Oliver Twist
“Stuff and nonsense!” said Mr. Fang: “don’t try to make a fool of me.”
“I think he really is ill, your worship,” remonstrated the officer.
“I know better,” said Mr. Fang.
“Take care of him, officer,” said the old gentleman, raising his hands
instinctively; “he’ll fall down.”
“Stand away, officer,” cried Fang; “let him, if he likes.”
Oliver availed himself of the kind permission, and fell to the floor in
a fainting fit. The men in the office looked at each other, but no one
dared to stir.
“I knew he was shamming,” said Fang, as if this were incontestable
proof of the fact. “Let him lie there; he’ll soon be tired of that.”
“How do you propose to deal with the case, sir?” inquired the clerk in
a low voice.
“Summarily,” replied Mr. Fang. “He stands committed for three
months—hard labour of course. Clear the office.”
The door was opened for this purpose, and a couple of men were
preparing to carry the insensible boy to his cell; when an elderly man
of decent but poor appearance, clad in an old suit of black, rushed
hastily into the office, and advanced towards the bench.
“Stop, stop! don’t take him away! For Heaven’s sake stop a moment!”
cried the new comer, breathless with haste.
Although the presiding Genii in such an office as this, exercise a
summary and arbitrary power over the liberties, the good name, the
character, almost the lives, of Her Majesty’s subjects, especially of
the poorer class; and although, within such walls, enough fantastic
tricks are daily played to make the angels blind with weeping; they are
closed to the public, save through the medium of the daily press. Mr.
Fang was consequently not a little indignant to see an unbidden guest
enter in such irreverent disorder.
“What is this? Who is this? Turn this man out. Clear the office!” cried
Mr. Fang.
“I _will_ speak,” cried the man; “I will not be turned out. I saw it
all. I keep the book-stall. I demand to be sworn. I will not be put
down. Mr. Fang, you must hear me. You must not refuse, sir.”
The man was right. His manner was determined; and the matter was
growing rather too serious to be hushed up.
“Swear the man,” growled Mr. Fang, with a very ill grace. “Now, man,
what have you got to say?”
“This,” said the man: “I saw three boys: two others and the prisoner
here: loitering on the opposite side of the way, when this gentleman
was reading. The robbery was committed by another boy. I saw it done;
and I saw that this boy was perfectly amazed and stupified by it.”
Having by this time recovered a little breath, the worthy book-stall
keeper proceeded to relate, in a more coherent manner the exact
circumstances of the robbery.
“Why didn’t you come here before?” said Fang, after a pause.
“I hadn’t a soul to mind the shop,” replied the man. “Everybody who
could have helped me, had joined in the pursuit. I could get nobody
till five minutes ago; and I’ve run here all the way.”
“The prosecutor was reading, was he?” inquired Fang, after another
pause.
“Yes,” replied the man. “The very book he has in his hand.”
“Oh, that book, eh?” said Fang. “Is it paid for?”
“No, it is not,” replied the man, with a smile.
“Dear me, I forgot all about it!” exclaimed the absent old gentleman,
innocently.
“A nice person to prefer a charge against a poor boy!” said Fang, with
a comical effort to look humane. “I consider, sir, that you have
obtained possession of that book, under very suspicious and
disreputable circumstances; and you may think yourself very fortunate
that the owner of the property declines to prosecute. Let this be a
lesson to you, my man, or the law will overtake you yet. The boy is
discharged. Clear the office!”
“D—n me!” cried the old gentleman, bursting out with the rage he had
kept down so long, “d—n me! I’ll—”
“Clear the office!” said the magistrate. “Officers, do you hear? Clear
the office!”
The mandate was obeyed; and the indignant Mr. Brownlow was conveyed
out, with the book in one hand, and the bamboo cane in the other: in a
perfect phrenzy of rage and defiance. He reached the yard; and his
passion vanished in a moment. Little Oliver Twist lay on his back on
the pavement, with his shirt unbuttoned, and his temples bathed with
water; his face a deadly white; and a cold tremble convulsing his whole
frame.
“Poor boy, poor boy!” said Mr. Brownlow, bending over him. “Call a
coach, somebody, pray. Directly!”
A coach was obtained, and Oliver having been carefully laid on the
seat, the old gentleman got in and sat himself on the other.
“May I accompany you?” said the book-stall keeper, looking in.
“Bless me, yes, my dear sir,” said Mr. Brownlow quickly. “I forgot you.
Dear, dear! I have this unhappy book still! Jump in. Poor fellow!
There’s no time to lose.”
The book-stall keeper got into the coach; and away they drove.
CHAPTER XII.
IN WHICH OLIVER IS TAKEN BETTER CARE OF THAN HE EVER WAS BEFORE. AND IN
WHICH THE NARRATIVE REVERTS TO THE MERRY OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS YOUTHFUL
FRIENDS.
The coach rattled away, over nearly the same ground as that which
Oliver had traversed when he first entered London in company with the
Dodger; and, turning a different way when it reached the Angel at
Islington, stopped at length before a neat house, in a quiet shady
street near Pentonville. Here, a bed was prepared, without loss of
time, in which Mr. Brownlow saw his young charge carefully and
comfortably deposited; and here, he was tended with a kindness and
solicitude that knew no bounds.
