Oliver Twist
hammering, and the throwing down of boards. They were putting up the
scaffold.
From this place, they passed through several strong gates, opened by
other turnkeys from the inner side; and, having entered an open yard,
ascended a flight of narrow steps, and came into a passage with a row
of strong doors on the left hand. Motioning them to remain where they
were, the turnkey knocked at one of these with his bunch of keys. The
two attendants, after a little whispering, came out into the passage,
stretching themselves as if glad of the temporary relief, and motioned
the visitors to follow the jailer into the cell. They did so.
The condemned criminal was seated on his bed, rocking himself from side
to side, with a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the
face of a man. His mind was evidently wandering to his old life, for he
continued to mutter, without appearing conscious of their presence
otherwise than as a part of his vision.
“Good boy, Charley—well done—” he mumbled. “Oliver, too, ha! ha! ha!
Oliver too—quite the gentleman now—quite the—take that boy away to
bed!”
The jailer took the disengaged hand of Oliver; and, whispering him not
to be alarmed, looked on without speaking.
“Take him away to bed!” cried Fagin. “Do you hear me, some of you? He
has been the—the—somehow the cause of all this. It’s worth the money to
bring him up to it—Bolter’s throat, Bill; never mind the girl—Bolter’s
throat as deep as you can cut. Saw his head off!”
“Fagin,” said the jailer.
“That’s me!” cried the Jew, falling instantly, into the attitude of
listening he had assumed upon his trial. “An old man, my Lord; a very
old, old man!”
“Here,” said the turnkey, laying his hand upon his breast to keep him
down. “Here’s somebody wants to see you, to ask you some questions, I
suppose. Fagin, Fagin! Are you a man?”
“I shan’t be one long,” he replied, looking up with a face retaining no
human expression but rage and terror. “Strike them all dead! What right
have they to butcher me?”
As he spoke he caught sight of Oliver and Mr. Brownlow. Shrinking to
the furthest corner of the seat, he demanded to know what they wanted
there.
“Steady,” said the turnkey, still holding him down. “Now, sir, tell him
what you want. Quick, if you please, for he grows worse as the time
gets on.”
“You have some papers,” said Mr. Brownlow advancing, “which were placed
in your hands, for better security, by a man called Monks.”
“It’s all a lie together,” replied Fagin. “I haven’t one—not one.”
“For the love of God,” said Mr. Brownlow solemnly, “do not say that
now, upon the very verge of death; but tell me where they are. You know
that Sikes is dead; that Monks has confessed; that there is no hope of
any further gain. Where are those papers?”
“Oliver,” cried Fagin, beckoning to him. “Here, here! Let me whisper to
you.”
“I am not afraid,” said Oliver in a low voice, as he relinquished Mr.
Brownlow’s hand.
“The papers,” said Fagin, drawing Oliver towards him, “are in a canvas
bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front-room. I
want to talk to you, my dear. I want to talk to you.”
“Yes, yes,” returned Oliver. “Let me say a prayer. Do! Let me say one
prayer. Say only one, upon your knees, with me, and we will talk till
morning.”
“Outside, outside,” replied Fagin, pushing the boy before him towards
the door, and looking vacantly over his head. “Say I’ve gone to
sleep—they’ll believe you. You can get me out, if you take me so. Now
then, now then!”
“Oh! God forgive this wretched man!” cried the boy with a burst of
tears.
“That’s right, that’s right,” said Fagin. “That’ll help us on. This
door first. If I shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows, don’t you
mind, but hurry on. Now, now, now!”
“Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?” inquired the turnkey.
“No other question,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “If I hoped we could recall
him to a sense of his position—”
“Nothing will do that, sir,” replied the man, shaking his head. “You
had better leave him.”
The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.
“Press on, press on,” cried Fagin. “Softly, but not so slow. Faster,
faster!”
The men laid hands upon him, and disengaging Oliver from his grasp,
held him back. He struggled with the power of desperation, for an
instant; and then sent up cry upon cry that penetrated even those
massive walls, and rang in their ears until they reached the open yard.
It was some time before they left the prison. Oliver nearly swooned
after this frightful scene, and was so weak that for an hour or more,
he had not the strength to walk.
Day was dawning when they again emerged. A great multitude had already
assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing
cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, joking.
Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects
in the centre of all—the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all
the hideous apparatus of death.
CHAPTER LIII.
AND LAST
The fortunes of those who have figured in this tale are nearly closed.
The little that remains to their historian to relate, is told in few
and simple words.
Before three months had passed, Rose Fleming and Harry Maylie were
married in the village church which was henceforth to be the scene of
the young clergyman’s labours; on the same day they entered into
possession of their new and happy home.
Mrs. Maylie took up her abode with her son and daughter-in-law, to
enjoy, during the tranquil remainder of her days, the greatest felicity
that age and worth can know—the contemplation of the happiness of those
on whom the warmest affections and tenderest cares of a well-spent
life, have been unceasingly bestowed.
