Oliver Twist
in hearing of him again.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Brownlow.
“Oliver Twist you knew him as,” replied Rose.
The words no sooner escaped her lips, than Mr. Grimwig, who had been
affecting to dip into a large book that lay on the table, upset it with
a great crash, and falling back in his chair, discharged from his
features every expression but one of unmitigated wonder, and indulged
in a prolonged and vacant stare; then, as if ashamed of having betrayed
so much emotion, he jerked himself, as it were, by a convulsion into
his former attitude, and looking out straight before him emitted a long
deep whistle, which seemed, at last, not to be discharged on empty air,
but to die away in the innermost recesses of his stomach.
Mr. Browlow was no less surprised, although his astonishment was not
expressed in the same eccentric manner. He drew his chair nearer to
Miss Maylie’s, and said,
“Do me the favour, my dear young lady, to leave entirely out of the
question that goodness and benevolence of which you speak, and of which
nobody else knows anything; and if you have it in your power to produce
any evidence which will alter the unfavourable opinion I was once
induced to entertain of that poor child, in Heaven’s name put me in
possession of it.”
“A bad one! I’ll eat my head if he is not a bad one,” growled Mr.
Grimwig, speaking by some ventriloquial power, without moving a muscle
of his face.
“He is a child of a noble nature and a warm heart,” said Rose,
colouring; “and that Power which has thought fit to try him beyond his
years, has planted in his breast affections and feelings which would do
honour to many who have numbered his days six times over.”
“I’m only sixty-one,” said Mr. Grimwig, with the same rigid face. “And,
as the devil’s in it if this Oliver is not twelve years old at least, I
don’t see the application of that remark.”
“Do not heed my friend, Miss Maylie,” said Mr. Brownlow; “he does not
mean what he says.”
“Yes, he does,” growled Mr. Grimwig.
“No, he does not,” said Mr. Brownlow, obviously rising in wrath as he
spoke.
“He’ll eat his head, if he doesn’t,” growled Mr. Grimwig.
“He would deserve to have it knocked off, if he does,” said Mr.
Brownlow.
“And he’d uncommonly like to see any man offer to do it,” responded Mr.
Grimwig, knocking his stick upon the floor.
Having gone thus far, the two old gentlemen severally took snuff, and
afterwards shook hands, according to their invariable custom.
“Now, Miss Maylie,” said Mr. Brownlow, “to return to the subject in
which your humanity is so much interested. Will you let me know what
intelligence you have of this poor child: allowing me to promise that I
exhausted every means in my power of discovering him, and that since I
have been absent from this country, my first impression that he had
imposed upon me, and had been persuaded by his former associates to rob
me, has been considerably shaken.”
Rose, who had had time to collect her thoughts, at once related, in a
few natural words, all that had befallen Oliver since he left Mr.
Brownlow’s house; reserving Nancy’s information for that gentleman’s
private ear, and concluding with the assurance that his only sorrow,
for some months past, had been not being able to meet with his former
benefactor and friend.
“Thank God!” said the old gentleman. “This is great happiness to me,
great happiness. But you have not told me where he is now, Miss Maylie.
You must pardon my finding fault with you,—but why not have brought
him?”
“He is waiting in a coach at the door,” replied Rose.
“At this door!” cried the old gentleman. With which he hurried out of
the room, down the stairs, up the coachsteps, and into the coach,
without another word.
When the room-door closed behind him, Mr. Grimwig lifted up his head,
and converting one of the hind legs of his chair into a pivot,
described three distinct circles with the assistance of his stick and
the table; sitting in it all the time. After performing this evolution,
he rose and limped as fast as he could up and down the room at least a
dozen times, and then stopping suddenly before Rose, kissed her without
the slightest preface.
“Hush!” he said, as the young lady rose in some alarm at this unusual
proceeding. “Don’t be afraid. I’m old enough to be your grandfather.
You’re a sweet girl. I like you. Here they are!”
In fact, as he threw himself at one dexterous dive into his former
seat, Mr. Brownlow returned, accompanied by Oliver, whom Mr. Grimwig
received very graciously; and if the gratification of that moment had
been the only reward for all her anxiety and care in Oliver’s behalf,
Rose Maylie would have been well repaid.
“There is somebody else who should not be forgotten, by the bye,” said
Mr. Brownlow, ringing the bell. “Send Mrs. Bedwin here, if you please.”
The old housekeeper answered the summons with all dispatch; and
dropping a curtsey at the door, waited for orders.
“Why, you get blinder every day, Bedwin,” said Mr. Brownlow, rather
testily.
“Well, that I do, sir,” replied the old lady. “People’s eyes, at my
time of life, don’t improve with age, sir.”
“I could have told you that,” rejoined Mr. Brownlow; “but put on your
glasses, and see if you can’t find out what you were wanted for, will
you?”
The old lady began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles. But
Oliver’s patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to
his first impulse, he sprang into her arms.
