II Oliver Falls From Bad to Worse
It was seventy miles to London, and the poor boy made his way thither only with great difficulty. Begging was not allowed in many of the villages, and nearly everybody viewed him with doubt, or else shut the door in his face.
Early on the seventh morning of his flight Oliver limped slowly into the little town of Barnet, near the outskirts of London. The window-shutters were closed, the street was empty, and the boy sank down with bleeding feet and covered with dust upon a door-step.
By degrees the shutters were opened, the window-blinds were drawn up, and people began passing to and fro. Some few stopped to gaze at Oliver for a moment or two, or turned round to stare at him as they hurried by; but none relieved him, or troubled themselves to inquire how he came there. He had no heart to beg, and there he sat.
He had been crouching on the step for some time when he was roused by observing that a boy, who had passed him carelessly some minutes before, had returned, and was now surveying him most earnestly from the opposite side of the way. He took little heed of this at first; but the boy remained in the same attitude of close observation so long that Oliver raised his head and returned his steady look. Upon this the boy crossed over, and, walking close up to Oliver, said:
“Hullo! my covey, what’s the row?”
The boy who addressed this inquiry was about his own age, but one of the queerest-looking fellows Oliver had ever seen. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough, and as dirty as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. He was short of his age, with rather bow legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes. He wore a man’s coat, which reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back, half-way up his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves, apparently with the ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers, for there he kept them. He was altogether as swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in his shoes.
“Hullo! my covey, what’s the row?” said this strange young gentleman to Oliver.
“I am very hungry and tired,” replied Oliver, the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke. “I have walked a long way. I have been walking these seven days.”
The boy looked at him narrowly, and asked him some questions. He took Oliver for a vagrant or worse, but led him into a small tavern, and gave him a feast of ham and bread; and Oliver, falling to at his new friend’s bidding, made a long and hearty meal, during the progress of which the strange boy eyed him from time to time with great attention.
“Going to London?” said the strange boy, when Oliver had at length concluded.
“Yes.”
“Got any lodgings?”
“No.”
“Money?”
“No.”
The strange boy whistled, and put his arms into his pockets as far as the big coat-sleeves would let them go.
“Do you live in London?” asked Oliver.
“Yes, I do when I’m at home,” replied the strange boy. “Want to go along with me? I know an old gen’elman as lives there wot’ll give you lodgings for nothink.”
The unexpected offer was too tempting to be resisted, especially when Oliver was told that the old gentleman would doubtless get him a good place without loss of time. This led to a more friendly and confidential chat, in which Oliver learned that his new friend’s name was Jack Dawkins, commonly called “The Artful Dodger.”
As Dawkins objected to entering London before nightfall, it was nearly eleven o’clock before he piloted Oliver down some of the worst streets of the city’s worst section. Finally they entered a tumbledown building, and groped their way up a rickety stairway. Then Dawkins threw open the door of a back room and drew Oliver in after him.
The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt. There was a deal table before the fire, upon which were a candle stuck in a bottle, some pewter pots, bread and butter. Several rough beds were huddled side by side upon the floor. Seated around the table were four or five boys, none older than the Dodger, smoking long clay pipes and drinking spirits with the air of middle-aged men. But the chief figure was an old shrivelled Jew, whose villanous face was offset by a mass of matted red hair. He was dressed in a greasy flannel gown, and was busily at work frying sausages over a fire.
The boys crowded around Dawkins as he whispered a few words in the ear of the Jew. Then they all turned, as did the Jew, and grinned at Oliver.
“This is him, Fagin,” said Jack Dawkins; “my friend Oliver Twist.”
The Jew made a low bow to Oliver, took him by the hand, and hoped he should have the honor of his intimate acquaintance. Upon this, the young gentlemen with the pipes came round him, and shook both his hands very hard—especially the one in which he held his little bundle. One young gentleman was very anxious to hang up his cap for him; and another was so obliging as to put his hands in Oliver’s pockets, in order that, as he was very tired, he might not have the trouble of emptying them himself when he went to bed.
“We are very glad to see you, Oliver—very,” said the Jew. “Dodger, take off the sausages, and draw a tub near the fire for Oliver.”
Oliver ate his share, and the Jew then mixed him a glass of hot gin and water, telling him he must drink it off directly, because another gentleman wanted the tumbler. Oliver did as he was desired. Immediately afterwards, he felt himself gently lifted on to one of the sacks, and then he sank into a deep sleep.
