was stand- ing outside: ready harnessed to the cart. Oliver and Sikes got in without any further ceremony ; and the man to whom he belonged, having lingered for a minute or two " to bear him up," and to defy 132 Oliver Twist. the hostler and the world to produce his equal, mounted also. Then, the hostler was told to give the horse his head ; and, his head being given him, he made a very unpleasant use of it : tossing it into the air with great disdain, and running into the parlour windows over the way ; after performing those feats, and supporting himself for a short time on his hind-legs, he started off at great speed, and rattled out of the town right gallantly. The night was very dark. A damp mist rose from the river, and the marshy ground about ; and spread itself over the dreary fields. It was piercing cold, too ; all was gloomy and black. Not a word was spoken ; for the driver had grown sleepy ; and Sikes was in no mood to lead him into conversation. Oliver sat huddled together, in a corner of the cart; bewildered with alarm and apprehension; and figuring strange objects in the gaunt trees, whose branches waved grimly to and fro, as if in some fantastic joy at the desolation of the seene. As they passed Sunbury Church, the clock struck seven. There was a light in the ferry-house window opposite : which streamed across the road, and threw into more sombre shadow a dark yew-tree with graves beneath it. There was a dull sound of falling water not far off ; and the leaves of the old tree stirred gently in the night wind. It seemed like quiet music for the repose of the dead. Sunbury was passed through, and they came again into the lonely road. Two or three miles more, and the cart stopped. Sikes alighted, took Oliver by the hand, and they once again walked on. They turned into no house at Shepperton, as the weary boy had expected; but still kept walking on, in mud and darkness, through gloomy lanes and over cold open wastes, until they came within sight of the lights of a town at no great distance. On looking intently forward, Oliver saw that the water was just below them, and that they were coming to the foot of a bridge. Sikes kept straight on, until they were close upon the bridge ; then turned suddenly down a bank upon the left. " The water ! " thought Oliver, turning sick with fear. " He has brought me to this lonely place to murder me ! " He was about to throw himself on the ground, and make one struggle for his young life, when he saw that they stood before a solitary house : all ruinous and decayed. There was a window on each side of the dilapidated entrance ; and one story above ; but no light was visible. The house was dark, dismantled : and, to all appearance, uninhabited. Sikes, with Oliver's hand still in his, softly approached the low porch, and raised the latch. The door yielded to the pressure, and they passed in together. CHAPTER XXII. THE BURGLARY. " HALLO ! " cried a loud, hoarse voice, as soon as they set foot in the passage. " Don't make such a row," said Sikes, bolting the door. " Show a glim, Toby." " Aha ! my pal ! " cried the same voice. " A glim, Barney, a glim ! Show the gentleman in, Barney ; wake up first, if convenient." The speaker appeared to throw a boot-jack, or some such article, at the person he addressed, to rouse him from his slumbers : for the noise of a wooden body, falling violently, was heard ; and then an indistinct muttering, as of a man between asleep and awake. " Do you hear ? " cried the same voice. " There's Bill Sikes in the passage with nobody to do the civil to him ; and you sleeping there, as if you took laudanum with your meals, and nothing stronger. Are you any fresher now, or do you want the iron candlestick to wake you thoroughly?" A pair of slipshod feet shuffled, hastily, across the bare floor of the room, as this interrogatory was put ; and there issued, from a door on the right hand : first, a feeble candle : and next, the form of the same individual who has been heretofore described as labouring under tho infirmity of speaking through his nose, and officiating as waiter at the public-house on Saffron Hill. " Bister Sikes ! " exclaimed Barney, with real or counterfeit joy ; " cub id, sir ; cub id." " Here ! you get on first," said Sikes, putting Oliver in front of him. " Quicker ! or I shall tread upon your heels." Muttering a curse upon his tardiness, Sikes pushed Oliver before him ; and they entered a low dark room with a smoky fire, two or three broken chairs, a table, and a very old couch : on which, with his legs much higher than his head, a man was reposing at full length, smoking a long clay pipe. He was dressed in a smartly-cut snuff- coloured coat, with large brass buttons ; an orange neckerchief ; a coarse, staring, shawl-pattern waistcoat ; and drab breeches. Mr. Crackit (for he it was) had no very great quantity of hair, either upon his head or face ; but what he had, was of a reddish dye, and tortured into long corkscrew curls, through which he occasionally thrust some very dirty fingers, ornamented with large common rings. He was a trifle above the middle size, and apparently rather weak in the legs ; but this circumstance by no means detracted from his own admiration of his top-boots, which he contemplated, in their elevated situation, with lively satisfaction. " Bill, iny boy ! " said this figure, turning his head towards the 134 Oliver Twist. door, " I'm glad to see yon. I was almost afraid you'd given it up : in which case I should have made a personal wentur. Hallo ! " Uttering this exclamation in a tone of great surprise, as his eye rested on Oliver, Mr. Toby Crackit brought himself into a sitting posture, and demanded who that was. " The boy. Only the boy ! " replied Sikes, drawing a chair towards the fire. " Wud of Bister Fagid's lads," exclaimed Barney, with a grin. " Fagin's, eh ! " exclaimed Toby, looking at Oliver. " Wot an inwalable boy that'll make, for the old ladies' pockets in chapels! His mug is a fortin' to him." "There there's enough of that," interposed Sikes, impatiently; and stooping over his recumbent friend, he whispered a few words in his ear: at which Mr. Crackit laughed immensely, and honoured Oliver with a long stare of astonishment. " Now," said Sikes, as he resumed his seat, " if you'll give us some- thing to eat and drink while we're waiting, you'll put some heart in us ; or in me, at all events. Sit down by the fire, younker, and rest yourself ; for you'll have to go out with us again to-night, though not very far off." Oliver looked at Sikes, in mute and timid wonder ; and drawing a stool to the fire, sat with his aching head upon his hands, scarcely knowing where he was, or what was passing around him. "Here," said Toby, as the young Jew placed some fragments of food, and a bottle upon the table, " Success to the crack ! " He rose to honour the toast ; and, carefully depositing his empty pipe in a corner, advanced to the table, filled a glass with spirits, and drank off its contents. Mr. Sikes did the same. " A drain for the boy," said Toby, half-filling a wine-glass. " Down with it, innocence." " Indeed," said Oliver, looking piteously up into the man's face ; " indeed, I " " Down with it ! " echoed Toby. " Do you think I don't know what's good for you ? Tell him to drink it, Bill." " He had better ! " said Sikes, clapping his hand upon his pocket. "Burn my body, if he isn't more trouble than a whole family of Dodgers. Drink it, you perwerse imp ; drink it ! " Frightened by the menacing gestures of the two men, Oliver hastily swallowed the contents of the glass, and immediately fell into a violent fit of coughing : which delighted Toby Crackit and Barney, and even drew a smile from the surly Mr. Sikes. This done, and Sikes having satisfied his appetite (Oliver could eat nothing but a small crust of bread which they made him swallow), the two men laid themselves down on chairs for a short nap, Oliver retained his stool by the fire ; Barney, wrapped in a blanket, stretched himself on the floor : close outside the fender. They slept, or appeared to sleep, for some time ; nobody stirring The Dead Time of Night. 