Oliver Twist (35 page)

“Quicker!” cried Sikes, laying the boy in a dry ditch at his feet, and drawing a pistol from his pocket. “Don’t play booty with me.”

At this moment the noise drew louder. Sikes, again looking round, could discern that the men who had given chase were already climbing the gate of the field in which he stood; and that a couple of dogs were some paces in advance of them.

“It’s all up, Bill!” cried Toby; “drop the kid, and show ‘em your heels.” With this parting advice, Mr. Crackit, preferring the chance of being shot by his friend to the certainty of being taken by his enemies, fairly turned tail and darted off at full speed. Sikes clenched his teeth, took one look around, threw over the prostrate form of Oliver the cape in which he had been hurriedly muffled, ran along the front of the hedge as if to distract the attention of those behind from the spot where the boy lay, paused for a second before another hedge which met it at right angles, and whirling his pistol high into the air, cleared it at a bound, and was gone.

“Ho, ho, there!” cried a tremulous voice in the rear. “Pincher! Neptune! Come here, come here!”

The dogs, who, in common with their masters, seemed to have no particular relish for the sport in which they were engaged, readily answered to the command. Three men, who had by this time advanced some distance into the field, stopped to take counsel together.

“My advice, or, leastways, I should say, my
orders,
is,” said the fattest man of the party, “that we ‘mediately go home again.”

“I am agreeable to anything which is agreeable to Mr. Giles,” said a shorter man, who was by no means of a slim figure, and who was very pale in the face, and very polite, as frightened men frequently are.

“I shouldn’t wish to appear ill-mannered, gentlemen,” said the third, who had called the dogs back. “Mr. Giles ought to know.”

“Certainly,” replied the shorter man; “and whatever Mr. Giles says, it isn’t our place to contradict him. No, no, I know my sitiwation! Thank my stars, I know my sitiwation.” To tell the truth, the little man
did
seem to know his situation, and to know perfectly well that it was by no means a desirable one; for his teeth chattered in his head as he spoke.

“You are afraid, Brittles,” said Mr. Giles.

“I a‘n’t,” said Brittles.

“You are,” said Giles.

“You’re a falsehood, Mr. Giles,” said Brittles.

“You’re a lie, Brittles.” said Mr. Giles.

Now, these four retorts arose from Mr. Giles’s taunt; and Mr. Giles’s taunt had arisen from his indignation at having the responsibility of going home again, imposed upon himself under cover of a compliment. The third man brought the dispute to a close, most philosophically.

“I’ll tell you what it is, gentlemen,” said he: “we’re all afraid.”

“Speak for yourself, sir,” said Mr. Giles, who was the palest of the party.

“So I do,” replied the man. “It’s natural and proper to be afraid, under such circumstances.
I
am.”

“So am I,” said Brittles; “only there’s no call to tell a man he is, so bounceably.”

These frank admissions softened Mr. Giles, who at once owned that he was afraid, upon which they all three faced about, and ran back again with the completest unanimity, until Mr. Giles (who had the shortest wind of the party, and was encumbered with a pitchfork) most handsomely insisted on stopping, to make an apology for his hastiness of speech.

“But it’s wonderful,” said Mr. Giles, when he had explained. “what a man will do, when his blood is up. I should have committed murder—I know I should—if we’d caught one of them rascals.”

As the other two were impressed with a similar presentiment; and as their blood, like his, had all gone down again; some speculation ensued upon the cause of this sudden change in their temperament.

“I know what it was,” said Mr. Giles; “it was the gate.”

“I shouldn’t wonder if it was,” exclaimed Brittles, catching at the idea.

“You may depend upon it,” said Giles, “that that gate stopped the flow of the excitement. I felt all mine suddenly going away. as I was climbing over it.”

By a remarkable coincidence, the other two had been visited with the same unpleasant sensation at that precise moment. It was quite obvious, therefore, that it was the gate; especially as there was no doubt regarding the time at which the change had taken place, because all three remembered that they had come in sight of the robbers at the instant of its occurrence.

