Oliver Twist
to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Oliver. At the earnest manner of his reply, the
old gentleman laughed again; and said something about a curious
instinct, which Oliver, not understanding, paid no very great attention
to.
“Now,” said Mr. Brownlow, speaking if possible in a kinder, but at the
same time in a much more serious manner, than Oliver had ever known him
assume yet, “I want you to pay great attention, my boy, to what I am
going to say. I shall talk to you without any reserve; because I am
sure you are well able to understand me, as many older persons would
be.”
“Oh, don’t tell you are going to send me away, sir, pray!” exclaimed
Oliver, alarmed at the serious tone of the old gentleman’s
commencement! “Don’t turn me out of doors to wander in the streets
again. Let me stay here, and be a servant. Don’t send me back to the
wretched place I came from. Have mercy upon a poor boy, sir!”
“My dear child,” said the old gentleman, moved by the warmth of
Oliver’s sudden appeal; “you need not be afraid of my deserting you,
unless you give me cause.”
“I never, never will, sir,” interposed Oliver.
“I hope not,” rejoined the old gentleman. “I do not think you ever
will. I have been deceived, before, in the objects whom I have
endeavoured to benefit; but I feel strongly disposed to trust you,
nevertheless; and I am more interested in your behalf than I can well
account for, even to myself. The persons on whom I have bestowed my
dearest love, lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and
delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my
heart, and sealed it up, forever, on my best affections. Deep
affliction has but strengthened and refined them.”
As the old gentleman said this in a low voice: more to himself than to
his companion: and as he remained silent for a short time afterwards:
Oliver sat quite still.
“Well, well!” said the old gentleman at length, in a more cheerful
tone, “I only say this, because you have a young heart; and knowing
that I have suffered great pain and sorrow, you will be more careful,
perhaps, not to wound me again. You say you are an orphan, without a
friend in the world; all the inquiries I have been able to make,
confirm the statement. Let me hear your story; where you come from; who
brought you up; and how you got into the company in which I found you.
Speak the truth, and you shall not be friendless while I live.”
Oliver’s sobs checked his utterance for some minutes; when he was on
the point of beginning to relate how he had been brought up at the
farm, and carried to the workhouse by Mr. Bumble, a peculiarly
impatient little double-knock was heard at the street-door: and the
servant, running upstairs, announced Mr. Grimwig.
“Is he coming up?” inquired Mr. Brownlow.
“Yes, sir,” replied the servant. “He asked if there were any muffins in
the house; and, when I told him yes, he said he had come to tea.”
Mr. Brownlow smiled; and, turning to Oliver, said that Mr. Grimwig was
an old friend of his, and he must not mind his being a little rough in
his manners; for he was a worthy creature at bottom, as he had reason
to know.
“Shall I go downstairs, sir?” inquired Oliver.
“No,” replied Mr. Brownlow, “I would rather you remained here.”
At this moment, there walked into the room: supporting himself by a
thick stick: a stout old gentleman, rather lame in one leg, who was
dressed in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, nankeen breeches and
gaiters, and a broad-brimmed white hat, with the sides turned up with
green. A very small-plaited shirt frill stuck out from his waistcoat;
and a very long steel watch-chain, with nothing but a key at the end,
dangled loosely below it. The ends of his white neckerchief were
twisted into a ball about the size of an orange; the variety of shapes
into which his countenance was twisted, defy description. He had a
manner of screwing his head on one side when he spoke; and of looking
out of the corners of his eyes at the same time: which irresistibly
reminded the beholder of a parrot. In this attitude, he fixed himself,
the moment he made his appearance; and, holding out a small piece of
orange-peel at arm’s length, exclaimed, in a growling, discontented
voice,
“Look here! do you see this! Isn’t it a most wonderful and
extraordinary thing that I can’t call at a man’s house but I find a
piece of this poor surgeon’s friend on the staircase? I’ve been lamed
with orange-peel once, and I know orange-peel will be my death, or I’ll
be content to eat my own head, sir!”
This was the handsome offer with which Mr. Grimwig backed and confirmed
nearly every assertion he made; and it was the more singular in his
case, because, even admitting for the sake of argument, the possibility
of scientific improvements being brought to that pass which will enable
a gentleman to eat his own head in the event of his being so disposed,
Mr. Grimwig’s head was such a particularly large one, that the most
sanguine man alive could hardly entertain a hope of being able to get
through it at a sitting—to put entirely out of the question, a very
thick coating of powder.
“I’ll eat my head, sir,” repeated Mr. Grimwig, striking his stick upon
the ground. “Hallo! what’s that!” looking at Oliver, and retreating a
pace or two.
“This is young Oliver Twist, whom we were speaking about,” said Mr.
Brownlow.
Oliver bowed.
“You don’t mean to say that’s the boy who had the fever, I hope?” said
Mr. Grimwig, recoiling a little more. “Wait a minute! Don’t speak!
Stop—” continued Mr. Grimwig, abruptly, losing all dread of the fever
in his triumph at the discovery; “that’s the boy who had the orange! If
that’s not the boy, sir, who had the orange, and threw this bit of peel
upon the staircase, I’ll eat my head, and his too.”
“No, no, he has not had one,” said Mr. Brownlow, laughing. “Come! Put
down your hat; and speak to my young friend.”