It appeared, on full and careful investigation, that if the wreck of
property remaining in the custody of Monks (which had never prospered
either in his hands or in those of his mother) were equally divided
between himself and Oliver, it would yield, to each, little more than
three thousand pounds. By the provisions of his father’s will, Oliver
would have been entitled to the whole; but Mr. Brownlow, unwilling to
deprive the elder son of the opportunity of retrieving his former vices
and pursuing an honest career, proposed this mode of distribution, to
which his young charge joyfully acceded.
Monks, still bearing that assumed name, retired with his portion to a
distant part of the New World; where, having quickly squandered it, he
once more fell into his old courses, and, after undergoing a long
confinement for some fresh act of fraud and knavery, at length sunk
under an attack of his old disorder, and died in prison. As far from
home, died the chief remaining members of his friend Fagin’s gang.
Mr. Brownlow adopted Oliver as his son. Removing with him and the old
housekeeper to within a mile of the parsonage-house, where his dear
friends resided, he gratified the only remaining wish of Oliver’s warm
and earnest heart, and thus linked together a little society, whose
condition approached as nearly to one of perfect happiness as can ever
be known in this changing world.
Soon after the marriage of the young people, the worthy doctor returned
to Chertsey, where, bereft of the presence of his old friends, he would
have been discontented if his temperament had admitted of such a
feeling; and would have turned quite peevish if he had known how. For
two or three months, he contented himself with hinting that he feared
the air began to disagree with him; then, finding that the place really
no longer was, to him, what it had been, he settled his business on his
assistant, took a bachelor’s cottage outside the village of which his
young friend was pastor, and instantaneously recovered. Here he took to
gardening, planting, fishing, carpentering, and various other pursuits
of a similar kind: all undertaken with his characteristic impetuosity.
In each and all he has since become famous throughout the neighborhood,
as a most profound authority.
Before his removal, he had managed to contract a strong friendship for
Mr. Grimwig, which that eccentric gentleman cordially reciprocated. He
is accordingly visited by Mr. Grimwig a great many times in the course
of the year. On all such occasions, Mr. Grimwig plants, fishes, and
carpenters, with great ardour; doing everything in a very singular and
unprecedented manner, but always maintaining with his favourite
asseveration, that his mode is the right one. On Sundays, he never
fails to criticise the sermon to the young clergyman’s face: always
informing Mr. Losberne, in strict confidence afterwards, that he
considers it an excellent performance, but deems it as well not to say
so. It is a standing and very favourite joke, for Mr. Brownlow to rally
him on his old prophecy concerning Oliver, and to remind him of the
night on which they sat with the watch between them, waiting his
return; but Mr. Grimwig contends that he was right in the main, and, in
proof thereof, remarks that Oliver did not come back after all; which
always calls forth a laugh on his side, and increases his good humour.
Mr. Noah Claypole: receiving a free pardon from the Crown in
consequence of being admitted approver against Fagin: and considering
his profession not altogether as safe a one as he could wish: was, for
some little time, at a loss for the means of a livelihood, not burdened
with too much work. After some consideration, he went into business as
an informer, in which calling he realises a genteel subsistence. His
plan is, to walk out once a week during church time attended by
Charlotte in respectable attire. The lady faints away at the doors of
charitable publicans, and the gentleman being accommodated with
three-penny worth of brandy to restore her, lays an information next
day, and pockets half the penalty. Sometimes Mr. Claypole faints
himself, but the result is the same.
Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, deprived of their situations, were gradually
reduced to great indigence and misery, and finally became paupers in
that very same workhouse in which they had once lorded it over others.
Mr. Bumble has been heard to say, that in this reverse and degradation,
he has not even spirits to be thankful for being separated from his
wife.
As to Mr. Giles and Brittles, they still remain in their old posts,
although the former is bald, and the last-named boy quite grey. They
sleep at the parsonage, but divide their attentions so equally among
its inmates, and Oliver and Mr. Brownlow, and Mr. Losberne, that to
this day the villagers have never been able to discover to which
establishment they properly belong.
Master Charles Bates, appalled by Sikes’s crime, fell into a train of
reflection whether an honest life was not, after all, the best.
Arriving at the conclusion that it certainly was, he turned his back
upon the scenes of the past, resolved to amend it in some new sphere of
action. He struggled hard, and suffered much, for some time; but,
having a contented disposition, and a good purpose, succeeded in the
end; and, from being a farmer’s drudge, and a carrier’s lad, he is now
the merriest young grazier in all Northamptonshire.
And now, the hand that traces these words, falters, as it approaches
the conclusion of its task; and would weave, for a little longer space,
the thread of these adventures.
I would fain linger yet with a few of those among whom I have so long
moved, and share their happiness by endeavouring to depict it. I would
show Rose Maylie in all the bloom and grace of early womanhood,
shedding on her secluded path in life soft and gentle light, that fell
on all who trod it with her, and shone into their hearts. I would paint
her the life and joy of the fire-side circle and the lively summer