Oliver Twist(雾都孤儿(孤星血泪))-27

disappeared; so Mr. Lively, after ineffectually standing on tiptoe,in the hope of catching sight of him, again forced himself into thelittle chair, and, exchanging a shake of the head with a lady in theopposite shop, in which doubt and mistrust were plainly mingled,resumed his pipe with a grave demeanour.The Three Cripples, or rather the Cripples, which was the signby which the establishment was familiarly known to its patrons,was the public-house in which Mr. Sikes and his dog have alreadyfigured. Merely making a sign to a man at the bar, Fagin walkedstraight upstairs, and opening the door of a room, and softlyinsinuating himself into the chamber, looked anxiously about,shading his eyes with his hand, as if in search of some particularperson.The room was illuminated by two gas-lights; the glare of whichCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 265was prevented by the barred shutters, and closely-drawn curtainsof faded red, from being visible outside. The ceiling wasblackened, to prevent its colour from being injured by the flaringof the lamps; and the place was so full of dense tobacco smoke,that at first it was scarcely possible to discern anything more. Bydegrees, however, as some of it cleared away through the opendoor, an assemblage of heads, as confused as the noises thatgreeted the ear, might be made out; and, as the eye grew moreaccustomed to the scene, the spectator gradually became aware ofthe presence of a numerous company, male and female, crowdedround a long table, at the upper end of which, sat a chairman witha hammer of office in his hand; while a professional gentleman,with a bluish nose, and his face tied up for the benefit of atoothache, presided at a jingling piano in a remote corner.As Fagin stepped softly in, the professional gentleman, runningover the keys by way of prelude, occasioned a general cry of orderfor a song; which, having subsided, a young lady proceeded toentertain the company with a ballad in four verses, between eachof which the accompanist played the melody all through, as loudas he could. When this was over, the chairman gave a sentiment,after which, the professional gentleman on the chairman’s rightand left volunteered a duet, and sang it, with great applause.It was curious to observe some faces which stood outprominently from among the group. There was the chairmanhimself (the landlord of the house), a coarse, rough, heavy-builtfellow, who, while the songs were proceeding, rolled his eyeshither and thither, and, seeming to give himself up to joviality, hadan eye for everything that was done, and an ear for everything thatwas said—and sharp ones, too. Near him were the singers,Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 266receiving, with professional indifference, the compliments of thecompany, and applying themselves, in turn, to a dozen profferedglasses of spirits-and-water, tendered by their more boisterousadmirers; whose countenances, expressive of almost every vice inalmost every grade, irresistibly attracted the attention, by theirvery repulsiveness. Cunning, ferocity, and drunkenness in all itsstages, were there, in their strongest aspects; and women, somewith the last lingering tinge of their early freshness almost fadingas you looked, others with every mark and stamp of their sexutterly beaten out, and presenting but one loathsome blank ofprofligacy and crime—some mere girls, others but young women,and none past the prime of life—formed the darkest and saddestportion of this dreary picture.Fagin, troubled by no grave emotions, looked eagerly from faceto face while these proceedings were in progress; but apparentlywithout meeting that of which he was in search. Succeeding, atlength, in catching the eye of the man who occupied the chair, hebeckoned to him slightly, and left the room, as quietly as he hadentered it.“What can I do for you, Mr. Fagin?” inquired the man. as hefollowed him out to the landing. “Won’t you join us? They’ll bedelighted, every one of ’em.”The Jew shook his head impatiently, and said in a whisper, “Ishe here?”“No,” replied the man.“And no news of Barney?” inquired Fagin.“None,” replied the landlord of the Cripples; for it was he. “Hewon’t stir till it’s all safe. Depend on it, they’re on the scent downthere; and that if he moved, he’d blow upon the thing at once. He’sCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 267all right enough Barney is, else I should have heard of him. I’llpound it, that Barney’s managing properly. Let him alone forthat.”“Will he be here tonight?” asked the Jew, laying the sameemphasis on the pronoun as before.“Monks, do you mean?” inquired the landlord, hesitating.“Hush!” said the Jew. “Yes.”“Certain,” replied the man, drawing a gold watch from his fob;“I expected him here before now. If you’ll wait ten minutes, he’llbe—”“No, no,” said the Jew hastily; as though, however desirous hemight be to see the person in question, he was neverthelessrelieved by his absence. “Tell him I came here to see him; and thathe must come to me tonight. No, say tomorrow. As he is not here,tomorrow will be time enough.”“Good!” said the man. “Nothing more?”“Not a word now,” said the Jew, descending the stairs.—“I say,”said the other, looking over the rails, and speaking in a hoarsewhisper; “what a time this would be for a sell! I’ve got Phil Barkerhere; so drunk, that a boy might take him.