135 but Barney, who rose once or twice to throw coals on the fire. Oliver fell into a heavy doze : imagining himself straying along the gloomy lanes, or wandering about the dark churchyard, or retracing some one or other of the scenes of the past day : when ho was roused by Toby Crackit jumping up and declaring it was half-past one. In an instant, the other two were on their legs, and all were actively engaged in busy preparation. Sikes and his companion enveloped their necks and chins in large dark shawls, and drew on their great- coats; Barney, opening a cupboard, brought forth several articles, which he hastily crammed into the pockets. " Barkers for me, Barney," said Toby Crackit. " Here they are," replied Barney, producing a pair of pistols. " You loaded them yourself." " All right ! " replied Toby, stowing them away. " The per- suaders ? " " I've got 'em," replied Sikes. "Crape, keys, centre-bits, darkies nothing forgotten?" inquired Toby : fastening a small crowbar to a loop inside the skirt of his coat. " All right," rejoined his companion. " Bring them bits of timber, Barney. That's the time of day." With these words, he took a thick stick from Barney's hands, who, having delivered another to Toby, busied himself in fastening on Oliver's cape. " Now then ! " said Sikes, holding out his hand. Oliver: who was completely stupefied by the unwonted exercise, and the air, and the drink which had been forced upon him : put his hand mechanically into that which Sikes extended for the purpose. " Take his other hand, Toby," said Sikes. " Look out, Barney." The man went to the door, and returned to announce that all was quiet. The two robbers issued forth with Oliver between them. Barney, having made all fast, rolled himself up as before, and was soon asleep again. It was now intensely dark. The fog was much heavier than it had been in the early part of the night ; and the atmosphere was so damp, that, although no rain fell, Oliver's hair and eyebrows, within a few minutes after leaving the house, had become stiff with the half-frozen moisture that was floating about. They crossed the bridge, and kept on towards the lights which he had seen before. They were at no great distance off; and, as they walked pretty briskly, they soon arrived at Chertsey. " Slap through the town," whispered Sikes ; " there'll be nobody in the way, to-night, to see us." Toby acquiesced ; and they hurried through the main street of the little town, which at that late hour was wholly deserted. A dim light shone at intervals from some bedroom window ; and the hoarse barking of dogs occasionally broke the silence of the night. But 136 Oliver Twist. there was nobody abroad. They had cleared the town, as the church- bell struck two. Quickening their pace, they turned up a road upon the left hand. After walking about a quarter of a mile, they stopped before a detached house surrounded by a wall : to the top of which, Toby Crackit, scarcely pausing to take breath, climbed in a twinkling. " The boy next," said Toby. " Hoist him up ; I'll catch hold of him." Before Oliver had time to look round, Sikes had caught him under the arms ; and in three or four seconds he and Toby were lying on the grass on the other side. Sikes followed directly. And they stole cautiously towards the house. And now, for the first time, Oliver, well-nigh mad with grief and terror, saw that housebreaking and robbery, if not murder, were the objects of the expedition. He clasped his hands together, and in- voluntarily uttered a subdued exclamation of horror. A mist came before his eyes ; the cold sweat stood upon his ashy face ; his limbs failed him ; and he sank upon his knees. " Get up ! " murmured Sikes, trembling with rage, and drawing the pistol from his pocket ; " Get up, or I'll strew your brains upon the grass." " Oh ! for God's sake let me go ! " cried Oliver ; " let me run away and die in the fields. I will never come near London ; never, never ! Oh ! pray have mercy on me, and do not make me steal. For the love of all the bright Angels that rest in Heaven, have mercy upon me ! " The man to whom this appeal was made, swore a dreadful oath, and had cocked the pistol, when Toby, striking it from his grasp, placed his hand upon the boy's mouth, and dragged him to the house. " Hush ! " cried the man ; " it won't answer here. Say another word, and I'll do your business myself with a crack on the head. That makes no noise, and is quite as certain, and more genteel. Here, Bill, wrench the shutter open. He's game enough now, I'll engage. I've seen older hands of his age took the same way, for a minute or two, on a cold night." Sikes, invoking terrific imprecations upon Fagin's head for sending Oliver on such an errand, plied the crowbar vigorously, but with little noise. After some delay, and some assistance from Toby, the shutter to which he had referred, swung open on its hinges. It was a little lattice window, about five feet and a half above the ground, at the back of the house : which belonged to a scullery, or small brewing-place, at the end of the passage. The aperture was so small, that the inmates had probably not thought it worth while to defend it more securely ; but it was large enough to admit a boy of Oliver's size, nevertheless. A very brief exercise of Mr. Sikes's art, sufficed to overcome the fastening of the lattice; and it soon stood wide open also. "Now listen, you young limb," whispered Sikes, drawing a dark Shot. 137 lantern from his pocket, and throwing the glare full on Oliver's face ; " I'm a going to put you through there. Take this light ; go softly up the steps straight afore you, and along the little hall, to the street door ; unfasten it, and let us in." " There's a bolt at the top, you won't be able to reach," interposed Toby. " Stand upon one of the hall chairs. There are three there, Bill, with a jolly large blue unicorn and gold pitchfork on 'em : which is the old lady's arms." " Keep quiet, can't you ? " replied Sikes, with a threatening look. " The room-door is open, is it ? " " Wide," replied Toby, after peeping in to satisfy himself. " The game of that is, that they always leave it open with a catch, so that the dog, who's got a bed in here, may walk up and down the passage when he feels wakeful. Ha ! ha ! Barney 'ticed him away to-night. So neat ! " Although Mr. Crackit spoke in a scarcely audible whisper, and laughed without noise, Sikes imperiously commanded him to be silent, and to get to work. Toby complied, by first producing his lantern, and placing it on the ground ; then by planting himself firmly with his head against the wall beneath the window, and his hands upon his knees, so as to make a step of his back. This was no sooner done, than Sikes, mounting upon him, put Oliver gently through the window with