"Stand away; officer," cried Fang; "let him, if he likes."
Oliver availed himself of the kind permission, and fell to the floor in a fainting fit. The men in the office looked at each other, but no one dared to stir.
"I knew he was shamming," said Fang, as if this were incontestable proof of the fact. "Let him lie there; he'll soon be tired of that."
"How do you propose to deal with the case, sir?" inquired the clerk in a low voice.
"Summarily," replied Mr. Fang. "He stands committed for three months--hard labour, of course. Clear the office."
The door was opened for this purpose, and a couple of men were preparing to carry the insensible boy to his cell, when an elderly man of decent but poor appearance, clad in an old suit of black, rushed hastily into the office and advanced towards the bench.
"Stop, stop! Don't take him away! For Heaven's sake stop a moment!" cried the new-comer, breathless with haste.
Although the presiding Genii in such an office as this, exercise a summary and arbitrary power over the liberties, the good name, the character, almost the lives, of Her Majesty's subjects, especially of the poorer class, and although, within such walls, enough fantastic tricks are daily played to make the angels blind with weeping, they are closed to the public, save through the medium of the daily press.1 Mr. Fang was consequently not a little indignant to see an unbidden guest enter in such irreverent disorder.
"What is this? Who is this? Turn this man out. Clear the office!" cried Mr. Fang.
"I will speak," cried the man; "I will not be turned out. I saw it all. I keep the book-stall. I demand to be sworn. I will not be put down. Mr. Fang, you must hear me. You must not refuse, sir."
The man was right. His manner was determined; and the matter was growing rather too serious to be hushed up.
"Swear the man," growled Mr. Fang, with a very ill grace. "Now, man, what have you got to say?"
"This," said the man: "I saw three boys, two others and the prisoner here, loitering on the opposite side of the way when this gentleman was reading. The robbery was committed by another boy. I saw it done, and I saw that this boy was perfectly amazed and stupefied by it." Having by this time recovered a little breath, the worthy book-stall keeper proceeded to relate, in a more coherent manner, the exact circumstances of the robbery.
"Why didn't you come here before?" said Fang, after a pause.
"I hadn't a soul to mind the shop," replied the man. "Everybody who could have helped me, had joined in the pursuit. I could get nobody till five minutes ago; and I've run here all the way."
"The prosecutor was reading, was he?" inquired Fang, after another pause.
"Yes," replied the man. "The very book he has in his hand."
"Oh, that book, eh?" said Fang. "Is it paid for?"
"No, it is not," replied the man, with a smile.
"Dear me, I forgot all about it!" exclaimed the absent old gentleman, innocently.
"A nice person to prefer a charge against a poor boy!" said Fang, with a comical effort to look humane. "I consider, sir, that you have obtained possession of that book under very suspicious and disreputable circumstances; and you may think yourself very fortunate that the owner of the property declines to prosecute. Let this be a lesson to you, my man, or the law will overtake you yet. The boy is discharged. Clear the office."
"D--n me!" cried the old gentleman, bursting out with the rage he had kept down so long, "d--n me! I'll--"
"Clear the office!" said the magistrate. "Officers, do you hear? Clear the office!"
The mandate was obeyed; and the indignant Mr. Brownlow was conveyed out, with the book in one hand, and the bamboo cane in the other, in a perfect frenzy of rage and defiance. He reached the yard, and his passion vanished in a moment. Little Oliver Twist lay on his back on the pavement with his shirt unbuttoned and his temples bathed with water, his face a deadly white, and a cold tremble convulsing his whole frame.
"Poor boy, poor boy!" said Mr. Brownlow, bending over him. "Call a coach, somebody, pray. Directly!"
A coach was obtained, and Oliver, having been carefully laid on one seat, the old gentleman got in and sat himself on the other.
"May I accompany you?" said the book-stall keeper, looking in.
"Bless me, yes, my dear sir," said Mr. Brownlow quickly. "I forgot you. Dear, dear! I have this unhappy book still! Jump in. Poor fellow! There's no time to lose."
The book-stall keeper got into the coach, and away they drove.
CHAPTER XII
In which Oliver is taken better care of than he ever was
before. And in which the narrative reverts to the
merry old gentleman and his youthful friends.
THE COACH RATTLED AWAY, OVER NEARLY THE SAME GROUND AS that which Oliver had traversed when he first entered London in company with the Dodger, and, turning a different way when it reached the Angel at Islington, stopped at length before a neat house in a quiet shady street near Pentonville. Here a bed was prepared, without loss of time, in which Mr. Brownlow saw his young charge carefully and comfortably deposited; and here he was tended with a kindness and solicitude that knew no-bounds.
But, for many days, Oliver remained insensible to all the goodness of his new friends. The sun rose and sank, and rose and sank again, and many times after that; and still the boy lay stretched on his uneasy bed, dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever. The worm does not his work more surely on the dead body, than does this slow creeping fire upon the living frame.
Weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke at last from what seemed to have been a long and troubled dream. Feebly raising himself in the bed, with his head resting on his trembling arm, he looked anxiously around.
