Oliver Twist(雾都孤儿(孤星血泪))-8

“She didn’t,” said Oliver.“She did,” said Mrs. Sowerberry.“It’s a lie!” said Oliver.Mrs. Sowerberry burst into a flood of tears.This flood of tears left Mr. Sowerberry no alternative. If he hadhesitated for one instant to punish Oliver most severely, it must bequite clear to every experienced reader that he would have been,according to all precedents in disputes of matrimony established, abrute, an unnatural husband, an insulting creature, a baseimitation of a man, and various other agreeable characters toonumerous for recital within the limits of this chapter. To do himjustice, he was, as far as his power went—it was not veryextensive—kindly disposed towards the boy; perhaps, because itwas his interest to do so; perhaps, because his wife disliked him.The flood of tears, however, left him no resource; so he at oncegave him a drubbing, which satisfied even Mrs. Sowerberryherself, and rendered Mr. Bumble’s subsequent application of theparochial cane, rather unnecessary. For the rest of the day, he wasshut up in the back kitchen, in company with a pump and a slice ofbread; and, at night, Mrs. Sowerberry, after making variousremarks outside the door, by no means complimentary to thememory of his mother, looked into the room, and, amidst the jeersand pointings of Noah and Charlotte, ordered him upstairs to hisdismal bed.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver TwistIt was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness ofthe gloomy workshop of the undertaker, that Oliver gave way tothe feelings which the day’s treatment may be supposed likely tohave awakened in a mere child. He had listened to their tauntswith a look of contempt; he had borne the lash without a cry, forhe felt that pride swelling in his heart which would have keptdown a shriek to the last, though they had roasted him alive. Butnow, when there were none to see or hear him, he fell upon hisknees on the floor; and, hiding his face in his hands, wept suchtears as—God send for the credit of our nature—few so young mayever have cause to pour out before Him!For a long time, Oliver remained motionless in this attitude.The candle was burning low in the socket when he rose to his feet.Having gazed curiously round him and listened intently, he gentlyundid the fastenings of the door, and looked abroad.It was a cold, dark night. The stars seemed, to the boy’s eyes,farther from the earth than he had ever seen them before; therewas no wind; and the sombre shadows thrown by the trees uponthe ground, looked sepulchral and death-like, from being so still.He softly reclosed the door. Having availed himself of the expiringlight of the candle to tie up in a handkerchief the few articles ofwearing apparel he had, sat himself down upon a bench, to waitfor morning.With the first ray of light that struggled through the crevices inthe shutters, Oliver arose, and again unbarred the door. One timidlook around—one moment’s pause of hesitation—he had closed itbehind him, and was in the open street.He looked to the right and to the left, uncertain whither to fly.He remembered to have seen the wagons, as they went out, toilingCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twistup the hill. He took the same route; and, arriving at a footpathacross the fields, which he knew, after some distance, led out againinto the road, struck into it, and walked quickly on.Along the same footpath, Oliver well remembered he hadtrotted beside Mr. Bumble, when he first carried him to theworkhouse from the farm. His way lay directly in front of thecottage. His heart beat quickly when he bethought himself of this;and he half-resolved to turn back. He had come a long way though,and should lose a great deal of time by doing so. Besides, it was soearly that there was very little fear of his being seen; so he walkedon.He reached the house. There was no appearance of its inmatesstirring at that early hour. Oliver stopped, and peeped into thegarden. A child was weeding one of the little beds; as he stopped,he raised his pale face and disclosed the features of one of hisformer companions. Oliver felt glad to see him, before he went;for, though younger than himself, he had been his little friend andplaymate. They had been beaten, and starved, and shut uptogether, many and many a time.“Hush, Dick!” said Oliver, as the boy ran to the gate, and thrusthis thin arm between the rails to greet him. “Is any one up?”“Nobody but me,” replied the child.“You mustn’t say you saw me, Dick,” said Oliver. “I am runningaway. They beat and ill-use me, Dick; and I am going to seek myfortune, some long way off. I don’t know where. How pale youare!”“I heard the doctor tell them I was dying,” replied the child,with a faint smile. “I am very glad to see you, dear; but don’t stop,don’t stop!”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist“Yes, yes, I will, to say good-bye to you,” replied Oliver. “I shallsee you again, Dick. I know I shall! You will be well and happy!”“I hope so,” replied the child. “After I am dead, but not before. Iknow the doctor must be right, Oliver, because I dream so much ofheaven, and angels, and kind faces that I never see when I amawake. Kiss me,” said the child, climbing up the low gate, andflinging his little arms round Oliver’s neck. “Good-bye, dear! Godbless you!”The blessing was from a young child’s lips, but it was the firstthat Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and throughthe struggles and sufferings, and troubles and changes, of his afterlife, he never once forgot it.