Charlott striking Oliver, Mrs. Sowerberry entering by the door, Noah on the floorOliver plucks up a spirit.
Oliver plucks up a spirit.
“He’ll murder me!” blubbered Noah. “Charlotte! missis! here’s the new boy a-murdering of me! Help! help! Oliver’s gone mad! Char—lotte!”
Noah’s shouts were responded to by a loud scream from Charlotte, and a louder from Mrs. Sowerberry; the former of whom rushed into the kitchen by a side-door, while the latter paused on the staircase till she was quite certain that it was consistent with the preservation of human life to come further down.
“Oh, you little wretch!” screamed Charlotte, seizing Oliver with her utmost force, which was about equal to that of a moderately strong man in particularly good training,—“Oh, you little un-grate-ful, mur-de-rous, hor-rid vil-lain!” and between every syllable Charlotte gave Oliver a blow with all her might, and accompanied it with a scream for the benefit of society.
Charlotte’s fist was by no means a light one;but, lest it should not be effectual in calming Oliver’s wrath, Mrs. Sowerberry plunged into the kitchen, and assisted to hold him with one hand, while she scratched his face with the other; in this favourable position of affairs Noah rose from the ground, and pummeled him from behind.
This was rather too violent exercise to last long. When they were all three wearied out, and could tear and beat no longer, they dragged Oliver, struggling and shouting, but nothing daunted, into the dust-cellar, and there locked him up; this being done, Mrs. Sowerberry sunk into a chair, and burst into tears.
“Bless her, she’s going off!” said Charlotte. “A glass of water, Noah, dear. Make haste.”
“Oh! Charlotte,” said Mrs. Sowerberry, speaking as well as she could through a deficiency of breath and a sufficiency of cold water which Noah had poured over her head and shoulders,—“Oh! Charlotte, what a mercy we have not been all murdered in our beds!”
“Ah! mercy indeed, ma’am,” was the reply. “I only hope this’ll teach master not to haveany more of these dreadful creatures that are born to be murderers and robbers from their very cradle. Poor Noah! he was all but killed, ma’am, when I came in.”
“Poor fellow!” said Mrs. Sowerberry, looking piteously on the charity-boy.
Noah, whose top waistcoat-button might have been somewhere on a level with the crown of Oliver’s head, rubbed his eyes with the inside of his wrists while this commiseration was bestowed upon him, and performed some affecting tears and sniffs.
“What’s to be done!” exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry. “Your master’s not at home,—there’s not a man in the house,—and he’ll kick that door down in ten minutes.” Oliver’s vigorous plunges against the bit of timber in question rendered this occurrence highly probable.
“Dear, dear! I don’t know, ma’am,” said Charlotte, “unless we send for the police-officers.”
“Or the millingtary,” suggested Mr. Claypole.
“No, no,” said Mrs. Sowerberry, bethinking herself of Oliver’s old friend; “run to Mr. Bumble, Noah, and tell him to come here directly, and not to lose a minute; never mind your cap—make haste. You can hold a knife to that black eye as you run along, and it’ll keep the swelling down.”
Noah stopped to make no reply, but started off at his fullest speed; and very much it astonished the people who were out walking, to see a charity-boy tearing through the streets pell-mell, with no cap on his head, and a clasp-knife at his eye.
Noah Claypoleran along the streets at his swiftest pace, and paused not once for breath until he reached the workhouse-gate. Having rested here for a minute or so, to collect a good burst of sobs and an imposing show of tears and terror, he knocked loudly at the wicket, and presented such a rueful face to the aged pauper who opened it, that even he, who saw nothing but rueful faces about him at the best of times, started back in astonishment.
“Why, what’s the matter with the boy?” said the old pauper.
“Mr. Bumble! Mr. Bumble!” cried Noah, with well-affected dismay, and in tones so loud and agitated that they not only caught the earof Mr. Bumble himself, who happened to be hard by, but alarmed him so much that he rushed into the yard without his cocked hat,—which is a very curious and remarkable circumstance, as showing that even a beadle, acted upon by a sudden and powerful impulse, may be afflicted with a momentary visitation of loss of self-possession, and forgetfulness of personal dignity.
“Oh, Mr. Bumble, sir!” said Noah: “Oliver, sir,—Oliver has——”
“What?—what?” interposed Mr. Bumble, with a gleam of pleasure in his metallic eyes. “Not run away; he hasn’t run away, has he, Noah?”
“No, sir, no; not run away, sir, but he’s turned wicious,” replied Noah. “He tried to murder me, sir, and then he tried to murder Charlotte, and then missis. Oh! what dreadful pain it is! such agony, please, sir!” and here Noah writhed and twisted his body into an extensive variety of eel-like positions; thereby giving Mr. Bumble to understand that, from the violent and sanguinary onset of OliverTwist, he had sustained severe internal injury and damage, from which he was at that moment suffering the acutest torture.
When Noah saw that the intelligence he communicated perfectly paralyzed Mr. Bumble, he imparted additional effect thereunto, by bewailing his dreadful wounds ten times louder than before; and, when he observed a gentleman in a white waistcoat crossing the yard, he was more tragic in his lamentations than ever, rightly conceiving it highly expedient to attract the notice, and rouse the indignation, of the gentleman aforesaid.
The gentleman’s notice was very soon attracted, for he had not walked three paces when he turned angrily round, and inquired what that young cur was howling for, and why Mr. Bumble did not favour him with something which would render the series of vocular exclamations so designated, an involuntary process.
