Oliver Twist
raise her eyes as the elder lady was regarding her, she playfully put
back her hair, which was simply braided on her forehead; and threw into
her beaming look, such an expression of affection and artless
loveliness, that blessed spirits might have smiled to look upon her.
“And Brittles has been gone upwards of an hour, has he?” asked the old
lady, after a pause.
“An hour and twelve minutes, ma’am,” replied Mr. Giles, referring to a
silver watch, which he drew forth by a black ribbon.
“He is always slow,” remarked the old lady.
“Brittles always was a slow boy, ma’am,” replied the attendant. And
seeing, by the bye, that Brittles had been a slow boy for upwards of
thirty years, there appeared no great probability of his ever being a
fast one.
“He gets worse instead of better, I think,” said the elder lady.
“It is very inexcusable in him if he stops to play with any other
boys,” said the young lady, smiling.
Mr. Giles was apparently considering the propriety of indulging in a
respectful smile himself, when a gig drove up to the garden-gate: out
of which there jumped a fat gentleman, who ran straight up to the door:
and who, getting quickly into the house by some mysterious process,
burst into the room, and nearly overturned Mr. Giles and the
breakfast-table together.
“I never heard of such a thing!” exclaimed the fat gentleman. “My dear
Mrs. Maylie—bless my soul—in the silence of the night, too—I _never_
heard of such a thing!”
With these expressions of condolence, the fat gentleman shook hands
with both ladies, and drawing up a chair, inquired how they found
themselves.
“You ought to be dead; positively dead with the fright,” said the fat
gentleman. “Why didn’t you send? Bless me, my man should have come in a
minute; and so would I; and my assistant would have been delighted; or
anybody, I’m sure, under such circumstances. Dear, dear! So unexpected!
In the silence of the night, too!”
The doctor seemed especially troubled by the fact of the robbery having
been unexpected, and attempted in the night-time; as if it were the
established custom of gentlemen in the housebreaking way to transact
business at noon, and to make an appointment, by post, a day or two
previous.
“And you, Miss Rose,” said the doctor, turning to the young lady, “I—”
“Oh! very much so, indeed,” said Rose, interrupting him; “but there is
a poor creature upstairs, whom aunt wishes you to see.”
“Ah! to be sure,” replied the doctor, “so there is. That was your
handiwork, Giles, I understand.”
Mr. Giles, who had been feverishly putting the tea-cups to rights,
blushed very red, and said that he had had that honour.
“Honour, eh?” said the doctor; “well, I don’t know; perhaps it’s as
honourable to hit a thief in a back kitchen, as to hit your man at
twelve paces. Fancy that he fired in the air, and you’ve fought a duel,
Giles.”
Mr. Giles, who thought this light treatment of the matter an unjust
attempt at diminishing his glory, answered respectfully, that it was
not for the like of him to judge about that; but he rather thought it
was no joke to the opposite party.
“Gad, that’s true!” said the doctor. “Where is he? Show me the way.
I’ll look in again, as I come down, Mrs. Maylie. That’s the little
window that he got in at, eh? Well, I couldn’t have believed it!”
Talking all the way, he followed Mr. Giles upstairs; and while he is
going upstairs, the reader may be informed, that Mr. Losberne, a
surgeon in the neighbourhood, known through a circuit of ten miles
round as “the doctor,” had grown fat, more from good-humour than from
good living: and was as kind and hearty, and withal as eccentric an old
bachelor, as will be found in five times that space, by any explorer
alive.
The doctor was absent, much longer than either he or the ladies had
anticipated. A large flat box was fetched out of the gig; and a bedroom
bell was rung very often; and the servants ran up and down stairs
perpetually; from which tokens it was justly concluded that something
important was going on above. At length he returned; and in reply to an
anxious inquiry after his patient; looked very mysterious, and closed
the door, carefully.
“This is a very extraordinary thing, Mrs. Maylie,” said the doctor,
standing with his back to the door, as if to keep it shut.
“He is not in danger, I hope?” said the old lady.
“Why, that would _not_ be an extraordinary thing, under the
circumstances,” replied the doctor; “though I don’t think he is. Have
you seen the thief?”
“No,” rejoined the old lady.
“Nor heard anything about him?”
“No.”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” interposed Mr. Giles; “but I was going to
tell you about him when Doctor Losberne came in.”
The fact was, that Mr. Giles had not, at first, been able to bring his
mind to the avowal, that he had only shot a boy. Such commendations had
been bestowed upon his bravery, that he could not, for the life of him,
help postponing the explanation for a few delicious minutes; during
which he had flourished, in the very zenith of a brief reputation for
undaunted courage.
“Rose wished to see the man,” said Mrs. Maylie, “but I wouldn’t hear of
it.”
“Humph!” rejoined the doctor. “There is nothing very alarming in his
appearance. Have you any objection to see him in my presence?”
“If it be necessary,” replied the old lady, “certainly not.”
“Then I think it is necessary,” said the doctor; “at all events, I am
quite sure that you would deeply regret not having done so, if you
postponed it. He is perfectly quiet and comfortable now. Allow me—Miss
Rose, will you permit me? Not the slightest fear, I pledge you my
honour!”