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver TwistChapter 8Oliver Walks To London—He Encounters On TheRoad A Strange Sort Of Young Gentleman.O liver reached the stile, at which the by-path terminated;and once more gained the high-road. It was eight o’clocknow. Though he was nearly five miles away from thetown, he ran, and hid behind the hedges, by turns, till noon,fearing that he might be pursued and overtaken. Then he satdown to rest by the side of the milestone, and began to think, forthe first time, where he had better go and try to live.The stone by which he was seated, bore, in large characters, anintimation that it was just seventy miles from that spot to London.The name awakened a new train of ideas in the boy’s mind.London!—that great large place!—nobody—not even Mr.Bumble—could ever find him there! He had often heard the oldmen in the workhouse, too, say that no lad of spirit need want inLondon; and that there were ways of living in that vast city, whichthose who had been bred up in country parts had no idea of. It wasthe very place for a homeless boy, who must die in the streetsunless some one helped him. As these things passed through histhoughts, he jumped upon his feet, and again walked forward.He had diminished the distance between himself and Londonby full four miles more, before he recollected how much he mustundergo ere he could hope to reach his place of destination. Asthis consideration forced itself upon him, he slackened his pace alittle, and meditated upon his means of getting there. He had aCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twistcrust of bread, a coarse shirt, and two pairs of stockings, in hisbundle. He had a penny too—a gift of Sowerberry’s after somefuneral in which he had acquitted himself more than ordinarilywell—in his pocket. “A clean shirt,” thought Oliver, “is a verycomfortable thing, very; and so are two pairs of darned stockings;and so is a penny; but they are small helps to a sixty-five miles’walk in wintertime.” But Oliver’s thoughts, like those of mostother people, although they were extremely ready and active topoint out his difficulties, were wholly at a loss to suggest anyfeasible mode of surmounting them; so, after a good deal ofthinking to no particular purpose, he changed his little bundleover to the other shoulder, and trudged on.Oliver walked twenty miles that day; and all that time tastednothing but the crust of dry bread, and a few draughts of water,which he begged at the cottage doors by the roadside. When thenight came, he turned into a meadow; and, creeping close under ahay-rick, determined to lie there, till morning. He felt frightened atfirst, for the wind moaned dismally over the empty fields; and hewas cold and hungry, and more alone than he had ever felt before.Being very tired with his walk, however, he soon fell asleep andforgot his troubles.He felt cold and stiff, when he got up next morning, and sohungry that he was obliged to exchange the penny for a small loaf,in the very first village through which he passed. He had walkedno more than twelve miles, when night closed in again. His feetwere sore, and his legs so weak that they trembled beneath him.Another night passed in the bleak, damp air, made him worse;when he set forward on his journey next morning, he could hardlycrawl along.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver TwistHe waited at the bottom of a steep hill till a stage-coach cameup, and then begged of the outside passengers; but there werevery few who took any notice of him; and even those told him towait till they got to the top of the hill and then let them see how farhe could run for a halfpenny. Poor Oliver tried to keep up with thecoach a little way, but was unable to do it, by reason of his fatigueand sore feet. When the outsiders saw this, they put theirhalfpence back into their pockets again, declaring that he was anidle young dog, and didn’t deserve anything; and the coach rattledaway and left only a cloud of dust behind.In some villages, large painted boards were fixed up warning allpersons who begged within the district, that they would be sent tojail. This frightened Oliver very much, and made him glad to getout of those villages with all possible expedition. In others, hewould stand about the inn-yards, and look mournfully at every onewho passed, a proceeding which generally terminated in thelandlady’s ordering one of the post-boys who were lounging about,to drive that strange boy out of the place, for she was sure he hadcome to steal something. If he begged at a farmer’s house, ten toone but they threatened to set the dog on him; and when heshowed his nose in a shop, they talked about the beadle—whichbrought Oliver’s heart into his mouth—very often the only thinghe had there, for many hours together.In fact, if it had not been for a good-hearted turnpike-man and abenevolent old lady, Oliver’s troubles would have been shortenedby the very same process which had put an end to his mother’s; inother words, he would most assuredly have fallen dead upon theking’s pathway. But the turnpike-man gave him a meal of breadand cheese; and the ‘old lady, who had a shipwrecked grandsonCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twistwandering barefoot in some distant part of the earth, took pityupon the poor orphan and gave him what little she could afford—and more—with such kind and gentle words, and such tears ofsympathy and compassion, that they sank deeper into Oliver’ssoul, than all the sufferings he had ever undergone.Early on the seventh morning, after he had left his native place,Oliver limped slowly into the little town of Barnet. The windowshutters were closed; the street was empty; not a soul hadawakened to the business of the day. The sun was rising in all itssplendid beauty; but the light only served to show the boy his ownlonesomeness and desolation, as he sat with bleeding feet andcovered