“It’s a poor boy from the free-school, sir,” replied Mr. Bumble, “who has been nearly murdered—all but murdered, sir—by young Twist.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed the gentleman in the white waistcoat, stopping short. “I knew it! I felt a strange presentiment from the very first, that that audacious young savage would come to be hung!”
“He has likewise attempted, sir, to murder the female servant,” said Mr. Bumble, with a face of ashy paleness.
“And his missis,” interposed Mr. Claypole.
“And his master, too, I think you said, Noah?” added Mr. Bumble.
“No; he’s out, or he would have murdered him,” replied Noah. “He said he wanted to—”
“Ah! said he wanted to—did he, my boy?” inquired the gentleman in the white waistcoat.
“Yes, sir,” replied Noah; “and please, sir, missis wants to know whether Mr. Bumble can spare time to step up there directly and flog him, ’cause master’s out.”
“Certainly, my boy; certainly,” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, smiling benignly, and patting Noah’s head, which was about three inches higher than his own.“You’re a good boy—a very good boy. Here’s a penny for you. Bumble, just step up to Sowerberry’s with your cane, and see what’s best to be done. Don’t spare him, Bumble.”
“No, I will not sir,” replied the beadle, adjusting the wax-end which was twisted round the bottom of his cane for purposes of parochial flagellation.
“Tell Sowerberry not to spare him either. They’ll never do anything with him without stripes and bruises,” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.
“I’ll take care, sir,” replied the beadle. And the cocked hat and cane having been by this time adjusted to their owner’s satisfaction, Mr. Bumble and Noah Claypole betook themselves with all speed to the undertaker’s shop.
Here the position of affairs had not at all improved, or Sowerberry had not yet returned, and Oliver continued to kick with undiminished vigour at the cellar-door. The accounts of his ferocity, as related by Mrs. Sowerberry andCharlotte, were of so startling a nature that Mr. Bumble judged it prudent to parley before opening the door. With this view he gave a kick at the outside, by way of prelude, and then, applying his mouth to the keyhole, said, in a deep and impressive tone,
“Oliver!”
“Come; you let me out!” replied Oliver, from the inside.
“Do you know this here voice, Oliver?” said Mr. Bumble.
“Yes,” replied Oliver.
“Ain’t you afraid of it, sir? Ain’t you a-tremling while I speak, sir?” said Mr. Bumble.
“No!” replied Oliver boldly.
An answer so different from the one he had expected to elicit, and was in the habit of receiving, staggered Mr. Bumble not a little. He stepped back from the keyhole, drew himself up to his full height, and looked from one to another of the three by-standers in mute astonishment.
“Oh, you know Mr. Bumble, he mustbe mad,” said Mrs. Sowerberry. “No boy in half his senses could venture to speak so to you.”
“It’s not madness, ma’am,” replied Mr. Bumble, after a few moments of deep meditation; “it’s meat.”
“What!” exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry.
“Meat, ma’am, meat,” replied Bumble, with stern emphasis. “You’ve overfed him, ma’am. You’ve raised a artificial soul and spirit in him, ma’am, unbecoming a person of his condition, as the board, Mrs. Sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell you. What have paupers to do with soul or spirit either? It’s quite enough that we let ’em have live bodies. If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma’am, this would never have happened.”
“Dear, dear!” ejaculated Mrs. Sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to the kitchen ceiling, “this comes of being liberal!”
The liberality of Mrs. Sowerberry to Oliver had consisted in a profuse bestowal upon him of all the dirty odds and ends which nobody else would eat; so that there was a great dealof meekness and self-devotion in her voluntarily remaining under Mr. Bumble’s heavy accusation, of which, to do her justice, she was wholly innocent in thought, word, or deed.
“Ah!” said Mr. Bumble, when the lady brought her eyes down to earth again; “the only thing that can be done now, that I know of, is to leave him in the cellar for a day or so till he’s a little starved down, and then to take him out and keep him on gruel all through his apprenticeship. He comes of a bad family—excitable natures, Mrs. Sowerberry. Both the nurse and doctor said that that mother of his made her way here against difficulties and pain that would have killed any well-disposed woman weeks before.”
At this point of Mr. Bumble’s discourse, Oliver just hearing enough to know that some further allusion was being made to his mother, recommenced kicking with a violence which rendered every other sound inaudible. Sowerberry returned at this juncture, and Oliver’s offence having been explained to him, with such exaggerations as the ladies thought best calculatedto rouse his ire, he unlocked the cellar-door in a twinkling, and dragged his rebellious apprentice out by the collar.
Oliver’s clothes had been torn in the beating he had received; his face was bruised and scratched, and his hair scattered over his forehead. The angry flush had not disappeared, however; and when he was pulled out of his prison, he scowled boldly on Noah, and looked quite undismayed.
“Now, you are a nice young fellow, ain’t you?” said Sowerberry, giving Oliver a shake and a box on the ear.
“He called my mother names,” replied Oliver.
“Well, and what if he did, you little ungrateful wretch?” said Mrs. Sowerberry. “She deserved what he said, and worse.”
“She didn’t,” said Oliver.
“She did,” said Mrs. Sowerberry.
“It’s a lie!” said Oliver.
Mrs. Sowerberry burst into a flood of tears.