This dialogue was held between the two men who had surprised the burglars, and a travelling tinker who had been sleeping in an outhouse, and who had been roused, together with his two mongrel curs, to join in the pursuit. Mr. Giles acted in the double capacity of butler and steward to the old lady of the mansion; Brittles was a lad of all-work who, having entered her service a mere child, was treated as a promising young boy still, though he was something past thirty.

Encouraging each other with such converse as this, but keeping very close together, notwithstanding, and looking apprehensively round whenever a fresh gust rattled through the boughs, the three men hurried back to a tree behind which they had left their lantern, lest its light should inform the thieves in what direction to fire. Catching up the light, they made the best of their way home at a good round trot; and long after their dusky forms had ceased to be discernible, the light might have been seen twinkling and dancing in the distance. like some exhalation of the damp and gloomy atmosphere through which it was swiftly borne.

The air grew colder as day came slowly on, and the mist rolled along the ground like a dense cloud of smoke. The grass was wet; the pathways and low places were all mire and water; the damp breath of an unwholesome wind went languidly by, with a hollow moaning. Still, Oliver lay motionless and insensible on the spot where Sikes had left him.

Morning drew on apace. The air became more sharp and piercing, as its first dull hue—the death of night, rather than the birth of day—glimmered faintly in the sky. The objects which had looked dim and terrible in the darkness, grew more and more defined, and gradually resolved into their familiar shapes. The rain came down, thick and fast, and pattered noisily among the leafless bushes. But Oliver felt it not, as it beat against him; for he still lay stretched, helpless and unconscious, on his bed of clay.

At length a low cry of pain broke the stillness that prevailed; and uttering it, the boy awoke. His left arm, rudely bandaged in a shawl, hung heavy and useless at his side; the bandage was saturated with blood. He was so weak that he could scarcely raise himself into a sitting posture; when he had done so, he looked feebly round for help, and groaned with pain. Trembling in every joint from cold and exhaustion, he made an effort to stand upright but, shuddering from head to foot, fell prostrate on the ground.

After a short return of the stupor in which he had been so long plunged, Oliver—urged by a creeping sickness at his heart, which seemed to warn him that if he lay there he must surely die—got upon his feet, and essayed to walk. His head was dizzy, and he staggered to and fro like a drunken man. But he kept up, nevertheless, and, with his head drooping languidly on his breast, went stumbling onward, he knew not whither.

And now, hosts of bewildering and confused ideas came crowding on his mind. He seemed to be still walking between Sikes and Crackit, who were angrily disputing-for the very words they said, sounded in his ears; and when he caught his own attention, as it were, by making some violent effort to save himself from falling, he found that he was talking to them. Then, he was alone with Sikes, plodding on as on the previous day; and as shadowy people passed them, he felt the robber’s grasp upon his wrist. Suddenly, he started back at the report of firearms; there rose into the air loud cries and shouts; lights gleamed before his eyes; all was noise and tumult, as some unseen hand bore him hurriedly away. Through all these rapid visions there ran an undefined, uneasy consciousness of pain, which wearied and tormented him incessantly.

Thus he staggered on, creeping, almost mechanically, between the bars of gates, or through hedge-gaps as they came in his way, until he reached a road. Here the rain began to fall so heavily, that it roused him.

He looked about, and saw that at no great distance there was a house, which perhaps‘he could reach. Pitying his condition, they might have compassion on him; and if they did not, it would be better, he thought, to die near human beings than in the lonely open fields. He summoned up all his strength for one last trial, and bent his faltering steps towards it.

As he drew nearer to this house, a feeling came over him that he had seen it before. He remembered nothing of its details; but the shape and aspect of the building seemed familiar to him.

That garden wall! On the grass inside he had fallen on his knees last night, and prayed the two men’s mercy. It was the very house they had attempted to rob.

Oliver felt such fear come over him when he recognized the place that, for the instant, he forgot the agony of his wound, and thought only of flight. Flight! He could scarcely stand; and if he were in full possession of all the best powers of his slight and youthful frame, whither could he fly? He pushed against the garden gate; it was unlocked, and swung open on its hinges. He tottered across the lawn, climbed the steps, knocked faintly at the door, and, his whole strength failing him, sunk down against one of the pillars of the little portico.