CHAPTER XXX.
RELATES WHAT OLIVER’S NEW VISITORS THOUGHT OF HIM
With many loquacious assurances that they would be agreeably surprised
in the aspect of the criminal, the doctor drew the young lady’s arm
through one of his; and offering his disengaged hand to Mrs. Maylie,
led them, with much ceremony and stateliness, upstairs.
“Now,” said the doctor, in a whisper, as he softly turned the handle of
a bedroom-door, “let us hear what you think of him. He has not been
shaved very recently, but he don’t look at all ferocious
notwithstanding. Stop, though! Let me first see that he is in visiting
order.”
Stepping before them, he looked into the room. Motioning them to
advance, he closed the door when they had entered; and gently drew back
the curtains of the bed. Upon it, in lieu of the dogged, black-visaged
ruffian they had expected to behold, there lay a mere child: worn with
pain and exhaustion, and sunk into a deep sleep. His wounded arm, bound
and splintered up, was crossed upon his breast; his head reclined upon
the other arm, which was half hidden by his long hair, as it streamed
over the pillow.
The honest gentleman held the curtain in his hand, and looked on, for a
minute or so, in silence. Whilst he was watching the patient thus, the
younger lady glided softly past, and seating herself in a chair by the
bedside, gathered Oliver’s hair from his face. As she stooped over him,
her tears fell upon his forehead.
The boy stirred, and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity
and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection
he had never known. Thus, a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of
water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or the mention of a
familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes
that never were, in this life; which vanish like a breath; which some
brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have
awakened; which no voluntary exertion of the mind can ever recall.
“What can this mean?” exclaimed the elder lady. “This poor child can
never have been the pupil of robbers!”
“Vice,” said the surgeon, replacing the curtain, “takes up her abode in
many temples; and who can say that a fair outside shall not enshrine
her?”
“But at so early an age!” urged Rose.
“My dear young lady,” rejoined the surgeon, mournfully shaking his
head; “crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered
alone. The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims.”
“But, can you—oh! can you really believe that this delicate boy has
been the voluntary associate of the worst outcasts of society?” said
Rose.
The surgeon shook his head, in a manner which intimated that he feared
it was very possible; and observing that they might disturb the
patient, led the way into an adjoining apartment.
“But even if he has been wicked,” pursued Rose, “think how young he is;
think that he may never have known a mother’s love, or the comfort of a
home; that ill-usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have driven
him to herd with men who have forced him to guilt. Aunt, dear aunt, for
mercy’s sake, think of this, before you let them drag this sick child
to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his chances of
amendment. Oh! as you love me, and know that I have never felt the want
of parents in your goodness and affection, but that I might have done
so, and might have been equally helpless and unprotected with this poor
child, have pity upon him before it is too late!”
“My dear love,” said the elder lady, as she folded the weeping girl to
her bosom, “do you think I would harm a hair of his head?”
“Oh, no!” replied Rose, eagerly.
“No, surely,” said the old lady; “my days are drawing to their close:
and may mercy be shown to me as I show it to others! What can I do to
save him, sir?”
“Let me think, ma’am,” said the doctor; “let me think.”
Mr. Losberne thrust his hands into his pockets, and took several turns
up and down the room; often stopping, and balancing himself on his
toes, and frowning frightfully. After various exclamations of “I’ve got
it now” and “no, I haven’t,” and as many renewals of the walking and
frowning, he at length made a dead halt, and spoke as follows:
“I think if you give me a full and unlimited commission to bully Giles,
and that little boy, Brittles, I can manage it. Giles is a faithful
fellow and an old servant, I know; but you can make it up to him in a
thousand ways, and reward him for being such a good shot besides. You
don’t object to that?”
“Unless there is some other way of preserving the child,” replied Mrs.
Maylie.
“There is no other,” said the doctor. “No other, take my word for it.”
“Then my aunt invests you with full power,” said Rose, smiling through
her tears; “but pray don’t be harder upon the poor fellows than is
indispensably necessary.”
“You seem to think,” retorted the doctor, “that everybody is disposed
to be hard-hearted today, except yourself, Miss Rose. I only hope, for
the sake of the rising male sex generally, that you may be found in as
vulnerable and soft-hearted a mood by the first eligible young fellow
who appeals to your compassion; and I wish I were a young fellow, that
I might avail myself, on the spot, of such a favourable opportunity for
doing so, as the present.”
“You are as great a boy as poor Brittles himself,” returned Rose,
blushing.
“Well,” said the doctor, laughing heartily, “that is no very difficult
matter. But to return to this boy. The great point of our agreement is
yet to come. He will wake in an hour or so, I dare say; and although I
have told that thick-headed constable-fellow downstairs that he musn’t
be moved or spoken to, on peril of his life, I think we may converse
with him without danger. Now I make this stipulation—that I shall
examine him in your presence, and that, if, from what he says, we
judge, and I can show to the satisfaction of your cool reason, that he
is a real and thorough bad one (which is more than possible), he shall
be left to his fate, without any farther interference on my part, at
all events.”