This flood of tears left Sowerberry no alternative. If he had hesitated for one instant to punish Oliver most severely, it must be quiteclear to every experienced reader that he would have been, according to all precedents in disputes of matrimony established, a brute, an unnatural husband, an insulting creature, a base imitation of a man, and various other agreeable characters too numerous for recital within the limits of this chapter. To do him justice, he was, as far as his power went,—it was not very extensive,—kindly disposed towards the boy; perhaps because it was his interest to be so, perhaps because his wife disliked him. The flood of tears, however, left him no resource; so he at once gave him a drubbing, which satisfied even Mrs. Sowerberry herself, and rendered Mr. Bumble’s subsequent application of the parochial cane rather unnecessary. For the rest of the day he was shut up in the back kitchen, in company with a pump and a slice of bread; and, at night, Mrs. Sowerberry, after making various remarks outside the door, by no means complimentary to the memory of his mother, looked into the room, and, amidst the jeers and pointings of Noah and Charlotte, ordered him up stairs to his dismal bed.
It was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness of the gloomy workshop of the undertaker, that Oliver gave way to the feelings which the day’s treatment may be supposed likely to have awakened in a mere child. He had listened to their taunts with a look of contempt; he had borne the lash without a cry, for he felt that pride swelling in his heart which would have kept down a shriek to the last, if they had roasted him alive. But, now, that there were none to see or hear him, he fell upon his knees on the floor, and, hiding his face in his hands, wept such tears as, God send for the credit of our nature, few so young may ever have cause to pour out before him.
For a long time Oliver remained motionless in this attitude. The candle was burning low in the socket when he rose to his feet, and having gazed cautiously round him, and listened intently, gently undid the fastenings of the door and looked abroad.
It was a cold dark night. The stars seemed to the boy’s eyes further from the earth than he had ever seen them before; there was no wind;and the sombre shadows thrown by the trees on the earth, looked sepulchral and death-like, from being so still. He softly reclosed the door, and, having availed himself of the expiring light of the candle to tie up in a handkerchief the few articles of wearing apparel he had, sat himself down upon a bench to wait for morning.
With the first ray of light that struggled through the crevices in the shutters Oliver rose, and again unbarred the door. One timid look around,—one moment’s pause of hesitation,—he had closed it behind him, and was in the open street.
He looked to the right and to the left, uncertain whither to fly. He remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up the hill; he took the same route, and arriving at a footpath across the fields, which he knew after some distance led out again into the road, struck into it, and walked quickly on.
Along this same footpath Oliver well remembered he had trotted beside Mr. Bumble, when he first carried him to the workhouse from thefarm. His way lay directly in front of the cottage. His heart beat quickly when he bethought himself of this, and he half resolved to turn back. He had come a long way though, and should lose a great deal of time by doing so. Besides, it was so early that there was very little fear of his being seen; so he walked on.
He reached the house. There was no appearance of its inmates stirring at that early hour. Oliver stopped, and peeped into the garden. A child was weeding one of the little beds; and as he stopped, he raised his pale face, and disclosed the features of one of his former companions. Oliver felt glad to see him before he went, for, though younger than himself, he had been his little friend and playmate; they had been beaten, and starved, and shut up together, many and many a time.
“Hush, Dick!” said Oliver, as the boy ran to the gate, and thrust his thin arm between the rails to greet him. “Is any one up?”
“Nobody but me,” replied the child.
“You mustn’t say you saw me, Dick,” said Oliver; “I am running away. They beat andill-use me, Dick; and I am going to seek my fortune, some long way off, I don’t know where. How pale you are!”
“I heard the doctor tell them I was dying,” replied the child with a faint smile. “I am very glad to see you, dear; but don’t stop, don’t stop.”
“Yes, yes, I will, to say good-b’ye to you,” replied Oliver. “I shall see you again, Dick; I know I shall. You will be well and happy.”
“I hope so,” replied the child, “after I am dead, but not before. I know the doctor must be right, Oliver, because I dream so much of heaven and angels, and kind faces that I never see when I am awake. Kiss me,” said the child, climbing up the low gate, and flinging his little arms round Oliver’s neck. “Good-b’ye, dear! God bless you!”
The blessing was from a young child’s lips, but it was the first that Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through all the struggles and sufferings, and troubles and changes of his after life, he never once forgot it.
Oliverreached the style at which the bypath terminated, and once more gained the high-road. It was eight o’clock now; and, though he was nearly five miles away from the town, he ran, and hid behind the hedges by turns, till noon, fearing that he might be pursued and overtaken. Then he sat down to rest by the side of a mile-stone, and began to think for the first time where he had better go and try to live.
The stone by which he was seated bore in large characters an intimation that it was just seventy miles from that spot to London. The name awakened a new train of ideas in the boy’s mind. London!—that great large place!—nobody—noteven Mr. Bumble—could ever find him there. He had often heard the old men in the workhouse, too, say that no lad of spirit need want in London, and that there were ways of living in that vast city which those who had been bred up in country parts had no idea of. It was the very place for a homeless boy, who must die in the streets unless some one helped him. As these things passed through his thoughts, he jumped upon his feet, and again walked forward.
He had diminished the distance between himself and London by full four miles more, before he recollected how much he must undergo ere he could hope to reach his place of destination. As this consideration forced itself upon him, he slackened his pace a little, and meditated upon his means of getting there. He had a crust of bread, a coarse shirt, and two pairs of stockings in his bundle; and a penny—a gift of Sowerberry’s after some funeral in which he had acquitted himself more than ordinarily well—in his pocket. “A clean shirt,” thought Oliver, “is a very comfortablething,—very; and so are two pairs of darned stockings, and so is a penny, but they are small helps to a sixty-five miles’ walk in winter time.” But Oliver’s thoughts, like those of most other people, although they were extremely ready and active to point out his difficulties, were wholly at a loss to suggest any feasible mode of surmounting them; so, after a good deal of thinking to no particular purpose, he changed his little bundle over to the other shoulder, and trudged on.