The next morning, Oliver watched the Jew, Dawkins, and Charley Bates, another of the boys, play a curious game. The old man would place a purse and other valuables in his pockets, whereupon the boys would try to slip them out without his knowledge.
Oliver didn’t understand in the least what it was all about, even when Fagin gave him some lessons in the same game. But he was to learn with a shock, a few days later, when Bates and Dawkins took him with them for a walk about town.
They were just emerging from a narrow court not far from the open square in Clerkenwell, when the Dodger made a sudden stop, and, laying his finger on his lip, drew his companions back again with the greatest caution.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Oliver.
“Hush!” replied the Dodger. “Do you see that old cove at the book-stall?”
“The gentleman over the way?” said Oliver. “Yes, I see him.”
“He’ll do,” said the Dodger.
“A prime plant,” observed Master Charley Bates.
Oliver looked from one to the other with surprise, but he was not permitted to make any inquiries; for the two boys walked stealthily across the road, and slunk close behind the old gentleman. Oliver walked a few paces after them, and, not knowing whether to advance or retire, stood looking on in silent amazement.
The gentleman was a very respectable-looking person who had taken up a book from the stall and was reading away as hard as if he were in his own study.
What was Oliver’s horror and alarm as he stood a few paces off, looking on with his eyelids as wide open as they would possibly go, to see the Dodger plunge his hand into the gentleman’s pocket, and draw from thence a handkerchief; to see him hand the same to Charley Bates; and finally to behold them both running away round the corner at full speed!
Oliver saw in a flash that they were pickpockets, and that he would be classed among them! He turned to run—the worst possible thing to do—for just then the gentleman missed his handkerchief and glanced around in time to see Oliver scudding away for dear life; and shouting “Stop thief!” made off after him, book in hand.
He was not alone in the cry, for Bates and Dawkins, willing to divert attention from themselves, also shouted “Stop thief!” and joined in the pursuit like good citizens.
“Stop thief! Stop thief!” There is a magic in the sound. The tradesman leaves his counter, and the carman his wagon; the butcher throws down his tray; the baker his basket; the milkman his pail; the errand-boy his parcels; the school-boy his marbles. Away they run, pell-mell, helter-skelter, slap-dash, tearing, yelling, screaming and knocking down the passengers as they turn the corners.
“Stop thief! Stop thief!” The cry is taken up by a hundred voices, and the crowd accumulates at every turning. Away they fly, splashing through the mud and rattling along the pavements. Up go the windows, out run the people, and lend fresh vigor to the cry, “Stop thief! Stop thief!”
Stopped at last! A well-aimed blow laid Oliver upon the pavement. Then a policeman seized him by the collar and he was hustled off for trial before a magistrate.
The magistrate was a surly boor who was in the habit of committing prisoners to jail with the merest pretence of a trial. It did not take him long to decide that Oliver was a hardened criminal, in spite of the protests of the kindly old gentleman whose pocket had been picked; and the boy was, in fact, being carried away in a fainting condition, when the bookseller whose shop had been the scene of action and who had witnessed the whole thing, rushed in and declared Oliver’s innocence.
The poor child was thereupon released; and the old gentleman—Mr. Brownlow by name—was so sorry for him, and so taken by his frank face, that he took him to his own home and nursed him through a severe illness, the result of all his early privations and recent trouble. Mr. Brownlow even thought of adopting him, and, as soon as he was well enough, let him have books to read out of his own well-stocked library, greatly to the eager Oliver’s delight.
It did indeed seem as though the sky had cleared for the boy, but instead still darker days were threatening. Fagin the Jew heard of Oliver’s escape with fear and anger. He knew that it would never do for the boy to tell what he knew about the thieves’ den. Their one chance of safety lay in seizing him again and making him a thief like themselves, so that his mouth would be closed.
So Fagin called to his aid a burglar, a big, brutal fellow named Bill Sikes, who always went around with a knotted stick and a surly dog. Nancy, a poor girl of the streets, was also put upon the search, and soon their united efforts were successful.
