Oliver Twist
would eat; so there was a great deal of 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 the
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 allusion was being made to his mother, recommenced
kicking, with a violence that rendered every other sound inaudible.
Sowerberry returned at this juncture. Oliver’s offence having been
explained to him, with such exaggerations as the ladies thought best
calculated to 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 Mr. Sowerberry no alternative. If he had
hesitated for one instant to punish Oliver most severely, it must be
quite clear 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 upstairs 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, though they
had roasted him alive. But now, when 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. Having
gazed cautiously round him, and listened intently, he gently undid the
fastenings of the door, and looked abroad.
It was a cold, dark night. The stars seemed, to the boy’s eyes, farther
from the earth than he had ever seen them before; there was no wind;
and the sombre shadows thrown by the trees upon the ground, looked
sepulchral and death-like, from being so still. He softly reclosed the
door. 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 arose, 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 the farm.
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; 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 musn’t say you saw me, Dick,” said Oliver. “I am running away.
They beat and ill-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 the struggles
and sufferings, and troubles and changes, of his after life, he never
once forgot it.
CHAPTER VIII.
OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE SORT OF
YOUNG GENTLEMAN
Oliver reached the stile at which the by-path terminated; and once more
gained the high-road. It was eight o’clock now. 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 the milestone, 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 place!—nobody—not even 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. He had a penny too—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 comfortable thing; 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 next morning, 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. His feet were sore, and his
legs so weak that they trembled beneath him. Another night passed in
the bleak damp air, made him worse; 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. This frightened Oliver very much, and made him glad to get out of
those villages 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