Oliver walked twenty miles that day, and all that time tasted nothing but the crust of dry bread, and a few draughts of water which he begged at the cottage-doors by the road-side. When the night came, he turned into a meadow, and, creeping close under a hay-rick, determined to lie there till morning. He felt frightened at first, for the wind moaned dismally over the empty fields, and he was cold and hungry, and more alone than he had ever felt before. Being very tired with his walk, however, he soon fell asleep and forgot his troubles.
He felt cold and stiff when he got up nextmorning, and so hungry that he was obliged to exchange the penny for a small loaf in the very first village through which he passed. He had walked no more than twelve miles, when night closed in again; for his feet were sore, and his legs so weak that they trembled beneath him. Another night passed in the bleak damp air only made him worse; and, when he set forward on his journey next morning, he could hardly crawl along.
He waited at the bottom of a steep hill till a stage-coach came up, and then begged of the outside passengers; but there were very few who took any notice of him, and even those, told him to wait till they got to the top of the hill, and then let them see how far he could run for a halfpenny. Poor Oliver tried to keep up with the coach a little way, but was unable to do it, by reason of his fatigue and sore feet. When the outsides saw this, they put their halfpence back into their pockets again, declaring that he was an idle young dog, and didn’t deserve anything; and the coach rattled away, and left only a cloud of dust behind.
In some villages large painted boards were fixed up warning all persons who begged within the district that they would be sent to jail, which frightened Oliver very much, and made him very glad to get out of them with all possible expedition. In others he would stand about the inn-yards, and look mournfully at every one who passed; a proceeding which generally terminated in the landlady’s ordering one of the post-boys who were lounging about, to drive that strange boy out of the place, for she was sure he had come to steal something. If he begged at a farmer’s house, ten to one but they threatened to set the dog on him; and when he showed his nose in a shop, they talked about the beadle, which brought Oliver’s heart into his mouth,—very often the only thing he had there, for many hours together.
In fact, if it had not been for a good-hearted turnpike-man, and a benevolent old lady, Oliver’s troubles would have been shortened by the very same process which put an end to his mother’s; in other words, he would most assuredlyhave fallen dead upon the king’s highway. But the turnpike-man gave him a meal of bread and cheese; and the old lady, who had a shipwrecked grandson wandering barefooted in some distant part of the earth, took pity upon the poor orphan, and gave him what little she could afford—and more—with such kind and gentle words, and such tears of sympathy and compassion, that they sank deeper into Oliver’s soul than all the sufferings he had ever undergone.
Early on the seventh morning after he had left his native place, Oliver limped slowly into the little town of Barnet. The window-shutters were closed, the street was empty, not a soul had awakened to the business of the day. The sun was rising in all his splendid beauty, but the light only served to show the boy his own lonesomeness and desolation as he sat with bleeding feet and covered with dust upon a cold door-step.
By degrees the shutters were opened, the window-blinds were drawn up, and peoplebegan passing to and fro. Some few stopped to gaze at Oliver for a moment or two, or turned round to stare at him as they hurried by; but none relieved him, or troubled themselves to inquire how he came there. He had no heart to beg, and there he sat.
He had been crouching on the step for some time, wondering at the great number of public houses (every other house in Barnet is a tavern, large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches as they passed through, and thinking how strange it seemed that they could do with ease in a few hours what it had taken him a whole week of courage and determination beyond his years to accomplish, when he was roused by observing that a boy who had passed him carelessly some minutes before, had returned, and was now surveying him most earnestly from the opposite side of the way. He took little heed of this at first; but the boy remained in the same attitude of close observation so long, that Oliver raised his head, and returned his steady look. Upon this, the boy crossed over, and, walking close up to Oliver, said,
“Hullo! my covey, what’s the row?”
The boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer was about his own age, but one of the queerest-looking boys that Oliver had ever seen. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough, and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. He was short of his age, with rather bow-legs, and little sharp ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top of his head so slightly that it threatened to fall off every moment, and would have done so very often if the wearer had not had a knack of every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it back to its old place again. He wore a man’s coat, which reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back halfway up his arm to get his hands out of the sleeves, apparently with the ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers, for there he kept them. He was altogether as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in his bluchers.
“Hullo, my covey, what’s the row?” said this strange young gentleman to Oliver.
“I am very hungry and tired,” replied Oliver, the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke. “I have walked a long way—I have been walking these seven days.”
“Walking for sivin days!” said the young gentleman. “Oh, I see. Beak’s order, eh? But,” he added, noticing Oliver’s look of surprise, “I suppose you don’t know what a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on.”
Oliver mildly replied, that he had always heard a bird’s mouth described by the term in question.
“My eyes, how green!” exclaimed the young gentleman. “Why, a beak’s a madgst’rate; and when you walk by a beak’s order, it’s not straight forerd, but always going up, and nivir coming down agen. Was you never on the mill?”
“What mill?” inquired Oliver.
“What mill!—why,themill—the mill as takes up so little room that’ll work inside a stone jug, and always goes better when thewind’s low with people than when it’s high, acos then they can’t get workmen. But come,” said the young gentleman; “you want grub, and you shall have it. I’m at low-water-mark—only one bob and a magpie; but,asfarasit goes, I’ll fork out and stump. Up with you on your pins. There: now then. Morrice.”
