Oliver Twist (66 page)

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 giri—Better’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 furtherest 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. Browitlow 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.

 

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 for 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—die 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 pursing 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 neighbourhood 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 criticize 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 burthened with too, much work. After some consideration he went into business as an Informer, in which calling he realizes 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 threepennyworth 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 degradations, 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’ 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 fireside circle and the lively summer group; I would follow her through the sultry fields at noon, and hear the low tones of her sweet voice in the moonlit evening walk; I would watch her in all her goodness and charity abroad, and the smiling untiring discharge of domestic duties at home; I would paint her and her dead sister’s child happy in their love for one another, and passing whole hours together in picturing the friends whom they had so sadly lost ; I would summon before me, once again, those joyous little faces that clustered round her knee and listen to their merry prattle: I would recall the tones of that clear laugh, and conjure up the sympathizing tear that glistened in the soft blue eye. These, and a thousand looks and smiles, and turns of thought and speech—I would fain recall them every one.

How Mr. Brownlow went on, from day to day, filling the mind of his adopted child with stores of knowledge, and becoming attached to him more and more as his nature developed itself and showed the thriving seeds of all he wished him to become—how he traced in him new traits of his early friend, that awakened in his own bosom old remembrances, melancholy and yet sweet and soothing—how the two orphans, tried by adversity, remembered its lessons in mercy to others, and mutual love, and fervent thanks to Him who had protected and preserved them—these are all matters which need not to be told. I have said that they were truly happy; and without strong affection and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that Being whose code is Mercy and whose great attribute is Benevolence to all things that breathe, happiness can never be attained.

Within the altar of the old village church there stands a white marble tablet which-bears as yet but one word; “AGNES.” There is no coffin in that tomb; and may it be many, many years before another name is placed above it! But, if the spirits of the Dead ever come back to earth to visit spots hallowed by the love—the love beyond the grave—of those whom they knew in life, I believe that the shade of Agnes sometimes hovers round that solemn nook. I believe it none the less because that nook is in a Church, and she was weak and erring.

 

THE END

Oliver Twist
might be subtitled “From Rags to Riches, or The Male Cinderella.” It was in fact, with a backward glance at Bunyan, subtitled “The Parish Boy’s Progress.” It is a child’s success story, with some of the qualities—and those who know their Grimm know that these include nightmarish qualities—of a fairy tale. The orphan does not fare badly in finding substitute mothers—Mrs. Bedwin, Rose Maylie, even Nancy. Virtually all his anguish comes from the false fathers—Bumble, Fagin (with his habitual irony of “my dear”), Bill Sikes. If Nancy and Sikes had been legally married and Oliver their son. there is not the slightest reason to suppose either parent would have acted differently. It would still have been that archetypal domestic situation which so fascinated Dickens, in which the mother pleads, and pleads in vain, with the brutal or drunken father, who abuses his child as he abuses his dog and sends him out to toil or beg or steal. The boy Dickens, sent to the blacking factory (where one of his fellow workers was named Bob Fagin) to contribute to his parents’ support, never forgot and never forgave this reversal of the proper situation: the result is episode after episode where the all-devouring ne‘er-do-well or criminal father bites the little hand that feeds him. Long before the autobiographical
David Copperfield
this theme haunts the author, in “The Drunkard’s Death” of the
Sketches,
in Chapter III of
Pickwick—“The
Stroller’s Tale.”