Oliver Twist
up with pillows; and, as he was still too weak to walk, Mrs. Bedwin had
him carried downstairs into the little housekeeper’s room, which
belonged to her. Having him set, here, by the fire-side, the good old
lady sat herself down too; and, being in a state of considerable
delight at seeing him so much better, forthwith began to cry most
violently.
“Never mind me, my dear,” said the old lady; “I’m only having a regular
good cry. There; it’s all over now; and I’m quite comfortable.”
“You’re very, very kind to me, ma’am,” said Oliver.
“Well, never you mind that, my dear,” said the old lady; “that’s got
nothing to do with your broth; and it’s full time you had it; for the
doctor says Mr. Brownlow may come in to see you this morning; and we
must get up our best looks, because the better we look, the more he’ll
be pleased.” And with this, the old lady applied herself to warming up,
in a little saucepan, a basin full of broth: strong enough, Oliver
thought, to furnish an ample dinner, when reduced to the regulation
strength, for three hundred and fifty paupers, at the lowest
computation.
“Are you fond of pictures, dear?” inquired the old lady, seeing that
Oliver had fixed his eyes, most intently, on a portrait which hung
against the wall; just opposite his chair.
“I don’t quite know, ma’am,” said Oliver, without taking his eyes from
the canvas; “I have seen so few that I hardly know. What a beautiful,
mild face that lady’s is!”
“Ah!” said the old lady, “painters always make ladies out prettier than
they are, or they wouldn’t get any custom, child. The man that invented
the machine for taking likenesses might have known _that_ would never
succeed; it’s a deal too honest. A deal,” said the old lady, laughing
very heartily at her own acuteness.
“Is—is that a likeness, ma’am?” said Oliver.
“Yes,” said the old lady, looking up for a moment from the broth;
“that’s a portrait.”
“Whose, ma’am?” asked Oliver.
“Why, really, my dear, I don’t know,” answered the old lady in a
good-humoured manner. “It’s not a likeness of anybody that you or I
know, I expect. It seems to strike your fancy, dear.”
“It is so pretty,” replied Oliver.
“Why, sure you’re not afraid of it?” said the old lady: observing in
great surprise, the look of awe with which the child regarded the
painting.
“Oh no, no,” returned Oliver quickly; “but the eyes look so sorrowful;
and where I sit, they seem fixed upon me. It makes my heart beat,”
added Oliver in a low voice, “as if it was alive, and wanted to speak
to me, but couldn’t.”
“Lord save us!” exclaimed the old lady, starting; “don’t talk in that
way, child. You’re weak and nervous after your illness. Let me wheel
your chair round to the other side; and then you won’t see it. There!”
said the old lady, suiting the action to the word; “you don’t see it
now, at all events.”
Oliver _did_ see it in his mind’s eye as distinctly as if he had not
altered his position; but he thought it better not to worry the kind
old lady; so he smiled gently when she looked at him; and Mrs. Bedwin,
satisfied that he felt more comfortable, salted and broke bits of
toasted bread into the broth, with all the bustle befitting so solemn a
preparation. Oliver got through it with extraordinary expedition. He
had scarcely swallowed the last spoonful, when there came a soft rap at
the door. “Come in,” said the old lady; and in walked Mr. Brownlow.
Now, the old gentleman came in as brisk as need be; but, he had no
sooner raised his spectacles on his forehead, and thrust his hands
behind the skirts of his dressing-gown to take a good long look at
Oliver, than his countenance underwent a very great variety of odd
contortions. Oliver looked very worn and shadowy from sickness, and
made an ineffectual attempt to stand up, out of respect to his
benefactor, which terminated in his sinking back into the chair again;
and the fact is, if the truth must be told, that Mr. Brownlow’s heart,
being large enough for any six ordinary old gentlemen of humane
disposition, forced a supply of tears into his eyes, by some hydraulic
process which we are not sufficiently philosophical to be in a
condition to explain.
“Poor boy, poor boy!” said Mr. Brownlow, clearing his throat. “I’m
rather hoarse this morning, Mrs. Bedwin. I’m afraid I have caught
cold.”
“I hope not, sir,” said Mrs. Bedwin. “Everything you have had, has been
well aired, sir.”
“I don’t know, Bedwin. I don’t know,” said Mr. Brownlow; “I rather
think I had a damp napkin at dinner-time yesterday; but never mind
that. How do you feel, my dear?”
“Very happy, sir,” replied Oliver. “And very grateful indeed, sir, for
your goodness to me.”
“Good boy,” said Mr. Brownlow, stoutly. “Have you given him any
nourishment, Bedwin? Any slops, eh?”
“He has just had a basin of beautiful strong broth, sir,” replied Mrs.
Bedwin, drawing herself up slightly, and laying strong emphasis on the
last word, to intimate that between slops, and broth well compounded,
there existed no affinity or connection whatsoever.
“Ugh!” said Mr. Brownlow, with a slight shudder; “a couple of glasses
of port wine would have done him a great deal more good. Wouldn’t they,
Tom White, eh?”
“My name is Oliver, sir,” replied the little invalid with a look of
great astonishment.
“Oliver,” said Mr. Brownlow; “Oliver what? Oliver White, eh?”
“No, sir, Twist, Oliver Twist.”
“Queer name!” said the old gentleman. “What made you tell the
magistrate your name was White?”
“I never told him so, sir,” returned Oliver in amazement.