"What room is this? Where have I been brought to?" said Oliver. "This is not the place I went to sleep in."
He uttered these words in a feeble voice, being very faint and weak; but they were overheard at once. The curtain at the bed's head was hastily drawn back, and a motherly old lady, very neatly and precisely dressed, rose as she undrew it, from an arm-chair close by, in which she had been sitting at needle-work.
"Hush, my dear," said the old lady softly. "You must be very quiet, or you will be ill again; and you have been very bad--as bad as bad could be; pretty nigh. Lie down again; there's a dear!" With those words, the old lady very gently placed Oliver's head upon the pillow and, smoothing back his hair from his forehead, looked so kindly and lovingly in his face that he could not help placing his little withered hand in hers, and drawing it round his neck.
"Save us!" said the old lady, with tears in her eyes, "What a grateful little dear it is. Pretty creetur! What would his mother feel if she had sat by him as I have, and could see him now!"
"Perhaps she does see me," whispered Oliver, folding his hands together; "perhaps she has sat by me. I almost feel as if she had."
"That was the fever, my dear," said the old lady mildly.
"I suppose it was," replied Oliver, "because heaven is a long way off; and they are too happy there to come down to the bedside of a poor boy. But if she knew I was ill, she must have pitied me, even there; for she was very ill herself before she died. She can't know anything about me, though," added Oliver after a moment's silence. "If she had seen me hurt, it would have made her sorrowful; and her face has always looked sweet and happy when I have dreamed of her."
The old lady made no reply to this, but, wiping her eyes first and her spectacles, which lay on the counterpane, afterwards, as if they were part and parcel of those features, brought some cool stuff for Oliver to drink, and then, patting him on the cheek, told him he must lie very quiet or he would be ill again.
So Oliver kept very still, partly because he was anxious to obey the kind old lady in all things, and partly, to tell the truth, because he was completely exhausted with what he had already said. He soon fell into a gentle doze, from which he was awakened by the light of a candle, which, being brought near the bed, showed him a gentleman with a very large
and loud-ticking gold watch in his hand, who felt his pulse and said he was a great deal better.
"You are a great deal better, are you not, my dear?" said the gentleman.
"Yes, thank you, sir," replied Oliver.
"Yes, I know you are," said the gentleman: "You're hungry too, ain't you?"
"No, sir," answered Oliver.
"Hem!" said the gentleman. "No, I know you're not. He is not hungry, Mrs. Bedwin," said the gentleman, looking very wise.
The old lady made a respectful inclination of the head, which seemed to say that she thought the doctor was a very clever man. The doctor appeared much of the same opinion himself.
"You feel sleepy, don't you, my dear?" said the doctor.
"No, sir," replied Oliver.
"No," said the doctor, with a very shrewd and satisfied look. "You're not sleepy. Nor thirsty. Are you?"
"Yes, sir, rather thirsty," answered Oliver.
"Just as I expected, Mrs. Bedwin," said the doctor. "It's very natural that he should be thirsty. You may give him a little tea, ma'am, and some dry toast without any butter. Don't keep him too warm, ma'am, but be careful that you don't let him be too cold; will you have the goodness?"
The old lady dropped a curtsey. The doctor, after tasting the cool staff and expressing a qualified approval of it, hurried away, his boots creaking in a very important and wealthy manner as he went downstairs.
Oliver dozed off again soon after this; when he awoke, it was nearly twelve o'clock. The old lady tenderly bade him good night shortly afterwards, and left him in charge of a fat old woman who had just come, bringing with her, in a little bundle, a small Prayer Book and a large nightcap. Putting the latter on her head and the former on the table, the old woman, after telling Oliver that she had come to sit up with him, drew her chair close to the fire and went off into a series of short naps, chequered at frequent intervals with sundry tumblings forward and divers moans and chokings. These, however, had no worse effect than causing her to rub her nose very hard, and then fall asleep again.
And thus the night crept slowly on. Oliver lay awake for some time, counting the little circles of light which the reflection of the rushlight-shade threw upon the ceiling, or tracing with his languid eyes the intricate pattern of the paper on the wall. The darkness and the deep stillness of the room were very solemn; as they brought into the boy's mind the thought that death had been hovering there for many days and nights, and might yet fill it with the gloom and dread of his awful presence, he turned his face upon the pillow and fervently prayed to Heaven.
Gradually he fell into that deep tranquil sleep which ease from recent suffering alone imparts, that calm and peaceful rest which it is pain to wake from. Who, if this were death, would be roused again to all the struggles and turmoils of life, to all its cares for the present, its anxieties for the future; more than all, its weary recollections of the past!
It had been bright day for hours when Oliver opened his eyes; he felt cheerful and happy. The crisis of the disease was safely past. He belonged to the world again.
In three days' time he was able to sit in an easy-chair, well propped 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 fireside, 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 very 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 gentleman 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 dinnertime 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 a strong emphasis on the last word, to intimate that between slops, and broth well compounded, there existed no affinity or connexion whatsoever.
"Ugh!" said Mr. Brownlow, with a slight s
hudder, "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 above 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.