his feet first ; and, without leaving hold of his collar, planted him safely on the floor intide. " Take this lantern," said Sikes, looking into the room. " You see the stairs afore you ? " Oliver, more dead than alive, gasped out, " Yes." Sikes, pointing to the street-door with the pistol-barrel, briefly advised him to take notice that he was within shot all the way ; and that if he faltered, he would fall dead that instant. "It's done in a minute," said Sikes, in the same low whisper. " Directly I leave go of you, do your work. Hark ! " " What's that ? " whispered the other man. They listened intently. " Nothing," said Sikes, releasing his hold of Oliver. " Now ! " In the short time he had had to collect his senses, the boy had firmly resolved that, whether he died in the attempt or not, he would make one effort to dart up-stairs from the hall, and alarm the family. Filled with this idea, he advanced at once, but stealthily. " Come back ! " suddenly cried Sikes aloud. " Back ! back ! " Scared by the sudden breaking of the dead stillness of the place, and by a loud cry which followed it, Oliver let his lantern fall, and knew not 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 a smoke a crash somewhere, but where he knew not, and he staggered back. 138 Oliver Twist. Sikes bad disappeared for an instant ; but be was up again, and had bim by tbo collar before tbe smoke had cleared away. He fired his own pistol after tbe men, who were already retreating; and dragged the boy up. " Clasp your arm tighter," said Sikes, as he drew him through the window. " Give me a shawl here. They've hit him. Quick ! How the boy bleeds ! " Then came the loud ringing of a bell, mingled with the noise of fire-arms, and the shouts of men, and the sensation of being carried over uneven ground at a rapid pace. And then, the noises grew con- fused in the distance ; and a cold deadly feeling crept over the boy's heart ; and he saw or heard no more. CHAPTER XXIII. WHICH CONTAINS THE SUBSTANCE OP A PLEASANT CONVERSATION BE- TWEEN MR. BUMBLE AND A LADY J AND SHOWS THAT EVEN A BEADLE MAY BE SUSCEPTIBLE ON SOME POINTS. THE night was bitter cold. The snow lay on the ground, frozen into a hard tbick crust, so that only the heaps that had drifted into by- ways and corners were affected by the sharp wind that howled abroad : which, as if expending increased fury on such prey as it found, caught it savagely up in clouds, and, whirling it into a thousand misty eddies, scattered it in air. Bleak, dark, and piercing cold, it was a night for the well-housed and fed to draw round the bright fire and thank God they were at home ; and for the homeless, starving wretch to lay him down and die. Many hunger-worn outcasts close their eyes in our bare streets, at such times, who, let their crimes have been what they may, can hardly open them in a more bitter world. Snch was tbe aspect of out-of-doors affairs, when Mrs. Corney, the matron of the workhouse to which our readers have been already introduced as the birthplace of Oliver Twist, sat herself down before a cheerful fire in her own little room, and glanced, with no small degree of complacency, at a small round table : on which stood a tray of corresponding size, furnished with all necessary materials for the most grateful meal that matrons enjoy. In fact, Mrs. Corney was about to solace herself with a cup of tea. As she glanced from the table to the fireplace, where the smallest of all possible kettles was singing a small song in a small voice, her inward satisfaction evidently increased, so much so, indeed, that Mrs. Corney smiled. " Well ! " said the matron, leaning her elbow on the table, and looking reflectively at the fire ; " I'm sure we have all on us a great deal to be grateful for ! A great deal, if we did but know it. Ah ! " Mrs. Corney has a Visitor. 139 Mrs. Corney shook her head mournfully, as if deploring the mental blindness of thoso paupers who did not know it ; and thrusting a silver spoon (private property) into the inmost recesses of a two-ounce tin tea-caddy, proceeded to make the tea. How slight a thing will disturb the equanimity of our frail minds ! The black teapot, being very small and easily filled, ran over while Mrs. Corney was moralising; and the water slightly scalded Mrs. Corney's hand. " Drat the pot ! " said the worthy matron, setting it down very hastily on the hob ; " a little stupid thing, that only holds a couple of cups ! What use is it of, to anybody ! Except," said Mrs. Corney, pausing, " except to a poor desolate creature like me. Oh dear ! " With these words, the matron dropped into her chair, and, once more resting her elbow on the table, thought of her solitary fate. The small teapot, and the single cup, had awakened in her mind sad recollections of Mr. Corney (who had not been dead more than five- and-twenty years) ; and she was overpowered. " I shall never get another ! " said Mrs. Corney, pettishly ; " I shall never get another like him." Whether this remark bore reference to the husband, or the teapot, is uncertain. It might have been the latter ; for Mrs. Corney looked at it as she spoke ; and took it up afterwards. She had just tasted her first cup, when she was disturbed by a soft tap at the room-door. " Oh, come in with you ! " said Mrs. Corney, sharply. " Some of the old women dying, I suppose. They always die when I'm at meals. Don't stand there, letting the cold air in, don't. What's amiss now, eh ? " " Nothing, ma'am, nothing," replied a man's voice. " Dear me ! " exclaimed the matron, in a much sweeter tone, " is that Mr. Bumble ? " " At your service, ma'am," said Mr. Bumble, who had been stopping outside to rub his shoes clean, and to shake the snow off his coat ; and who now made his appearance, bearing the cocked hat in one hand and a bundle in the other. " Shall I shut the door, ma'am ? " The lady modestly hesitated to reply, lest there should be any im- propriety in holding an interview with Mr. Bumble, with closed doors. Mr. Bumble taking advantage of the hesitation, and being very cold himself, shut it without permission. " Hard weather, Mr. Bumble," said the matron. "Hard, indeed, ma'am," replied the beadle. " Anti-porochial weather this, ma'am. We have given away, Mrs. Corney, we have given away a matter of twenty quartern loaves and a cheese and a half, this very blessed afternoon ; and yet them paupers are not con- tented." "Of course not. When would they be, Mr. Bumble?" said the matron, sipping her tea. " When, indeed, ma'am ! rt rejoined Mr. Bumble. " Why here's one 140 Oliver Twist. man that, in consideration of his wife and large family, has a quartern loaf and a good pound of cheese, full weight. Is he grateful, ma'am ? Is he grateful ? Not a copper farthing's worth of it ! What does he do, ma'am, but ask for a few coals ; if it's only a pocket handkerchief full, he says! Coals! What would he do with coals? Toast his cheese with 'em, and then come back for more. That's the way with these people, ma'am ; give 'em a apron full of coals to-day, and they'll come back for another, the day after to-morrow, as brazen as alabaster." The matron expressed her entire concurrence in this intelligible simile ; and the beadle went on. " I never," said Mr. Bumble, " see anything like the pitch it's got to. The day afore yesterday, a man you have been a married woman, ma'am, and I may mention it to you a man, with hardly a rag upon his back (here Mrs. Corney looked at the floor), goes