with dust, upon a doorstep.By degrees, the shutters were opened; the window-blinds weredrawn up; and people began passing to and fro. Some few stoppedto gaze at Oliver for a moment or two, or turned round to stare athim as they hurried by; but none relieved him, or troubledthemselves 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, wondering atthe great number of public houses (every other house in Barnetwas a tavern, large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches asthey passed trough, and thinking how strange it seemed that theycould do, with ease, in a few hours, what it had taken him a wholeweek of courage and determination beyond his years toaccomplish, when he was roused by observing that a boy, who hadpassed him carelessly some minutes before, had returned, and wasnow surveying him most earnestly from the opposite side of theway. He took little heed of this at first; but the boy remained in thesame attitude of close observation so long, that Oliver raised hisCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twisthead, and returned his steady look. Upon this, the boy crossedover; and, walking close up to Oliver, said:“Hollo, my covey! What’s the row?”The boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer, wasabout his own age; but one of the queerest-looking boys thatOliver had ever seen. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough; and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see;but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. He wasshort for his age; with rather bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes.His hat was stuck on the top of his head so lightly, that itthreatened to fall off every moment—and would have done so,very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of every now andthen ,giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it back to itsold place again. He wore a man’s coat, which reached nearly to hisheels. He had turned the cuffs back, half-way up his arm, to get hishands out of the sleeves, apparently with the ultimate view ofthrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers; for therehe kept them. He was, altogether, as roystering and swaggering ayoung gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or something less, inhis bluchers.“Hollo, my covey! What’s the row?” said this strange younggentleman to Oliver.“I am very hungry and tired,” replied Oliver, the tears standingin his eyes as he spoke. “I have walked a long way. I have beenwalking these seven days.”“Walking for sivin days!” said the young gentleman. “Oh, I see.Beak’s order, eh? But,” he added, noticing Oliver’s look ofsurprise, “I suppose you don’t know what a beak is, my flash compan-i-on.”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver TwistOliver mildly replied, that he had always heard a bird’s mouthdescribed by the term in question.“My eyes, how green!” exclaimed the young gentleman. “Why,a beak’s a madgst’rate; and when you walk by beak’s order, it’s notstraight forerd, but always a-going up, and nivir a-coming downagin. Was you never on the mill?”“What mill?” inquired Oliver.“What mill! Why, the mill—the mill as takes up so little roomthat it’ll work inside a stone jug; and always goes better when thewind’s low with people, than when it’s high; a-cos then they can’tget workmen. But come,” said the young gentleman; “you wantgrub, and you shall have it. I’m at low-water mark myself—onlyone bob and a magpie; but, as far as it goes, I’ll fork out andstump. Up with you on your pins. There! Now then! Morrice!”Assisting Oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to anadjacent chandler’s shop, where he purchased a sufficiency ofready-dressed ham and a half-quartern loaf, or, as he himselfexpressed it, “a fourpenny bran;” the ham being kept clean andpreserved from dust, by the ingenious expedience of making ahole in the loaf by pulling out a portion of the crumb, and stuffingit therein. Taking the bread under his arm, the young gentlemanturned into a small public-house, and led the way to a tap-room inthe rear of the premises. Here, a pot of beer was brought in, bydirection of the mysterious youth; and Oliver, falling to, at his newfriend’s bidding, made a long and hearty meal, during the progressof which, the strange boy eyed him from time to time with greatattention.“Going to London?” said the strange boy, when Oliver had atlength concluded.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist“Yes.”“Got any lodgings?”“No.”“Money?”“No.”The strange boy whistled; and put his arms into his pockets, asfar as the big coat sleeves would let them go.“Do you live in London?” inquired Oliver.“Yes. I do, when I’m at home,” replied the boy. “I suppose youwant some place to sleep in tonight, don’t you?”“I do, indeed,” answered Oliver. “I have not slept under a roofsince I left the country.”“Don’t fret your eyelids on that score,” said the younggentleman. “I’ve got to be in London tonight; and I know a’spectable old gentleman as lives there, wot’ll give you lodgings fornothink, and never ask for the change—that is, if any gentlemanhe knows interduces you. And don’t he know me? Oh, no! Not inthe least! By no means. Certainly not!” The young gentlemansmiled, as if to intimate that the latter fragments of discourse wereplayfully ironical; and finished the beer as he did so.This unexpected offer of shelter was too tempting to beresisted; especially as it was immediately followed up, by theassurance that the old gentleman referred to, would doubtlessprovide Oliver with a comfortable place, without loss of time Thisled to a more friendly and confidential dialogue; from which Oliverdiscovered that his friend’s name was Jack Dawkins, and that he