“I feel strongly on this subject, sir,” said the irritable old
gentleman, drawing off his gloves. “There’s always more or less
orange-peel on the pavement in our street; and I _know_ it’s put there
by the surgeon’s boy at the corner. A young woman stumbled over a bit
last night, and fell against my garden-railings; directly she got up I
saw her look towards his infernal red lamp with the pantomime-light.
‘Don’t go to him,’ I called out of the window, ‘he’s an assassin! A
man-trap!’ So he is. If he is not—” Here the irascible old gentleman
gave a great knock on the ground with his stick; which was always
understood, by his friends, to imply the customary offer, whenever it
was not expressed in words. Then, still keeping his stick in his hand,
he sat down; and, opening a double eye-glass, which he wore attached to
a broad black riband, took a view of Oliver: who, seeing that he was
the object of inspection, coloured, and bowed again.
“That’s the boy, is it?” said Mr. Grimwig, at length.
“That’s the boy,” replied Mr. Brownlow.
“How are you, boy?” said Mr. Grimwig.
“A great deal better, thank you, sir,” replied Oliver.
Mr. Brownlow, seeming to apprehend that his singular friend was about
to say something disagreeable, asked Oliver to step downstairs and tell
Mrs. Bedwin they were ready for tea; which, as he did not half like the
visitor’s manner, he was very happy to do.
“He is a nice-looking boy, is he not?” inquired Mr. Brownlow.
“I don’t know,” replied Mr. Grimwig, pettishly.
“Don’t know?”
“No. I don’t know. I never see any difference in boys. I only knew two
sort of boys. Mealy boys, and beef-faced boys.”
“And which is Oliver?”
“Mealy. I know a friend who has a beef-faced boy; a fine boy, they call
him; with a round head, and red cheeks, and glaring eyes; a horrid boy;
with a body and limbs that appear to be swelling out of the seams of
his blue clothes; with the voice of a pilot, and the appetite of a
wolf. I know him! The wretch!”
“Come,” said Mr. Brownlow, “these are not the characteristics of young
Oliver Twist; so he needn’t excite your wrath.”
“They are not,” replied Mr. Grimwig. “He may have worse.”
Here, Mr. Brownlow coughed impatiently; which appeared to afford Mr.
Grimwig the most exquisite delight.
“He may have worse, I say,” repeated Mr. Grimwig. “Where does he come
from! Who is he? What is he? He has had a fever. What of that? Fevers
are not peculiar to good people; are they? Bad people have fevers
sometimes; haven’t they, eh? I knew a man who was hung in Jamaica for
murdering his master. He had had a fever six times; he wasn’t
recommended to mercy on that account. Pooh! nonsense!”
Now, the fact was, that in the inmost recesses of his own heart, Mr.
Grimwig was strongly disposed to admit that Oliver’s appearance and
manner were unusually prepossessing; but he had a strong appetite for
contradiction, sharpened on this occasion by the finding of the
orange-peel; and, inwardly determining that no man should dictate to
him whether a boy was well-looking or not, he had resolved, from the
first, to oppose his friend. When Mr. Brownlow admitted that on no one
point of inquiry could he yet return a satisfactory answer; and that he
had postponed any investigation into Oliver’s previous history until he
thought the boy was strong enough to hear it; Mr. Grimwig chuckled
maliciously. And he demanded, with a sneer, whether the housekeeper was
in the habit of counting the plate at night; because if she didn’t find
a table-spoon or two missing some sunshiny morning, why, he would be
content to—and so forth.
All this, Mr. Brownlow, although himself somewhat of an impetuous
gentleman: knowing his friend’s peculiarities, bore with great good
humour; as Mr. Grimwig, at tea, was graciously pleased to express his
entire approval of the muffins, matters went on very smoothly; and
Oliver, who made one of the party, began to feel more at his ease than
he had yet done in the fierce old gentleman’s presence.
“And when are you going to hear a full, true, and particular account of
the life and adventures of Oliver Twist?” asked Grimwig of Mr.
Brownlow, at the conclusion of the meal; looking sideways at Oliver, as
he resumed his subject.
“Tomorrow morning,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “I would rather he was alone
with me at the time. Come up to me tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, my
dear.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver. He answered with some hesitation, because
he was confused by Mr. Grimwig’s looking so hard at him.
“I’ll tell you what,” whispered that gentleman to Mr. Brownlow; “he
won’t come up to you tomorrow morning. I saw him hesitate. He is
deceiving you, my good friend.”
“I’ll swear he is not,” replied Mr. Brownlow, warmly.
“If he is not,” said Mr. Grimwig, “I’ll—” and down went the stick.
“I’ll answer for that boy’s truth with my life!” said Mr. Brownlow,
knocking the table.
“And I for his falsehood with my head!” rejoined Mr. Grimwig, knocking
the table also.
“We shall see,” said Mr. Brownlow, checking his rising anger.
“We will,” replied Mr. Grimwig, with a provoking smile; “we will.”
As fate would have it, Mrs. Bedwin chanced to bring in, at this moment,
a small parcel of books, which Mr. Brownlow had that morning purchased
of the identical bookstall-keeper, who has already figured in this
history; having laid them on the table, she prepared to leave the room.
“Stop the boy, Mrs. Bedwin!” said Mr. Brownlow; “there is something to
go back.”
“He has gone, sir,” replied Mrs. Bedwin.
“Call after him,” said Mr. Brownlow; “it’s particular. He is a poor
man, and they are not paid for. There are some books to be taken back,
too.”
The street-door was opened. Oliver ran one way; and the girl ran
another; and Mrs. Bedwin stood on the step and screamed for the boy;