to our overseer's door when he has got company coming to dinner ; and says, he must bo relieved, Mrs. Corney. As he wouldn't go away, and shocked the company very much, our overseer sent him out a pound of potatoes and half a pint of oatmeal. ' My heart ! ' says the ungrateful villain, ' what's the use of this to me ? You might as well give me a pair of iron spectacles ! ' ' Very good,' says our overseer, taking 'em away again, ' you won't get anything else here.' ' Then I'll die in the streets ! ' says the vagrant. ' Oh no, you won't,' says our overseer." " Ha I ha ! That was very good ! So like Mr. Grannett, wasn't it ? " interposed the matron. " Well, Mr. Bumble ? " " Well, ma'am," rejoined the beadle, " he went away ; and he did die in the streets. There's a obstinate pauper for you ! " "It beats anything I could have believed," observed the matron emphatically. " But don't you think out-of-door relief a very bad thing, any way, Mr. Bumble ? You're a gentleman of experience, and ought to know. Come." "Mrs. Corney," said the beadle, smiling as men smile who are conscious of superior information, " out-of-door relief, properly managed : properly managed, ma'am : is the porochial safeguard. The great principle of out-of-door relief is, to give the paupers exactly what they don't want ; and then they get tired of coming." " Dear me ! " exclaimed Mrs. Corney. " Well, that is a good one, too ! " " Yes. Betwixt you and me, ma'am," returned Mr. Bumble, " that's the great principle ; and that's the reason why, if you look at any cases that get into them owdacious newspapers, you'll always observe that sick families have been relieved with slices of cheese. That's the rule now, Mrs. Corney, all over the country. But, however," said the beadle, stopping to unpack his bundle, " these are official secrets, ma'am ; not to be spoken of; except, as I may say, among the porochial officers, such as ourselves. This is the port wine, ma'am, that the board ordered for the infirmary; real, fresh, genuine port A Friendly Cup of Tea. 141 wine; only out of the cask this forenoon; clear as a bell, and no sediment ! " Having held the first bottle up to the light, and shaken it well to test its excellence, Mr. Bumble placed them both on the top of a chest of drawers ; folded the handkerchief in which they had been wrapped ; put it carefully in his pocket ; and took up his hat, as if to go. " You'll have a very cold walk, Mr. Bumble," said the matron. " It blows, ma'am," replied Mr. Bumble, turning up his coat-collar, " enough to cut one's ears off." The matron looked, from the little kettle, to the beadle, who was moving towards the door ; and as the beadle coughed, preparatory to bidding her good -night, bashfully inquired whether whether he wouldn't take a cup of tea ? Mr. Bumble instantaneously turned back his collar again ; laid his hat and stick upon a chair ; and drew another chair up to the table. As he slowly seated himself, he looked at the lady. She fixed her eyes upon the little teapot. Mr. Bumble coughed again, and slightly smiled. Mrs. Corney rose to get another cup and saucer from the closet. As she sat down, her eyes once again encountered those of the gallant beadle ; she coloured, and applied herself to the task of making his tea. Again Mr. Bumble coughed louder this time than he had coughed yet. "Sweet? Mr. Bumble?" inquired the matron, taking up the sugar-basin. " Very sweet, indeed, ma'am," replied Mr. Bumble. He fixed his eyes on Mrs. Corney as he said this; and if ever a beadle looked tender, Mr. Bumble was that beadle at that moment. The tea was made, and handed in silence. Mr. Bumble, having spread a handkerchief over his knees to prevent the crumbs from sullying the splendour of his shorts, began to eat and drink ; varying these amusements, occasionally, by fetching a deep sigh ; which, how- ever, had no injurious effect upon his appetite, but, on the contrary, rather seemed to facilitate his operations in the tea and toast depart- ment. " You have a cat, ma'am, I see," said Mr. Bumble, glancing at one who, in the centre of her family, was basking before the fire ; " and kittens too, I declare ! " " I am so fond of them, Mr. Bumble, you can't think," replied the matron. " They're so happy, so frolicsome, and so cheerful, that they are quite companions for me." " Very nice animals, ma'am," replied Mr. Bumble, approvingly ; " so very domestic." " Oh, yes ! " rejoined the matron with enthusiasm ; " so fond of their home too, that it's quite a pleasure, I'm sure." " Mrs. Corney, ma'am," said Mr. Bumble, slowly, and marking the time with his teaspoon, " I mean to say this, ma'am j that any cat, 142 Oliver Twist. or kitten, that could live with you, ma'am, and not be fond of its home, must be a ass, ma'am." " Oh, Mr. Bumble ! " remonstrated Mrs. Corney. " It's of no use disguising facts, ma'am," said Mr. Bumble, slowly flourishing the teaspoon with a kind of amorous dignity which made him doubly impressive ; " I would drown it myself, with pleasure." " Then you're a cruel man," said the matron vivaciously, as she held out her hand for the beadle's cup ; " and a very hard-hearted man besides." "Hard-hearted, ma'am?" said Mr. Bumble. "Hard?" Mr. Bumble resigned his cup without another word ; squeezed Mrs. Corney's little finger as she took it ; and inflicting two open-handed slaps upon his laced waistcoat, gave a mighty sigh, and hitched his chair a very little morsel farther from the fire. It was a round table ; and as Mrs. Corney and Mr. Bumble had been sitting opposite each other, with no great space between them, and fronting the fire, it will be seen that Mr. Bumble, in receding from the fire, and still keeping at the table, increased the distance between himself and Mrs. Corney ; which proceeding, some prudent readers will doubtless be disposed to admire, and to consider an act of great heroism on Mr. Bumble's part : he being in some sort tempted by time, place, and opportunity, to give utterance to certain soft nothings, which however well they may become the lips of the light and thoughtless, do seem immeasurably beneath the dignity of judges of the land, members of parliament, ministers of state, lord mayors, and other great public functionaries, but more particularly beneath the stateliness and gravity of a beadle : who (as is well known) should be the sternest and most inflexible among them all. Whatever were Mr. Bumble's intentions, however (and no doubt they were of the best) : it unfortunately happened, as has been twice before remarked, that the table was a round one ; consequently Mr. Bumble, moving his chair by little and little, soon began to diminish the distance between himself and the matron ; and, continuing to travel round the outer edge of the circle, brought his chair, in time, close to that in which the matron was seated. Indeed, the two chairs touched ; and when they did so, Mr. Bumble stopped. Now, if the matron had moved her chair to the right, she would have been scorched by the fire ; and if to the left, she must have fallen into Mr. Bumble's arms ; so (being a discreet matron, and no doubt foreseeing these consequences at a glance) she remained where bhe was, and handed Mr. Bumble another cup of tea. " Hard-hearted, Mrs. Corney ? " said Mr. Bumble, stirring his tea, and looking up into the matron's face ; " are you hard-hearted, Mrs. Corney ?" " Dear me ! " exclaimed the matron, " what a very curious question from a single man. What can you want to know for, Mr. Bumble ? " The beadle drank his tea to the last drop ; finished a piece of toast ; Bumble on Mrs. Carney's Property. 