But, for many days, Oliver remained insensible to all the goodness of
his new friends. The sun rose and sank, and rose and sank again, and
many times after that; and still the boy lay stretched on his uneasy
bed, dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever. The worm
does not work more surely on the dead body, than does this slow
creeping fire upon the living frame.
Weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke at last from what seemed to have
been a long and troubled dream. Feebly raising himself in the bed, with
his head resting on his trembling arm, he looked anxiously around.
“What room is this? Where have I been brought to?” said Oliver. “This
is not the place I went to sleep in.”
He uttered these words in a feeble voice, being very faint and weak;
but they were overheard at once. The curtain at the bed’s head was
hastily drawn back, and a motherly old lady, very neatly and precisely
dressed, rose as she undrew it, from an arm-chair close by, in which
she had been sitting at needle-work.
“Hush, my dear,” said the old lady softly. “You must be very quiet, or
you will be ill again; and you have been very bad,—as bad as bad could
be, pretty nigh. Lie down again; there’s a dear!” With those words, the
old lady very gently placed Oliver’s head upon the pillow; and,
smoothing back his hair from his forehead, looked so kindly and loving
in his face, that he could not help placing his little withered hand in
hers, and drawing it round his neck.
“Save us!” said the old lady, with tears in her eyes. “What a grateful
little dear it is. Pretty creetur! What would his mother feel if she
had sat by him as I have, and could see him now!”
“Perhaps she does see me,” whispered Oliver, folding his hands
together; “perhaps she has sat by me. I almost feel as if she had.”
“That was the fever, my dear,” said the old lady mildly.
“I suppose it was,” replied Oliver, “because heaven is a long way off;
and they are too happy there, to come down to the bedside of a poor
boy. But if she knew I was ill, she must have pitied me, even there;
for she was very ill herself before she died. She can’t know anything
about me though,” added Oliver after a moment’s silence. “If she had
seen me hurt, it would have made her sorrowful; and her face has always
looked sweet and happy, when I have dreamed of her.”
The old lady made no reply to this; but wiping her eyes first, and her
spectacles, which lay on the counterpane, afterwards, as if they were
part and parcel of those features, brought some cool stuff for Oliver
to drink; and then, patting him on the cheek, told him he must lie very
quiet, or he would be ill again.
So, Oliver kept very still; partly because he was anxious to obey the
kind old lady in all things; and partly, to tell the truth, because he
was completely exhausted with what he had already said. He soon fell
into a gentle doze, from which he was awakened by the light of a
candle: which, being brought near the bed, showed him a gentleman with
a very large and loud-ticking gold watch in his hand, who felt his
pulse, and said he was a great deal better.
“You _are_ a great deal better, are you not, my dear?” said the
gentleman.
“Yes, thank you, sir,” replied Oliver.
“Yes, I know you are,” said the gentleman: “You’re hungry too, an’t
you?”
“No, sir,” answered Oliver.
“Hem!” said the gentleman. “No, I know you’re not. He is not hungry,
Mrs. Bedwin,” said the gentleman: looking very wise.
The old lady made a respectful inclination of the head, which seemed to
say that she thought the doctor was a very clever man. The doctor
appeared much of the same opinion himself.
“You feel sleepy, don’t you, my dear?” said the doctor.
“No, sir,” replied Oliver.
“No,” said the doctor, with a very shrewd and satisfied look. “You’re
not sleepy. Nor thirsty. Are you?”
“Yes, sir, rather thirsty,” answered Oliver.
“Just as I expected, Mrs. Bedwin,” said the doctor. “It’s very natural
that he should be thirsty. You may give him a little tea, ma’am, and
some dry toast without any butter. Don’t keep him too warm, ma’am; but
be careful that you don’t let him be too cold; will you have the
goodness?”
The old lady dropped a curtsey. The doctor, after tasting the cool
stuff, and expressing a qualified approval of it, hurried away: his
boots creaking in a very important and wealthy manner as he went
downstairs.
Oliver dozed off again, soon after this; when he awoke, it was nearly
twelve o’clock. The old lady tenderly bade him good-night shortly
afterwards, and left him in charge of a fat old woman who had just
come: bringing with her, in a little bundle, a small Prayer Book and a
large nightcap. Putting the latter on her head and the former on the
table, the old woman, after telling Oliver that she had come to sit up
with him, drew her chair close to the fire and went off into a series
of short naps, chequered at frequent intervals with sundry tumblings
forward, and divers moans and chokings. These, however, had no worse
effect than causing her to rub her nose very hard, and then fall asleep
again.
And thus the night crept slowly on. Oliver lay awake for some time,
counting the little circles of light which the reflection of the
rushlight-shade threw upon the ceiling; or tracing with his languid
eyes the intricate pattern of the paper on the wall. The darkness and
the deep stillness of the room were very solemn; as they brought into
the boy’s mind the thought that death had been hovering there, for many
days and nights, and might yet fill it with the gloom and dread of his
awful presence, he turned his face upon the pillow, and fervently
prayed to Heaven.
Gradually, he fell into that deep tranquil sleep which ease from recent
suffering alone imparts; that calm and peaceful rest which it is pain
to wake from. Who, if this were death, would be roused again to all the
struggles and turmoils of life; to all its cares for the present; its
anxieties for the future; more than all, its weary recollections of the
past!
It had been bright day, for hours, when Oliver opened his eyes; he felt
cheerful and happy. The crisis of the disease was safely past. He
belonged to the world again.
In three days’ time he was able to sit in an easy-chair, well propped