One day after Oliver had begun to grow strong, he was sent by Mr. Brownlow on an errand to a bookshop. He was well dressed in a new suit, and had some books and a five-pound note of Mr. Brownlow’s. It was not far, but he accidentally turned down a by-street that was not exactly in his way. He started to turn back, when he heard a girl’s voice screaming, “Oh, my dear brother!” And he had hardly looked up to see what the matter was, when he was stopped by having a pair of arms thrown tight around his neck.
“Don’t!” cried Oliver, struggling. “Let go of me! Who is it? What are you stopping me for?”
The only reply to this was a great number of loud lamentations from the young woman who had embraced him, and who had a little basket and a large key in her hand.
“Oh, my gracious!” said the young woman, “I’ve found him! Oh, Oliver! Oliver! Oh, you naughty boy, to make me suffer sich distress on your account! Come home, dear, come! Oh, I’ve found him! Thank gracious goodness heavins, I’ve found him!” With these exclamations the young woman burst into another fit of crying.
“What’s the matter, ma’am?” inquired a woman.
“Oh, ma’am,” replied the girl, “he ran away, near a month ago, from his parents, who are hard-working and respectable people, and went and joined a set of thieves and bad characters, and almost broke his mother’s heart.”
“Young wretch!” said the woman.
“I’m not,” replied Oliver, greatly alarmed. “I don’t know her. I haven’t any sister, or father and mother either. I’m an orphan; I live at Pentonville.”
“Oh, only hear him, how he braves it out!” cried the young woman.
“Why, it’s Nancy!” exclaimed Oliver, who had known her at the Jew’s, and now saw her face for the first time.
“You see he knows me!” cried Nancy, appealing to the bystanders. “He can’t help himself. Make him come home, there’s good people, or he’ll kill his dear mother and father, and break my heart!”
“What the devil’s this?” said a man, bursting out of a beer-shop, with a white dog at his heels; “young Oliver! Come home to your poor mother, you young dog! Come home, directly.”
“I don’t belong to them. I don’t know them. Help! help!” cried Oliver, struggling in the man’s powerful grasp.
“Help!” repeated the man. “Yes; I’ll help you, you young rascal! What books are these? You’ve been a stealing ’em, have you? Give ’em here.” With these words, the man tore the volumes from his grasp and struck him on the head.
“That’s right!” cried a looker-on from a garret window. “That’s the only way of bringing him to his senses!”
“To be sure!” cried a sleepy-faced carpenter, casting an approving look at the garret window.
“It’ll do him good!” said the woman.
“And he shall have it, too!” rejoined the man, administering another blow, and seizing Oliver by the collar. “Come on, you young villain! Here, Bull’s-eye, mind him, boy! Mind him!”
Weak from his recent illness and with no one in the idle crowd to befriend him, poor Oliver could only suffer himself to be led away sobbing. Bill Sikes saw his advantage, and pushed him rapidly down the street. Then, turning to Oliver, he commanded him to take hold of Nancy’s hand.
“Do you hear?” growled Sikes, as Oliver hesitated, and looked round.
They were in a dark corner, quite out of the track of passengers. Oliver saw, but too plainly, that resistance would be of no avail. He held out his hand, which Nancy clasped tight in hers.
“Give me the other,” said Sikes. “Here, Bull’s-eye!”
The dog looked up and growled.
“See here, boy!” said Sikes, putting his other hand to Oliver’s throat; “if he speaks ever so soft a word, hold him! D’ye mind?”
The dog growled again, and, licking his lips, eyed Oliver as if he were anxious to attach himself to his windpipe without delay.
And in this fashion Oliver saw with unspeakable horror that he was being taken back to the Jew. What would the trusting Mr. Brownlow think of him? What, indeed! The hot tears blinded Oliver’s eyes at the bare thought.
Presently they arrived before the house but found it perfectly dark.
“Let’s have a glim,” said Sikes, “or we shall go breaking our necks, or treading on the dog. Look after your legs if you do! That’s all.”
“Stand still a moment, and I’ll get you one,” replied a voice. The footsteps of the speaker were heard, and in another minute the form of Mr. John Dawkins, otherwise the Artful Dodger, appeared. He bore in his right hand a tallow candle stuck in the end of a cleft stick.
The young gentleman did not stop to bestow any other mark of recognition upon Oliver than a humorous grin; but, turning away, beckoned the visitors to follow him. As they entered the low, dingy room, they were received with a shout of laughter.