143 whisked the crumbs off his knees ; wiped his lips ; and deliberately kissed the matron. " Mr. Bumble ! " cried that discreet lady in a whisper ; for the fright was so great, that she had qnite lost her voice, " Mr. Bumble, I shall scream ! " Mr. Bumble made no reply ; but in a slow and digni- fied manner, put his arm round the matron's waist. As the lady had stated her intention of screaming, of course she would have screamed at this additional boldness, but that the exertion was rendered unnecessary by a hasty knocking at the door : which was no sooner heard, than Mr. Bumble darted, with much agility, to the wine bottles, and began dusting them with great violence : while the matron sharply demanded who was there. It is worthy of remark, as a curious physical instance of the efficacy of a sudden surprise in counteracting the effects of extreme fear, that her voice had quite recovered all its official asperity. " If you please, mistress," said a withered old female pauper, hideously ugly : putting her head in at the door, " Old Sally is a-going fast." " Well, what's that to me ? " angrily demanded the matron. " I can't keep her alive, can I ? " " No, no, mistress," replied the old woman, " nobody can ; she's far beyond the reach of help. I've seen a many people die ; little babes and great strong men ; and I know when death's a-coming, well enough. But she's troubled in her mind : and when the fits are not on her, and that's not often, for she is dying very hard, she says she has got something to tell, which you must hear. She'll never die quiet till you come, mistress." At this intelligence, the worthy Mrs. Corney muttered a variety of invectives against old women who couldn't even die without purposely annoying theii betters ; and, muffling herself in a thick shawl which she hastily caught up, briefly requested Mr. Bumble to stay till she came back, lest anything particular should occur. Bidding the messenger walk fast, and not be all night hobbling up the stairs, she followed her from the room with a very ill grace, scolding all the way. Mr. Bumble's conduct on being left to himself, was rather inex- plicable. He opened the closet, counted the teaspoons, weighed the sugar-tongs, closely inspected a silver milk-pot to ascertain that it was of the genuine metal, and, having satisfied his curiosity on these points, put on his cocked hat corner-wise, and danced with much gravity four distinct times round the table. Having gono through this very extraordinary performance, he took off the cocked hat again, and, spreading himself before the fire with his back towards it, seemed to be mentally engaged in taking an exact inventory of the furniture. CHAPTEE XXIV. TREATS OF A VERY POOR SUBJECT. BUT is A SHORT ONE, AND MAY BE FOUND OF IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY. IT was no unfit messenger of death, who had disturbed the quiet of the matron's room. Her body was bent by age ; her limbs trembled with palsy ; her face, distorted into a mumbling leer, resembled more the grotesque shaping of some wild pencil, than the work of Nature's hand. Alas ! How few of Nature's faces are left alone to gladden us with their beauty ! The cares, and sorrows, and hungerings, of the world, change them as they change hearts ; and it is only when those passions sleep, and have lost their hold for ever, that the troubled clouds pass off, and leave Heaven's surface clear. It is a common thing for the countenances of the dead, even in that fixed and rigid state, to subside into the long-forgotten expression of sleeping infancy, and settle into the very look of early life ; so calm, so peaceful, do they grow again, that those who knew them in their happy childhood, kneel by the coffin's side in awe, and see the Angel even upon earth. The old crone tottered along the passages, and up the stairs, mutter- ing some indistinct answers to the chidings of her companion ; being at length compelled to pause for breath, she gave the light into her hand, and remained behind to follow as she might : while the more nimble superior made her way to the room where the sick woman lay. It was a bare garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther end. There was another old woman watching by the bed ; the parish apothecary's apprentice was standing by the fire, making a toothpick out of a quill. " Cold night, Mrs. Corney," said this young gentleman, as the matron entered. "Very cold, indeed, sir," replied the mistress, in her most civil tones, and dropping a curtsey as she spoke. " You should get better coals out of your contractors," said the apothecary's deputy, breaking a lump on the top of the fire with the rusty poker ; " these are not at all the sort of thing for a cold night." " They're the board's choosing, sir," returned the matron. " The least they could do, would be to keep us pretty warm : for our places are hard enough." The conversation was here interrupted by a moan from the sick woman. " Oh ! " said the young man, turning his face towards the bed, as if he had previously quite forgotten the patient, " it's all U. P. there, Mrs. Corney." " It is, is it, sir ? " asked the matron. Watchers at a Death-bed. 14$ "If she lasts a couple of hours, I shall be surprised," said the apothecary's apprentice, intent upon the toothpick's point. "It's a break-up of the system altogether. Is she dozing, old lady ? " The attendant stooped over the bed, to ascertain ; and nodded in the affirmative. " Then perhaps she'll go off in that way, if you don't make a row," said the young man. " Put the light on the floor. She won't see it there." The attendant did as she was told : shaking her head meanwhile, to intimate that the woman would not die so easily ; having done so, she resumed her seat by the side of the other nurse, who had by this time returned. The mistress, with an expression of impatience, wrapped herself in her shawl, and sat at the foot of the bed. The apothecary's apprentice, having completed the manufacture of the toothpick, planted himself in front of the fire and made good use of it for ten minutes or so : when apparently growing rather dull, he wished Mrs. Corney joy of her job, and took himself off on tiptoe. "When they had sat in silence for some time, the two old women rose from the bed, and crouching over the fire, held out their withered hands to catch the heat. The flame threw a ghastly light on their shrivelled faces, and made their ugliness appear terrible, as, in this position, they began to converse in a low voice. " Did she say any more, Anny dear, while I was gone ? " inquired the messenger. " Not a word," replied the other. " She plucked and tore at her arms for a little time ; but I held her hands, and she soon dropped off. She hasn't much strength in her, so I easily kept her quiet. I ain't so weak for an old woman, although I am on parish allowance ; no, no ! " " Did she drink the hot wine the doctor said she was to have ? " demanded the first. " I tried to get it down," rejoined the other. " But her teeth were tight set, and she clenched the mug so hard that it was as much as I could do to get it back again. So J drank it ; and it did me good ! " Looking cautiously round, to ascertain that they were not overheard, the two hags cowered nearer to the fire, and chuckled heartily. " I mind the