Assisting Oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to an adjacent chandler’s shop, where he purchased a sufficiency of ready-dressed ham and a half-quartern loaf, or, as he himself expressed it, “a fourpenny bran;” the ham being kept clean and preserved from dust by the ingenious expedient of making a hole in the loaf by pulling out a portion of the crumb, and stuffing it therein. Taking the bread under his arm, the young gentleman turned into a small public-house, and led the way to a tap-room in the rear of the premises. Here, a pot of beer was brought in by the direction of the mysterious youth; and Oliver, falling to, at his new friend’s bidding, made a long and hearty meal, during the progress of which the strange boy eyed him from time to time with great attention.
“Going to London?” said the strange boy, when Oliver had at length concluded.
“Yes.”
“Got any lodgings?”
“No.”
“Money?”
“No.”
The strange boy whistled, and put his arms into his pockets as far as the big-coat sleeves would let them go.
“Do you live in London?” inquired Oliver.
“Yes, I do, when I’m at home,” replied the boy. “I suppose you want some place to sleep in to-night, don’t you?”
“I do indeed,” answered Oliver. “I have not slept under a roof since I left the country.”
“Don’t fret your eyelids on that score,” said the young gentleman. “I’ve got to be in London to-night, and I know a ’spectable old genelman as lives there, wot’ll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for the change; that is, if any genelman he knows interduces you. And don’t he know me?—Oh, no—not in the least—by no means—certainly not.”
The young gentleman smiled, as if to intimate that the latter fragments of discourse were playfully ironical, and finished the beer as he did so.
This unexpected offer of shelter was too tempting to be resisted, especially as it was immediately followed up by the assurance that the old gentleman already referred to, would doubtless provide Oliver with a comfortable place without loss of time. This led to a more friendly and confidential dialogue, from which Oliver discovered that his friend’s name was Jack Dawkins, and that he was a peculiar pet andprotegéof the elderly gentleman before mentioned.
Mr. Dawkins’s appearance did not say a vast deal in favour of the comforts which his patron’s interest obtained for those whom he took under his protection; but as he had a rather flighty and dissolute mode of conversing, and furthermore avowed that among his intimate friends he was better known by thesoubriquetof “The artful Dodger,” Oliver concluded that, being of a dissipated and carelessturn, the moral precepts of his benefactor had hitherto been thrown away upon him. Under this impression, he secretly resolved to cultivate the good opinion of the old gentleman as quickly as possible; and, if he found the Dodger incorrigible, as he more than half suspected he should, to decline the honour of his farther acquaintance.
As John Dawkins objected to their entering London before nightfall, it was nearly eleven o’clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington. They crossed from the Angel into St. John’s-road, struck down the small street which terminates at Sadler’s Wells theatre, through Exmouth-street and Coppice-row, down the little court by the side of the workhouse, across the classic ground which once bore the name of Hockley-in-the-Hole, thence into Little Saffron-hill, and so into Saffron-hill the Great, along which the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace, directing Oliver to follow close at his heels.
Although Oliver had enough to occupy his attention in keeping sight of his leader, hecould not help bestowing a few hasty glances on either side of the way as he passed along. A dirtier or more wretched place he had never seen. The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours. There were a good many small shops; but the only stock in trade appeared to be heaps of children, who, even at that time of night, were crawling in and out at the doors, or screaming from the inside. The sole places that seemed to prosper amid the general blight of the place were the public-houses, and in them, the lowest orders of Irish (who are generally the lowest orders of anything) were wrangling with might and main. Covered ways and yards, which here and there diverged from the main street, disclosed little knots of houses where drunken men and women were positively wallowing in the filth; and from several of the door-ways, great ill-looking fellows were cautiously emerging, bound, to all appearance, upon no very well-disposed or harmless errands.
Oliver was just considering whether hehadn’t better run away, when they reached the bottom of the hill: his conductor catching him by the arm, pushed open the door of a house near Field-lane, and, drawing him into the passage, closed it behind them.
“Now, then,” cried a voice from below, in reply to a whistle from the Dodger.
“Plummy and slam!” was the reply.
This seemed to be some watchword or signal that all was right; for the light of a feeble candle gleamed on the wall at the farther end of the passage, and a man’s face peeped out from where a balustrade of the old kitchen staircase had been broken away.
“There’s two on you,” said the man, thrusting the candle farther out, and shading his eyes with his hand. “Who’s the t’other one?”
“A new pal,” replied Jack Dawkins, pulling Oliver forward.
“Where did he come from?”
“Greenland. Is Fagin up stairs?”
“Yes, he’s a sortin’ the wipes. Up with you.” The candle was drawn back, and the face disappeared.
Oliver, groping his way with one hand, and with the other firmly grasped by his companion, ascended with much difficulty the dark and broken stairs, which his conductor mounted with an ease and expedition that showed he was well acquainted with them. He threw open the door of a back-room, and drew Oliver in after him.
The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt. There was a deal table before the fire, upon which was a candle stuck in a ginger-beer bottle; two or three pewter pots, a loaf and butter, and a plate. In a frying-pan which was on the fire, and which was secured to the mantelshelf by a string, some sausages were cooking; and standing over them, with a toasting-fork in his hand, was a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villanous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair. He was dressed in a greasy flannel gown, with his throat bare, and seemed to be dividing his attention between the frying-pan and a clothes-horse, over which a great number of silk handkerchiefswere hanging. Several rough beds made of old sacks were huddled side by side on the floor; and seated round the table were four or five boys, none older than the Dodger, smoking long clay pipes and drinking spirits with the air of middle-aged men. These all crowded about their associate as he whispered a few words to the Jew, and then turned round and grinned at Oliver, as did the Jew himself: toasting-fork in hand.