“God be good to me!” cried the old lady, embracing him; “it is my
innocent boy!”
“My dear old nurse!” cried Oliver.
“He would come back—I knew he would,” said the old lady, holding him in
her arms. “How well he looks, and how like a gentleman’s son he is
dressed again! Where have you been, this long, long while? Ah! the same
sweet face, but not so pale; the same soft eye, but not so sad. I have
never forgotten them or his quiet smile, but have seen them every day,
side by side with those of my own dear children, dead and gone since I
was a lightsome young creature.” Running on thus, and now holding
Oliver from her to mark how he had grown, now clasping him to her and
passing her fingers fondly through his hair, the good soul laughed and
wept upon his neck by turns.
Leaving her and Oliver to compare notes at leisure, Mr. Brownlow led
the way into another room; and there, heard from Rose a full narration
of her interview with Nancy, which occasioned him no little surprise
and perplexity. Rose also explained her reasons for not confiding in
her friend Mr. Losberne in the first instance. The old gentleman
considered that she had acted prudently, and readily undertook to hold
solemn conference with the worthy doctor himself. To afford him an
early opportunity for the execution of this design, it was arranged
that he should call at the hotel at eight o’clock that evening, and
that in the meantime Mrs. Maylie should be cautiously informed of all
that had occurred. These preliminaries adjusted, Rose and Oliver
returned home.
Rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good doctor’s wrath.
Nancy’s history was no sooner unfolded to him, than he poured forth a
shower of mingled threats and execrations; threatened to make her the
first victim of the combined ingenuity of Messrs. Blathers and Duff;
and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the
assistance of those worthies. And, doubtless, he would, in this first
outbreak, have carried the intention into effect without a moment’s
consideration of the consequences, if he had not been restrained, in
part, by corresponding violence on the side of Mr. Brownlow, who was
himself of an irascible temperament, and partly by such arguments and
representations as seemed best calculated to dissuade him from his
hotbrained purpose.
“Then what the devil is to be done?” said the impetuous doctor, when
they had rejoined the two ladies. “Are we to pass a vote of thanks to
all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to accept a hundred
pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some
slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?”
“Not exactly that,” rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; “but we must
proceed gently and with great care.”
“Gentleness and care,” exclaimed the doctor. “I’d send them one and all
to—”
“Never mind where,” interposed Mr. Brownlow. “But reflect whether
sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view.”
“What object?” asked the doctor.
“Simply, the discovery of Oliver’s parentage, and regaining for him the
inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently
deprived.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief;
“I almost forgot that.”
“You see,” pursued Mr. Brownlow; “placing this poor girl entirely out
of the question, and supposing it were possible to bring these
scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should
we bring about?”
“Hanging a few of them at least, in all probability,” suggested the
doctor, “and transporting the rest.”
“Very good,” replied Mr. Brownlow, smiling; “but no doubt they will
bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time, and if we step
in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be performing a very
Quixotic act, in direct opposition to our own interest—or at least to
Oliver’s, which is the same thing.”
“How?” inquired the doctor.
“Thus. It is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in
getting to the bottom of this mystery, unless we can bring this man,
Monks, upon his knees. That can only be done by stratagem, and by
catching him when he is not surrounded by these people. For, suppose he
were apprehended, we have no proof against him. He is not even (so far
as we know, or as the facts appear to us) concerned with the gang in
any of their robberies. If he were not discharged, it is very unlikely
that he could receive any further punishment than being committed to
prison as a rogue and vagabond; and of course ever afterwards his mouth
would be so obstinately closed that he might as well, for our purposes,
be deaf, dumb, blind, and an idiot.”
“Then,” said the doctor impetuously, “I put it to you again, whether
you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl should be
considered binding; a promise made with the best and kindest
intentions, but really—”
“Do not discuss the point, my dear young lady, pray,” said Mr.
Brownlow, interrupting Rose as she was about to speak. “The promise
shall be kept. I don’t think it will, in the slightest degree,
interfere with our proceedings. But, before we can resolve upon any
precise course of action, it will be necessary to see the girl; to
ascertain from her whether she will point out this Monks, on the
understanding that he is to be dealt with by us, and not by the law;
or, if she will not, or cannot do that, to procure from her such an
account of his haunts and description of his person, as will enable us
to identify him. She cannot be seen until next Sunday night; this is
Tuesday. I would suggest that in the meantime, we remain perfectly
quiet, and keep these matters secret even from Oliver himself.”
Although Mr. Losberne received with many wry faces a proposal involving
a delay of five whole days, he was fain to admit that no better course
occurred to him just then; and as both Rose and Mrs. Maylie sided very
strongly with Mr. Brownlow, that gentleman’s proposition was carried
unanimously.
“I should like,” he said, “to call in the aid of my friend Grimwig. He
is a strange creature, but a shrewd one, and might prove of material
assistance to us; I should say that he was bred a lawyer, and quitted
the Bar in disgust because he had only one brief and a motion of