time," said the first speaker, " when she would have done the same, and made rare fun of it afterwards." " Ay, that she would," rejoined the other ; " she had a merry heart. A many, many, beautiful corpses she laid out, as nice and neat as wax- work. My old eyes have seen them ay, and those old hands touched them too ; for I have helped her, scores of times." Stretching forth her trembling fingers as she spoke, the old creature shook them exultingly before her face, and fumbling in her pocket, brought out an old time-discoloured tin snuff-box, from which she shook a few grains into the outstretched palm of her companion, and a few more into her own. While they were thus employed, the matron, L 146 Oliver Tivist. who bad been impatiently watching until the dying woman should awaken from her stupor, joined them by the fire, and sharply asked how long she was to wait ? " Not long, mistress," replied the second woman, looking up into her face. " We have none of us long to wait for Death. Patience, patience ! He'll be here soon enough for us all." " Hold your tongue, you doting idiot ! " said the matron, sternly. " You, Martha, tell me ; has she been in this way before ? " " Often," answered the first woman. " But will never be again," added the second one ; " that is, she'll never wake again but once and mind, mistress, that won't be for long ! " " Long or short," said the matron, snappishly, " she won't find me here when she does wake ; take care, both of you, how you worry me again for nothing. It's no part of my duty to see all the old women in the house die, and I won't that's more. Mind that, you impudent old harridans. If you make a fool of me again, I'll soon cure you, I warrant you ! " She was bouncing away, when a cry from the tsvo women, who had turned towards the bed, caused her to look round. The patient had raised herself upright, and was stretching her arms towards them. " Who's that ? " she cried, in a hollow voice. " Hush, hush ! " said one of the women, stooping over her. " Lio down, lie down ! " " I'll never lie down again alive ! " said the woman, struggling. " I will tell her ! Come here ! Nearer ! Let me whisper in your ear." She clutched the matron by the arm, and forcing her into a chair by the bedside, was about to speak, when looking round, she caught sight of the two old women bending forward in the attitude of eager listeners. " Turn them away," said the woman, drowsily ; " make haste ! make haste ! " The two old crones, chiming in together, began pouring out many piteous lamentations that the poor dear was too far gone to know her best friends ; and were uttering sundry protestations that they would never leave her, when the superior pushed them from the room, closed the door, and returned to the bedside. On being excluded, the old ladies changed their tone, and cried through the keyhole that old Sally was drunk ; which, indeed, was not unlikely ; since, in addition to a moderate dose of opium prescribed by the apothecary, she was labouring under the effects of a final taste of gin-and-water which had been privily administered, in the openness of their hearts, by the worthy old ladies themselves. " Now listen to me," said the dying woman aloud, as if making a groat effort to revive one latent spark of energy. " In this very room in this very bed I once nursed a pretty young creetur', that was brought into the house with her feet cut and bruised with walking, A Death-bed Confession. 147 and all soiled with dust and blood. She gave birth to a boy, and died. Let me think what was the year again ! " " Never mind the year," said the impatient auditor ; " what about her?" " Ay," murmured the sick woman, relapsing into her former drowsy state, " what about her ? what about I know ! " she cried, jumping fiercely up : her face flushed, and her eyes starting from her head " I robbed her, so I did ! She wasn't cold I tell you she wasn't cold, when I stole it ! " " Stole what, for God's sake ? " cried the matron, with a gesture as if she would call for help. " It ! " replied the woman, laying her hand over the other's mouth. " The only thing she had. She wanted clothes to keep her warm, and food to eat ; but she had kept it safe, and had it in her bosom. It was gold, I tell you ! Eich gold, that might have saved her life 1 " " Gold 1 " echoed the matron, bending eagerly over the woman as she fell back. " Go on, go on yes what of it ? Who was the mother ? When was it ? " " She charged me to keep it safe," replied the woman with a groan, " and trusted me as the only woman about her. I stole it in my heart when she first showed it mo hanging round her neck ; and the child's death, perhaps, is on me besides ! They would have treated him better, if they had known it all ! " " Known what ? " asked the other. " Speak ! " " The boy grew so like his mother," said the woman, rambling on, and not heeding the question, " that I could never forget it when I saw his face. Poor girl ! poor girl ! She was so young, too ! Such a gentle lamb ! Wait ; there's more to tell. I have not told you all, have I?" " No, no," replied the matron, inclining her head to catch the words, as they came more faintly from the dying woman. " Be quick, or it may be too late ! " " The mother," said the woman, making a more violent effort than before ; " the mother, when the pains of death first came upon her, whispered in my ear that if her baby was born alive, and thrived, the day might come when it would not feel so much disgraced to hear its poor young mother named. ' And oh, kind Heaven ! ' she said, folding her thin hands together, ' whether it be boy or girl, raise up some friends for it in this troubled world, and take pity upon a lonely desolate child, abandoned to its mercy ! ' ' " The boy's name ? " demanded the matron. " They called him Oliver," replied the woman, feebly. " The gold I stole was " " Yes, yes what ? " cried the other. She was bending eagerly over the woman to hear her reply ; but drew back, instinctively, as she once again rose, slowly and stiffly, into a sitting posture; then, clutching the coverlid with both hands, 148 Oliver Twist. muttered some indistinct sounds in her throat, and fell lifeless on the bed. *#***** " Stone dead ! " said one of the old women, hurrying in as soon as the door was opened. " And nothing to tell, after all," rejoined the matron, walking care- lessly away. The two crones, to all appearance, too busily occupied in the pre- parations for their dreadful duties to make any reply, were left alone, hovering about the body. CHAPTEK XXV. WHEREIN THIS HISTOBY REVESTS TO MR. FAGIN AND COMPANY. WHILE these things were passing in the country workhouse, Mr. Fagin sat in the old den the same from which Oliver had been removed by the girl brooding over a dull, smoky fire. He held a pair of bellows upon his knee, with which he had apparently been endeavouring to rouse it into more cheerful action ; but he had fallen into deep thought ; and with his arms folded on them, and his chin resting on Ms thumbs, fixed his eyes, abstractedly, on the rusty bars. At a table behind him sat the Artful Dodger, Master Charles Bates, and Mr. Chitling : all intent upon a game of whist ; the Artful taking dummy against Master Bates and Mr. Chitling. The countenance of the first-named gentleman, peculiarly intelligent at all times, acquired great additional interest from his close observance of the game, and his attentive perusal of Mr. Chitling's hand ; upon which, from time to time, as occasion served, he bestowed a variety of earnest glances : wisely regulating his own play by the result of his observations upon his neighbour's cards. It being a cold night, the Dodger wore his hat, as, indeed, was often his custom within doors. He also sustained a clay pipe between his teeth, which he only removed for a brief space when he deemed it necessary to apply for refreshment to a quart pot upon the table, which stood ready filled with gin-and-water for the accommodation of the company. Master Bates was also attentive to the play ; but being of a more excitable nature than his accomplished friend, it was observable that he more frequently applied himself to the gin-and-water, and moreover indulged in many jests and irrelevant remarks, all highly unbecoming a scientific rubber. Indeed, the Artful, presuming upon their close attachment, more than once took occasion to reason gravely with his companion upon these improprieties : all of which remonstrances, Master Bates received in extremely good part ; merely requesting his A Quiet Rubber. 