“Oh, my wig, my wig!” cried Charley Bates; “here he is! oh, cry, here he is! Oh, Fagin, look at him; Fagin, do look at him! I can’t bear it; it is such a jolly game, I can’t bear it! Hold me, somebody, while I laugh it out.”
With this, Master Bates laid himself flat on the floor, and kicked convulsively for five minutes, in an ecstasy of joy. Then jumping to his feet, he snatched the cleft stick from the Dodger, and, advancing to Oliver, viewed him round and round, while the Jew, taking off his nightcap, made a great number of low bows to the bewildered boy. The Artful, meantime, who seldom gave way to merriment when it interfered with business, rifled Oliver’s pockets thoroughly.
“Look at his togs, Fagin!” said Charley, putting the light so close to his new jacket as nearly to set him on fire. “Look at his togs,—superfine cloth, and the heavy-swell cut! Oh, my eye, what a game! And his books, too; nothing but a gentleman, Fagin!”
“Delighted to see you looking so well, my dear,” said the Jew, bowing with mock humility. “The Artful shall give you another suit, my dear, for fear you should spoil that Sunday one. Why didn’t you write, my dear, and say you were coming? We’d have got something warm for supper.”
At this Master Bates roared again so loud that Fagin himself relaxed, and even the Dodger smiled; but as the Artful drew forth the five-pound note at that instant, it is doubtful whether the sally or the discovery awakened his merriment.
“Hallo! what’s that?” inquired Sikes, stepping forward as the Jew seized the note. “That’s mine, Fagin.”
“No, no, my dear,” said the Jew. “Mine, Bill, mine. You shall have the books.”
“They belong to Mr. Brownlow!” cried Oliver, wringing his hands. “Oh, pray send them back! He’ll think I stole them!”
“The boy’s right,” replied Fagin, with a sly wink. “He will think you’ve stole them!”
Oliver saw by his look that all chance of rescue was gone, and shrieking wildly he made a dash for the door. But the dog arrested him with a fierce growl, while a blow laid him upon the floor.
For several days Fagin kept him hid close, for fear of searching parties. Then, resolving to get the boy deeply into crime as soon as possible, he forced him to accompany Bill Sikes upon a house-breaking expedition.
Accordingly, one raw evening they set forth—Oliver, Sikes, and another burglar, Toby Crackit—the ruffians threatening to shoot the boy if he so much as uttered one word. On account of his small size he was chosen to creep through a little window of the house which was to be robbed. The opening was about five feet from the ground, and so small that the inmates did not think it worth while to defend it securely. But it was large enough to admit a boy of Oliver’s size, nevertheless.
“Now listen, you young limb,” whispered Sikes, drawing a dark-lantern from his pocket and throwing the glare full in Oliver’s face: “I’m going to put you through there. Take this light and go softly up the steps straight afore you, and along the little hall to the street door. Unfasten it and let us in.”
So saying, the burglar boosted Oliver up on his back, and put him through the window.
“You see the stairs, don’t you?”
Oliver, more dead than alive, gasped out “Yes.” Sikes pointed the pistol at him, and advised him to take notice that he was within shot all the way. Nevertheless, the boy had firmly resolved that, whether he died in the attempt or not, he would make one effort to dart upstairs from the hall and alarm the family. Filled with this idea, he advanced at once, but stealthily.
“Come back!” suddenly cried Sikes aloud. “Back! back!”
Scared by the sudden breaking of the dead stillness of the place, and by a loud cry which followed it, Oliver let his lantern fall, and knew not whether to advance or fly.
The cry was repeated—a light appeared—a vision of two terrified half-dressed men at the top of the stairs swam before his eyes—a flash—a loud noise—a smoke—a crash somewhere, but where he knew not,—and he staggered back.
Sikes had disappeared for an instant; but he was up again and had him by the collar before the smoke had cleared away.
He fired his own pistol after the men, who were already retreating, and dragged the boy up.
“Clasp your arm tighter,” said Sikes, as he drew him through the window. “Give me a shawl here. They’ve hit him. Quick! How the boy bleeds!”
Then came the loud ringing of a bell, mingled with the noise of firearms, and the shouts of men, and the sensation of being carried over uneven ground at a rapid pace. And then, the noises grew confused in the distance. A cold deadly feeling crept over the boy’s heart, and he saw or heard no more.