It happened that about this time, Mr. Giles, Brittles, and the tinker were recruiting themselves, after the fatigues and terrors of the night, with tea and sundries in the kitchen. Not that it was Mr. Giles’s habit to admit to too great familiarity the humbler servants, towards whom it was rather his wont to deport himself with a lofty affability, which, while it gratified, could not fail to remind them of his superior position in. society. But death, fires, and burglary make all men equals; so Mr. Giles sat with his legs stretched out before the kitchen fender, leaning his left arm on the table, while with his right he illustrated a circumstantial and minute account of the robbery, to which his hearers (but especially the cook and housemaid, who were of the party) listened with breathless interest.

“It was about half-past two,” said Mr. Giles, “or I wouldn’t swear that it mightn’t have been a little nearer three, when I woke up, and, turning round in my bed, as it might be so (here Mr. Giles turned round in his chair, and pulled the comer of the table-cloth over him to imitate bed-clothes), I fancied I heerd a noise.”

At this point of the narrative the cook turned pale and asked the housemaid to shut the door, who asked Brittles, who asked the tinker, who pretended not to hear.

“—Heerd a noise,” continued Mr. Giles. “I says, at first, ‘This is illusion’; and was composing myself off to sleep when I heerd the noise again, distinct.”

“What sort of a noise?” asked the cook.

“A kind of a busting noise,” replied Mr. Giles, looking round him.

“More like the noise of powdering a iron bar on a nutmeg grater,” suggested Brittles.

“It was, when
you
heerd it, sir,” rejoined Mr. Giles; “but, at this time, it had a busting sound. I turned down the clothes,” continued Giles, rolling back the table-cloth, “sat up in bed, and listened.”

The cook and housemaid simultaneously ejaculated “Lor!” and drew their chairs closer together.

“I heerd it now, quite apparent,” resumed Mr. Giles. “ ‘Somebody,’ I says, ‘is forcing of a door, or window; what’s to be done? I’ll call up that poor lad, Brittles, and save him from being murdered in his bed; or his throat,’ I says ‘may be cut from his right ear to his left, without his ever knowing it.’ ”

Here, all eyes were turned upon Brittles, who fixed his upon the speaker, and stared at him with his mouth wide open and his face expressive of the most unmitigated horror.

“I tossed off the clothes,” said Giles, throwing away the table-cloth, and looking very hard at the cook and housemaid, “got softly out of bed; drew on a pair of—”

“Ladies present, Mr. Giles,” murmured the tinker.

“—Of shoes, sir,” said Giles, turning upon him, and laying great emphasis on the word, “seized the loaded pistol that always goes up-stairs with the plate-basket, and walked on tip-toes to his room. ‘Brittles, I says, when I had woke him, ’don’t be frightened!’ ”

“So you did,” observed Brittles, in a low voice.

“ ‘We’re dead men, I think, Brittles,-’ I says,” continued Giles; “ ‘but don’t be frightened. ”

“Was he frightened?” asked the cook.

“Not a bit of it,” replied Mr. Giles. “He was as firm—ah! pretty near as firm as I was.”

“I should have died at once, I’m sure, if it had been me,” observed the housemaid.

“You’re a woman,” retorted Brittles, plucking up a little.

“Brittles is right,” said Mr. Giles, nodding his head, approvingly; “from a woman, nothing else was to be expected. We, being men, took a dark lantern that was standing on Brittles’s hob, and groped our way downstairs in the pitch dark—as it might be so.”

Mr. Giles had risen from his seat, and taken two steps with his eyes shut, to accompany his description with appropriate action, when he started violently, in common with the rest of the company, and hurried back to his chair. The cook and housemaid screamed.

“It was a knock,” said Mr. Giles, assuming perfect serenity. “Open the door, somebody.”

Nobody moved.

“It seems a strange sort of thing, a knock coming at such a time in the morning,” said Mr. Giles, surveying the pale faces which surrounded him, and looking very blank himself; “but the door must be opened. Do you hear, somebody?”

Mr. Giles, as he spoke, looked at Brittles; but that young man, being naturally modest, probably considered himself nobody, and so held that the inquiry could not have any application to him; at all events, he tendered no reply. Mr. Giles directed an appealing glance at the tinker, but he had suddenly fallen asleep. The women were out of the question.