149 friend to be " blowed," or to insert his head in a sack, or replying with some other neatly-turned witticism of a similar kind, the happy application of which, excited considerable admiration in the mind of Mr. Chitling. It was remarkable that the latter gentleman and his partner invariably lost ; and that the circumstance, so far from angering Master Bates, appeared to afford him the highest amusement, inasmuch as he laughed most uproariously at the end of every deal, and pro- tested that he had never seen such a jolly game in all his born days. " That's two doubles and the rub," said Mr. Chitling, with a very long face, as he drew half-a-crown from his waistcoat-pocket. " I never see such a feller as you, Jack; you win everything. Even when we've good cards, Charley and I can't make nothing of 'em." Either the matter or the manner of this remark, which was made very ruefully, delighted Charley Bates so much, that his consequent shout of laughter roused the Jew from his reverie, and induced him to inquire what was the matter. " Matter, Fagin ! " cried Charley. " I wish you had watched the play. Tommy Chitling hasn't won a point ; and I went partners with him against the Artful and dum." " Ay, ay ! " said the Jew, with a grin, which sufficiently demon- strated that he was at no loss to understand the reason. " Try 'em again, Tom ; try 'em again." " No more of it for me, thankee, Fagin," replied Mr. Chitling ; " I've had enough. That 'ere Dodger has such a run of luck that there's no standing again' him." " Ha ! ha ! my dear," replied the Jew, " you must get up very early in the morning, to win against the Dodger." " Morning ! " said Charley Bates ; " you must put your boots on over-night, and have a telescope at each eye, and a opera-glass between your shoulders, if you want to come over him." Mr. Dawkins received these handsome compliments with much philosophy, and offered to cut any gentleman in company, for the first picture-card, at a shilling a time. Nobody accepting the challenge, and his pipe being by this time smoked out, he proceeded to amuse himself by sketching a ground-plan of Newgate on the table with the piece of chalk which had served him in lieu of counters ; whistling, meantime, with peculiar shrillness. " How precious dull you are, Tommy ! " said the Dodger, stopping short when there had been a long silence; and addressing Mr. Chitling. " What do you think he's thinking of, Fagin ? " " How should I know, my dear ? " replied the Jew, looking round as he plied the bellows. " About his losses, maybe ; or the little retirement in the country that he's just left, eh ? Ha ! ha ! Is that it, my dear ? " " Not a bit of it," replied the Dodger, stopping the subject of dis- course as Mr. Chitling was about to reply. "What do you say, Charley?" 150 Oliver Twist. " I should say," replied Master Bates, with a grin, " that he was uncommon sweet upon Betsy. See how he's a-blushing! Oh, my eye ! here's a merry-go-rounder ! Tommy Chitling's in love ! Oh, Fagin, Fagin ! what a spree ! " Thoroughly overpowered with the notion of Mr. Chitling heing the victim of the tender passion, Master Bates threw himself back in his chair with such violence, that he lost his balance, and pitched over upon the floor ; where (the accident abating nothing of his merriment) he lay at full length until his laugh was over, when he resumed his former position, and began another laugh. " Never mind him, my dear," said the Jew, winking at Mr. Dawkins, and giving Master Bates a reproving tap with the nozzle of the bellows. " Betsy's a fine girl. Stick up to her, Tom. Stick up to her." " What I mean to say, Fagin," replied Mr. Chitliug, very red in the face, " is, that that isn't anything to anybody here." " No more it is," replied the Jew ; " Charley will talk. Don't mind him, my dear ; don't mind him. Betsy's a fine girl. Do as she bids you, Tom, and you will make your fortune." i ' So I do do as she bids me," replied Mr. Chitling ; " I shouldn't have been milled, if it hadn't been for her advice. But it turned out a good job for you ; didn't it, Fagin ! And what's six weeks of it ? It must come, some time or another, and why not in the winter time when you don't want to go out a-walking so much ; eh, Fagin ? " " Ah, to be sure, my dear," replied the Jew. " You wouldn't mind it again, Tom, would you," asked the Dodger,, winking upon Charley and the Jew, " if Bet was all right ? " " I mean to say that I shouldn't," replied Tom, angrily. " There, now. Ah ! Who'll say as much as that, I should like to know ; eh, Fagin ? " " Nobody, my dear," replied the Jew ; " not a soul, Tom. I don't know one of 'em that would do it besides you ; not one of 'em, my dear." " I might have got clear off, if I'd split upon her ; mightn't I, Fagin ? " angrily pursued the poor half-witted dupe. " A word from me would have done it ; wouldn't it, Fagin ? " " To be sure it would, my dear," replied the Jew. "But I didn't blab it; did I, Fagin?" demanded Tom, pouring question upon question with great volubility. " No, no, to bo sure," replied the Jew ; " you were too stout-hearted for that. A deal too stout, niy clear ! " " Perhaps I was," rejoined Tom, looking round ; " and if I was, what's to laugh at, in that ; eh, Fagin ? " The Jew, perceiving that Mr. Chitling was considerably roused, hastened to assure him that nobody was laughing ; and to prove the gravity of the company, appealed to Master Bates, the principal offender. But, unfortunately, Charley, in opening his mouth to reply that he was never more serious in his life, was unable to prevent the Someone at the Door-bell. 151 escape of such a violent roar, that the abused Mr. Chitling, without any preliminary ceremonies, rushed across the room and aimed a blow at the offender; who, being skilful in evading pursuit, ducked to avoid it, and chose his time so well that it lighted on the chest of the merry old gentleman, and caused him to stagger to the wall, where he stood panting for breath, while Mr. Chitling looked on in intense dismay. " Hark ! " cried the Dodger at this moment, " I heard the tinkler." Catching up the light, he crept softly up-stairs. The bell was rung again, with some impatience, while the party were in darkness. After a short pause, the Dodger reappeared, and whispered Fagin mysteriously. " What ! " cried the Jew, " alone ? " The Dodger nodded in the