Oliver, some boys and FaginOliver introduced to the respectable Old Gentleman.
Oliver introduced to the respectable Old Gentleman.
“This is him, Fagin,” said Jack Dawkins; “my friend, Oliver Twist.”
The Jew grinned; and, making a low obeisance to Oliver, took him by the hand, and hoped he should have the honour of his intimate acquaintance. Upon this, the young gentlemen with the pipes came round him, and shook both his hands very hard—especially the one in which he held his little bundle. One young gentleman was very anxious to hang up his cap for him; and another was so obliging as to put his hands in his pockets, in order that, as he was very tired, he might not have the trouble of emptying them when he went tobed. These civilities would probably have been extended much further, but for a liberal exercise of the Jew’s toasting-fork on the heads and shoulders of the affectionate youths who offered them.
“We are very glad to see you, Oliver—very,” said the Jew. “Dodger, take off the sausages, and draw a tub near the fire for Oliver. Ah, you’re a-staring at the pocket-handkerchiefs! eh, my dear? There are a good many of ’em, ain’t there? We’ve just looked ’em out ready for the wash; that’s all, Oliver; that’s all. Ha! ha! ha!”
The latter part of this speech was hailed by a boisterous shout from all the hopeful pupils of the merry old gentleman, in the midst of which they went to supper.
Oliver ate his share; and the Jew then mixed him a glass of hot gin and water, telling him he must drink it off directly, because another gentleman wanted the tumbler. Oliver did as he was desired. Almost instantly afterwards, he felt himself gently lifted on to one of the sacks, and then he sunk into a deep sleep.
Itwas late next morning when Oliver awoke from a sound, long sleep. There was no other person in the room but the old Jew, who was boiling some coffee in a saucepan for breakfast, and whistling softly to himself as he stirred it round and round with an iron spoon. He would stop every now and then to listen when there was the least noise below; and, when he had satisfied himself, he would go on whistling and stirring again as before.
Although Oliver had roused himself from sleep, he was not thoroughly awake. There is a drowsy state, between sleeping and waking, when you dream more in five minutes with your eyes half open, and yourself halfconscious of everything that is passing around you, than you would in five nights with your eyes fast closed, and your senses wrapt in perfect unconsciousness. At such times, a mortal knows just enough of what his mind is doing to form some glimmering conception of its mighty powers, its bounding from earth and spurning time and space, when freed from the restraint of its corporeal associate.
Oliver was precisely in this condition. He saw the Jew with his half-closed eyes, heard his low whistling, and recognised the sound of the spoon grating against the saucepan’s sides; and yet the self-same senses were mentally engaged at the same time in busy action with almost everybody he had ever known.
When the coffee was done, the Jew drew the saucepan to the hob, and, standing in an irresolute attitude for a few minutes, as if he did not well know how to employ himself, turned round and looked at Oliver, and called him by his name. He did not answer, and was to all appearance asleep.
After satisfying himself upon this head, the Jew stepped gently to the door, which he fastened; he then drew forth, as it seemed to Oliver, from some trap in the floor, a small box, which he placed carefully on the table. His eyes glistened as he raised the lid and looked in. Dragging an old chair to the table, he sat down, and took from it a magnificent gold watch, sparkling with diamonds.
“Aha!” said the Jew, shrugging up his shoulders, and distorting every feature with a hideous grin. “Clever dogs! clever dogs!—Staunch to the last! Never told the old parson where they were; never peached upon old Fagin. And why should they? It wouldn’t have loosened the knot, or kept the drop up a minute longer. No, no, no! Fine fellows!—fine fellows!”
With these and other muttered reflections of the like nature, the Jew once more deposited the watch in its place of safety. At least half a dozen more were severally drawn forth from the same box, and surveyed with equal pleasure; besides rings, brooches, bracelets, andother articles of jewellery, of such magnificent materials and costly workmanship that Oliver had no idea even of their names.
Having replaced these trinkets, the Jew took out another, so small that it lay in the palm of his hand. There seemed to be some very minute inscription on it, for the Jew laid it flat upon the table, and, shading it with his hand, pored over it long and earnestly. At length he put it down as if despairing of success, and, leaning back in his chair, muttered—
“What a fine thing capital punishment is! Dead men never repent; dead men never bring awkward stories to light. Ah, it’s a fine thing for the trade! Five of them sprung up in a row, and none left to play booty or turn white-livered!”
As the Jew uttered these words, his bright dark eyes which had been staring vacantly before him, fell on Oliver’s face; the boy’s eyes were fixed on his in mute curiosity, and, although the recognition was only for an instant—for the briefest space of time that can possibly be conceived—it was enough to show the old manthat he had been observed. He closed the lid of the box with a loud crash, and, laying his hand on a bread-knife which was on the table, started furiously up. He trembled very much though; for, even in his terror, Oliver could see that the knife quivered in the air.
“What’s that?” said the Jew. “What do you watch me for? Why are you awake? What have you seen? Speak out, boy! Quick—quick! for your life!”
“I wasn’t able to sleep any longer, sir,” replied Oliver, meekly. “I am very sorry if I have disturbed you, sir.”
“You were not awake an hour ago?” said the Jew, scowling fiercely on the boy.
“No—no, indeed, sir,” replied Oliver.
“Are you sure?” cried the Jew, with a still fiercer look than before, and a threatening attitude.