This sounded so like a falsehood, that the old gentleman looked
somewhat sternly in Oliver’s face. It was impossible to doubt him;
there was truth in every one of its thin and sharpened lineaments.
“Some mistake,” said Mr. Brownlow. But, although his motive for looking
steadily at Oliver no longer existed, the old idea of the resemblance
between his features and some familiar face came upon him so strongly,
that he could not withdraw his gaze.
“I hope you are not angry with me, sir?” said Oliver, raising his eyes
beseechingly.
“No, no,” replied the old gentleman. “Why! what’s this? Bedwin, look
there!”
As he spoke, he pointed hastily to the picture over Oliver’s head, and
then to the boy’s face. There was its living copy. The eyes, the head,
the mouth; every feature was the same. The expression was, for the
instant, so precisely alike, that the minutest line seemed copied with
startling accuracy!
Oliver knew not the cause of this sudden exclamation; for, not being
strong enough to bear the start it gave him, he fainted away. A
weakness on his part, which affords the narrative an opportunity of
relieving the reader from suspense, in behalf of the two young pupils
of the Merry Old Gentleman; and of recording—
That when the Dodger, and his accomplished friend Master Bates, joined
in the hue-and-cry which was raised at Oliver’s heels, in consequence
of their executing an illegal conveyance of Mr. Brownlow’s personal
property, as has been already described, they were actuated by a very
laudable and becoming regard for themselves; and forasmuch as the
freedom of the subject and the liberty of the individual are among the
first and proudest boasts of a true-hearted Englishman, so, I need
hardly beg the reader to observe, that this action should tend to exalt
them in the opinion of all public and patriotic men, in almost as great
a degree as this strong proof of their anxiety for their own
preservation and safety goes to corroborate and confirm the little code
of laws which certain profound and sound-judging philosophers have laid
down as the main-springs of all Nature’s deeds and actions: the said
philosophers very wisely reducing the good lady’s proceedings to
matters of maxim and theory: and, by a very neat and pretty compliment
to her exalted wisdom and understanding, putting entirely out of sight
any considerations of heart, or generous impulse and feeling. For,
these are matters totally beneath a female who is acknowledged by
universal admission to be far above the numerous little foibles and
weaknesses of her sex.
If I wanted any further proof of the strictly philosophical nature of
the conduct of these young gentlemen in their very delicate
predicament, I should at once find it in the fact (also recorded in a
foregoing part of this narrative), of their quitting the pursuit, when
the general attention was fixed upon Oliver; and making immediately for
their home by the shortest possible cut. Although I do not mean to
assert that it is usually the practice of renowned and learned sages,
to shorten the road to any great conclusion (their course indeed being
rather to lengthen the distance, by various circumlocutions and
discursive staggerings, like unto those in which drunken men under the
pressure of a too mighty flow of ideas, are prone to indulge); still, I
do mean to say, and do say distinctly, that it is the invariable
practice of many mighty philosophers, in carrying out their theories,
to evince great wisdom and foresight in providing against every
possible contingency which can be supposed at all likely to affect
themselves. Thus, to do a great right, you may do a little wrong; and
you may take any means which the end to be attained, will justify; the
amount of the right, or the amount of the wrong, or indeed the
distinction between the two, being left entirely to the philosopher
concerned, to be settled and determined by his clear, comprehensive,
and impartial view of his own particular case.
It was not until the two boys had scoured, with great rapidity, through
a most intricate maze of narrow streets and courts, that they ventured
to halt beneath a low and dark archway. Having remained silent here,
just long enough to recover breath to speak, Master Bates uttered an
exclamation of amusement and delight; and, bursting into an
uncontrollable fit of laughter, flung himself upon a doorstep, and
rolled thereon in a transport of mirth.
“What’s the matter?” inquired the Dodger.
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Charley Bates.
“Hold your noise,” remonstrated the Dodger, looking cautiously round.
“Do you want to be grabbed, stupid?”
“I can’t help it,” said Charley, “I can’t help it! To see him splitting
away at that pace, and cutting round the corners, and knocking up
again’ the posts, and starting on again as if he was made of iron as
well as them, and me with the wipe in my pocket, singing out arter
him—oh, my eye!” The vivid imagination of Master Bates presented the
scene before him in too strong colours. As he arrived at this
apostrophe, he again rolled upon the door-step, and laughed louder than
before.
“What’ll Fagin say?” inquired the Dodger; taking advantage of the next
interval of breathlessness on the part of his friend to propound the
question.
“What?” repeated Charley Bates.
“Ah, what?” said the Dodger.
“Why, what should he say?” inquired Charley: stopping rather suddenly
in his merriment; for the Dodger’s manner was impressive. “What should
he say?”
Mr. Dawkins whistled for a couple of minutes; then, taking off his hat,
scratched his head, and nodded thrice.
“What do you mean?” said Charley.
“Toor rul lol loo, gammon and spinnage, the frog he wouldn’t, and high
cockolorum,” said the Dodger: with a slight sneer on his intellectual
countenance.
This was explanatory, but not satisfactory. Master Bates felt it so;
and again said, “What do you mean?”
The Dodger made no reply; but putting his hat on again, and gathering
the skirts of his long-tailed coat under his arm, thrust his tongue
into his cheek, slapped the bridge of his nose some half-dozen times in
a familiar but expressive manner, and turning on his heel, slunk down
the court. Master Bates followed, with a thoughtful countenance.