affirmative, and, shading the flame of the candle with his hand, gave Charley Bates a private intimation, in dumb show, that he had better not be funny just then. Having per- formed this friendly office, he fixed his eyes on the Jew's face, and awaited his directions. The old man bit his yellow fingers, and meditated for some seconds ; his face working with agitation the while, as if he dreaded something, and feared to know the worst. At length he raised his head. " Where is he ? " he asked. The Dodger pointed to the floor above, and made a gesture, as if to leave the room. " Yes," said the Jew, answering the mute inquiry ; " bring him down. Hush ! Quiet, CLarley ! Gently, Tom ! Scarce, scarce ! " This brief direction to Charley Bates, and his recent antagonist, was softly and immediately cbeyed. There was no sound of their whereabout, when the Dodger descended the stairs, bearing the light in his hand, and followed by a man in a coarse smock-frock ; who, after casting a hurried glance round the room, pulled off a large wrapper which had concealed the lower portion of his face, and dis- closed : all haggard, unwashed, and unshorn : the features of flash Toby Crackit. "How are you, Faguey?"said this worthy, nodding to the Jew. "Pop that shawl away in my castor, Dodger, so that I may know where to find it when I cut ; that's the time of day ! You'll be a fine young cracksman afore the old file now." With these words he pulled up the smock-frock ; and, winding it round his middle, drew a chair to the fire, and placed his feet upon the hob. " See there, Faguey," he said, pointing disconsolately to his top- boots ; " not a drop of Day and Martin since you know when ; not a bubble of blacking, by Jove ! But don't look at me in that way, man. All in good time. I can't talk about business till I've eat and drank ; so produce the sustainance, and let's have a quiet fill-out for the first time these three days I " 152 Oliver Twist. The Jew motioned to the Dodger to place what eatables there were, upon the table ; and, seating himself opposite the housebreaker, waited his leisure. To judge from appearances, Toby was by no means in a hurry to open the conversation. At first, the Jew contented himself with patiently watching his countenance, as if to gain from its expression some cluo to the intelligence he brought ; but in vain. He looked tired and worn, but there was the same complacent repose upon his features that they always wore : and through dirt, and beard, and whisker, there still shone, unimpaired, the self-satisfied smirk of flash Toby Crackit. Then, the Jew, in an agony of impatience, watched every morsel he put into his mouth ; pacing up and down the room, meanwhile, in irrepressible excitement. It was all of no tise. Toby continued to eat with the utmost outward indifference, until he could eat no more ; then, ordering the Dodger out, he closed the door, mixed a glass of spirits and water, and composed himself for talking. " First and foremost, Faguey," said Toby. " Yes, yes ! " interposed the Jew, drawing up his chair. Mr. Crackit stopped to take a draught of spirits and water, and to declare that the gin was excellent ; then placing his feet against the low mantelpiece, so as to bring his boots to about the level of his eye, he quietly resumed, " First and foremost, Faguey," said the housebreaker, " how's Bill?" " What ! " screamed the Jew, starting from his seat. " Why, you don't mean to say " began Toby, turning pale. " Mean ! " cried the Jew, stamping furiously on the ground. " Where are they ? Sikes and the boy ! Where are they ? Where have they been ? Where are they hiding ? Why have they not been here ? " " The crack failed," said Toby, faintly. " I know it," replied the Jew, tearing a newspaper from his pocket and pointing to it. " What more ? " " They fired and hit the boy. We cut over the fields at the back, with him between us straight as the crow flies through hedge and ditch. They gave chase. Damme! the whole country was awake, and the dogs upon us." " The boy 1 " " Bill had him on his back, and scudded like the wind. We stopped to take him between us ; his head hung down, and he was cold. They were close upon our heels ; every man for himself, and each from the gallows ! We parted company, and left the youngster lying in a ditch. Alive or dead, that's all I know about him." The Jew stopped to hear no more ; but uttering a loud yell, and twining his hands ;n his hair, rushed from the room, and from the. house, CHAPTER XXVI. IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS CHARACTER APPEARS UPON THE SCENE ; AND MANY THINGS, INSEPARABLE FROM THIS HISTORY, ARE DONE AND PERFORMED. THE old man had gained the street corner, before he began to recover the effect of Toby Crackit's intelligence. He had relaxed nothing of his unusual speed ; but was still pressing onward, in the same wild and disordered manner, when the sudden dashing past of a carriage : and a boisterous cry from the foot passengers, who etfw his danger : drove him back upon the pavement. Avoiding, as much as was possible, all the main streets, and skulking only through the by-ways and alleys, he at length emerged on Snow Hill. Here he walked even faster than before ; nor did he linger until he had again turned into a court ; when, as if conscious that he was now in his proper element, he fell into his usual shuffling pace, and seemed to breathe more freely. Near to the spot on which Snow Hill and Holborn Hill meet, there opens, upon the right hand as you come out of the City, a narrow and dismal alley, leading to Saffron Hill. In its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of second-hand silk handkerchiefs, of all sizes and patterns; for here reside the traders who purchase them from pickpockets. Hundreds of these handkerchiefs hang dangling from pegs outside the windows or flaunting from the door-posts ; and the shelves, within, are piled with them. Confined as the limits of Field Lane are, it has its barber, its coffee-shop, its beer-shop, and its fried- fish warehouse. It is a commercial colony of itself : the emporium of petty larceny: visited at early morning, and setting-in of dusk, by silent merchants, who traffic in dark back-parlours, and who go as strangely as they come. Here, the clothesman, the shoe-vamper, and the rag-merchant, display their goods, as sign-boards to the petty thief ; here, stores of old iron and bones, and heaps of mildewy frag- ments of woollen-stuff and linen, rust and rot in the grimy cellars. It was into this place that the Jew turned. He was well known to the sallow denizens of the lane ; for such of them as were on the look- out to buy or sell, nodded, familiarly, as he passed along. He replied to their salutations in the same way ; but bestowed no closer recognition until he reached the further end of the alley ; when he stopped, to address a salesman of small stature, who had squeezed as much of his person into a child's chair as the chair would hold, and was smoking a pipe at his warehouse door. " Why, the sight of you, Mr. Fagin, would cure the hoptalmy ! " eaid this respectable trader, in acknowledgment of the Jew's inquiry after his health^ 154 Oliver Twist. "The neighbourhood was a little too hot, Lively," said Fagin, elevating his eyebrows, and crossing his hands upon his shoulders. "Well, I've heerd that complaint of it, once or twice before," replied the trader; "but it soon cools down again; don't you find it so ? " Fa