“Upon my word I was not, sir,” replied Oliver, earnestly. “I was not, indeed, sir.”
“Tush, tush, my dear!” said the Jew, abruptly resuming his old manner, and playingwith the knife a little, before he laid it down, as if to induce the belief that he had caught it up in mere sport. “Of course I know that, my dear. I only tried to frighten you. You’re a brave boy. Ha! ha! you’re a brave boy, Oliver!” and the Jew rubbed his hands with a chuckle, but looked uneasily at the box notwithstanding.
“Did you see any of these pretty things, my dear?” said the Jew, laying his hand upon it after a short pause.
“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver.
“Ah!” said the Jew, turning rather pale. “They—they’re mine, Oliver; my little property. All I have to live upon in my old age. The folks call me a miser, my dear—only a miser; that’s all.”
Oliver thought the old gentleman must be a decided miser to live in such a dirty place, with so many watches; but, thinking that perhaps his fondness for the Dodger and the other boys cost him a good deal of money, he only cast a deferential look at the Jew, and asked if he might get up.
“Certainly, my dear—certainly,” replied the old gentleman. “Stay. There’s a pitcher of water in the corner by the door. Bring it here, and I’ll give you a basin to wash in, my dear.”
Oliver got up, walked across the room, and stooped for one instant to raise the pitcher. When he turned his head, the box was gone.
He had scarcely washed himself and made everything tidy by emptying the basin out of the window, agreeably to the Jew’s directions, than the Dodger returned, accompanied by a very sprightly young friend whom Oliver had seen smoking on the previous night, and who was now formally introduced to him as Charley Bates. The four sat down to breakfast upon the coffee and some hot rolls and ham which the Dodger had brought home in the crown of his hat.
“Well,” said the Jew, glancing slyly at Oliver, and addressing himself to the Dodger, “I hope you’ve been at work this morning, my dears.”
“Hard,” replied the Dodger.
“As nails,” added Charley Bates.
“Good boys, good boys!” said the Jew. “What haveyougot, Dodger!”
“A couple of pocket-books,” replied that young gentleman.
“Lined?” inquired the Jew with trembling eagerness.
“Pretty well,” replied the Dodger, producing two pocket-books, one green and the other red.
“Not so heavy as they might be,” said the Jew, after looking at the insides carefully; “but very neat and nicely made. Ingenious workman, ain’t he, Oliver?”
“Very, indeed, sir,” said Oliver. At which Mr. Charles Bates laughed uproariously, very much to the amazement of Oliver, who saw nothing to laugh at, in anything that had passed.
“And what have you got, my dear?” said Fagin to Charley Bates.
“Wipes,” replied Master Bates: at the same time producing four pocket-handkerchiefs.
“Well,” said the Jew, inspecting themclosely; “They’re very good ones—very. You haven’t marked them well, though, Charley; so the marks shall be picked out with a needle, and we’ll teach Oliver how to do it. Shall us, Oliver, eh?—Ha! ha! ha!”
“If you please, sir,” said Oliver.
“You’d like to be able to make pocket-handkerchiefs as easy as Charley Bates, wouldn’t you, my dear?” said the Jew.
“Very much indeed, if you’ll teach me, sir,” replied Oliver.
Master Bates saw something so exquisitely ludicrous in this reply that he burst into another laugh; which laugh meeting the coffee he was drinking, and carrying it down some wrong channel, very nearly terminated in his premature suffocation.
“He is so jolly green!” said Charley when he recovered, as an apology to the company for his unpolite behaviour.
The Dodger said nothing, but he smoothed Oliver’s hair down over his eyes, and said he’d know better by-and-by; upon which the old gentleman, observing Oliver’s colour mounting,changed the subject by asking whether there had been much of a crowd at the execution that morning. This made him wonder more and more, for it was plain from the replies of the two boys that they had both been there, and Oliver naturally wondered how they could possibly have found time to be so very industrious.
When the breakfast was cleared away, the merry old gentleman and the two boys played at a very curious and uncommon game, which was performed in this way:—The merry old gentleman, placing a snuff-box in one pocket of his trousers, a note-case in the other, and a watch in his waistcoat pocket, with a guard chain round his neck,—and sticking a mock diamond pin in his shirt, buttoned his coat tight round him, and, putting his spectacle-case and handkerchief in the pockets, trotted up and down the room with a stick, in imitation of the manner in which old gentlemen walk about the streets every hour in the day. Sometimes he stopped at the fire-place, and sometimes at the door, making belief that he was staring with allhis might into shop-windows. At such times he would look constantly round him for fear of thieves, and keep slapping all his pockets in turn, to see that he hadn’t lost anything, in such a very funny and natural manner, that Oliver laughed till the tears ran down his face. All this time the two boys followed him closely about, getting out of his sight so nimbly every time he turned round, that it was impossible to follow their motions. At last the Dodger trod upon his toes, or ran upon his boot accidentally, while Charley Bates stumbled up against him behind; and in that one moment they took from him with the most extraordinary rapidity snuff-box, note case, watch-guard, chain, shirt-pin, pocket-handkerchief,—even the spectacle-case. If the old gentleman felt a hand in any one of his pockets, he cried out where it was, and then the game began all over again.
When this game had been played a great many times, a couple of young ladies came to see the young gentlemen; one of whom was called Bet, and the other Nancy. They wore a good deal of hair, not very neatly turned upbehind, and were rather untidy about the shoes and stockings. They were not exactly pretty, perhaps; but they had a great deal of colour in their faces, and looked quite stout and hearty. Being remarkably free and agreeable in their manners, Oliver thought them very nice girls indeed, as there is no doubt they were.
These visitors stopped a long time. Spirits were produced, in consequence of one of the young ladies complaining of a coldness in her inside, and the conversation took a very convivial and improving turn. At length Charley Bates expressed his opinion that it was time to pad the hoof, which it occurred to Oliver must be French for going out; for directly afterwards, the Dodger, and Charley, and the two young ladies, went away together, having been kindly furnished with money to spend by the amiable old Jew.
“There, my dear,” said Fagin, “that’s a pleasant life, isn’t it? They have gone out for the day.”
“Have they done work, sir?” inquired Oliver.
“Yes,” said the Jew; “that is, unless they should unexpectedly come across any when they are out; and they won’t neglect it if they do, my dear, depend upon it.”
“Make ’em your models, my dear, make ’em your models,” said the Jew, tapping the fire-shovel on the hearth to add force to his words; “do everything they bid you, and take their advice in all matters, especially the Dodger’s, my dear. He’ll be a great man himself, and make you one too, if you take pattern by him. Is my handkerchief hanging out of my pocket, my dear?” said the Jew, stopping short.
“Yes, sir,” said Oliver.
“See if you can take it out without my feeling it, as you saw them do, when we were at play this morning.”
Oliver held up the bottom of the pocket with one hand as he had seen the Dodger hold it, and drew the handkerchief lightly out of it with the other.
“Is it gone?” cried the Jew.
“Here it is, sir,” said Oliver, showing it in his hand.
“You’re a clever boy, my dear,” said the playful old gentleman, patting Oliver on the head approvingly; “I never saw a sharper lad. Here’s a shilling for you. If you go on in this way, you’ll be the greatest man of the time. And now come here, and I’ll show you how to take the marks out of the handkerchiefs.”
Oliver wondered what picking the old gentleman’s pocket in play had to do with his chances of being a great man; but thinking that the Jew, being so much his senior, must know best, followed him quietly to the table, and was soon deeply involved in his new study.
Formany days Oliver remained in the Jew’s room, picking the marks out of the pocket-handkerchiefs, (of which a great number were brought home,) and sometimes taking part in the game already described, which the two boys and the Jew played regularly every morning. At length he began to languish for the fresh air, and took many occasions of earnestly entreating the old gentleman to allow him to go out to work with his two companions.
Oliver was rendered the more anxious to be actively employed, by what he had seen of the stern morality of the old gentleman’s character.Whenever the Dodger or Charley Bates came home at night empty-handed, he would expatiate with great vehemence on the misery of idle and lazy habits, and enforce upon them the necessity of an active life by sending them supperless to bed. Upon one occasion, indeed, he even went so far as to knock them both down a flight of stairs; but this was carrying out his virtuous precepts to an unusual extent.
At length one morning, Oliver obtained the permission he had so eagerly sought. There had been no handkerchiefs to work upon for two or three days, and the dinners had been rather meagre. Perhaps these were reasons for the old gentleman’s giving his assent, but, whether they were or no, he told Oliver he might go, and placed him under the joint guardianship of Charley Bates and his friend the Dodger.
The three boys sallied out: the Dodger with his coat-sleeves tucked up and his hat cocked as usual, Master Bates sauntering along with his hands in his pockets, and Oliver between them, wondering where they were going, and whatbranch of manufacture he would be instructed in first.
The pace at which they went was such a very lazy, ill-looking saunter, that Oliver soon began to think his companions were going to deceive the old gentleman, by not going to work at all. The Dodger had a vicious propensity, too, of pulling the caps from the heads of small boys and tossing them down areas; while Charley Bates exhibited some very loose notions concerning the rights of property, by pilfering divers apples and onions from the stalls at the kennel sides, and thrusting them into pockets which were so surprisingly capacious, that they seemed to undermine his whole suit of clothes in every direction. These things looked so bad, that Oliver was on the point of declaring his intention of seeking his way back in the best way he could, when his thoughts were suddenly directed into another channel by a very mysterious change of behaviour on the part of the Dodger.
They were just emerging from a narrow court not far from the open square in Clerkenwell,which is yet called, by some strange perversion of terms, “The Green,” when the Dodger made a sudden stop, and, laying his finger on his lip, drew his companions back again with the greatest caution and circumspection.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Oliver.
“Hush!” replied the Dodger. “Do you see that old cove at the book-stall?”
“The old gentleman over the way?” said Oliver. “Yes, I see him.”
“He’ll do,” said the Dodger.
“A prime plant,” observed Charley Bates.
Oliver looked from one to the other with the greatest surprise, but was not permitted to make any inquiries, for the two boys walked stealthily across the road, and slunk close behind the old gentleman towards whom his attention had been directed. Oliver walked a few paces after them, and, not knowing whether to advance or retire, stood looking on in silent amazement.
The old gentleman was a very respectable-looking personage, with a powdered head and gold spectacles; dressed in a bottle-green coatwith a black velvet collar, and white trousers, with a smart bamboo cane under his arm. He had taken up a book from the stall, and there he stood, reading away as hard as if he were in his elbow-chair in his own study. It was very possible that he fancied himself there, indeed; for it was plain, from his utter abstraction, that he saw not the book-stall, nor the street, nor the boys, nor, in short, anything but the book itself, which he was reading straight through, turning over the leaves when he got to the bottom of a page, beginning at the top line of the next one, and going regularly on with the greatest interest and eagerness.