“Aha! But it’s not Phil Barker’s time,” said the Jew, looking up.“Phil has something more to do, before we can afford to part withhim; so go back to the company, my dear, and tell them to leadmerry lives—while they last. Ha! ha! ha!”The landlord reciprocated the old man’s laugh; and returned tohis guests. The Jew was no sooner alone, than his countenanceresumed its former expression of anxiety and thought. After abrief reflection, he called a hack cabriolet, and bade the man drivetowards Bethnal Green. He dismissed him within some quarter ofCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 268a mile of Mr. Sikes’s residence, and performed the shortremainder of the distance, on foot.“Now,” muttered the Jew, as he knocked at the door, “if there isany deep play here, I shall have it out of you, my girl, cunning asyou are.”She was in her room, the woman said. Fagin crept softlyupstairs, and entered it without any previous ceremony. The girlwas alone; lying with her head upon the table, and her hairstraggling over it. “She has been drinking,” thought the Jewcoolly, “or perhaps she is only miserable.”The old man turned to close the door, as he made thisreflection; the noise thus occasioned roused the girl. She eyed hiscrafty face narrowly, as she inquired whether there was any news,and as she listened to his recital of Toby Crackit’s story. When itwas concluded, she sank into her former attitude, but spoke not aword. She pushed the candle impatiently away; and once or twiceas she feverishly changed her position, shuffled her feet upon theground; but this was During the silence, the Jew looked restlesslyabout the room, as if to assure himself that there were noappearances of Sikes having covertly returned. Apparentlysatisfied with his inspection, he coughed twice or thrice, and madeas many efforts to open a conversation; but the girl heeded him nomore than if he had been made of stone. At length he madeanother attempt; and rubbing his hands together, said, in his mostconciliatory tone.“And where should you think Bill was now, my dear?”The girl moaned out some half-intelligible reply, that she couldnot tell; and seemed, from the smothered noise that escaped her,to be crying.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 269“And the boy, too,” said the Jew, straining his eyes to catch aglimpse of her face. “Poor leetle child! Left in a ditch, Nance; onlythink!”“The child,” said the girl, suddenly looking up, “is better wherehe is, than among us; and if no harm comes to Bill from it, I hopehe lies dead in the ditch, and that his young bones may rot there.”“What!” cried the Jew, in amazement.“Ay, I do,” returned the girl, meeting his gaze. “I shall be gladto have him away from my eyes, and to know that the worst isover. I can’t bear to have him about me. The sight of him turns meagainst myself, and all of you.”“Pooh!” said the Jew scornfully. “You’re drunk.”“Am I?” cried the girl bitterly. “It’s no fault of yours, if I am not!You’d never have me anything else, if you had your will, exceptnow—the humour doesn’t suit you, doesn’t it?”“No!” rejoined the Jew furiously. “It does not.”“Change it, then!” responded the girl, with a laugh.“Change it!” exclaimed the Jew, exasperated beyond all boundsby his companion’s unexpected obstinacy, and the vexation of thenight, “I WILL change it! Listen to me, you drab. Listen to me,who with six words, can strangle Sikes as surely as if I had hisbull’s throat between my fingers now. If he comes back, and leavesthe boy behind him; if he gets off free, and, dead or alive, fails torestore him to me; murder him yourself if you would have himescape Jack Ketch. And do it the moment he sets foot in this room,or mind me, it will be too late!”“What is all this?” cried the girl involuntarily.“What is it?” pursued Fagin, mad with rage. “When the boy’sworth hundreds of pounds to me, am I to lose what chance threwCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 270me in the way of getting safely, through the whims of a drunkengang that I could whistle away the lives of! And me bound, too, toa born devil that only wants the will, and has the power to, to—”Panting for breath, the old man stammered for a word; and in thatinstant checked the torrent of his wrath, and changed his wholedemeanour. A moment before, his clenched hands had graspedthe air; his eyes had dilated; and his face grown livid with passion;but now, he shrank into a chair, and, cowering together, trembledwith the apprehension of having himself disclosed some hiddenvillainy. After a short silence, he ventured to look round at hiscompanion. He appeared somewhat reassured, on beholding herin the same listless attitude from which he had first roused her.“Nancy, dear!” croaked the Jew, in his usual voice. “Did youmind me, dear?”“Don’t worry me now, Fagin!” replied the girl, raising her headlanguidly. “If Bill has not done it this time, he will another. He hasdone many a good job for you, and will do many more when hecan; and when he can’t he won’t; so no more about that.”“Regarding this boy, my dear?” said the Jew, rubbing thepalms of his hands nervously together.“The boy must take his chance with the rest,” interruptedNancy hastily; “and I say again, I hope he is dead, and out ofharm’s way, and out of yours—that is, if Bill comes to no harm.And if Toby got clear off, Bill’s pretty sure to be safe; for Bill’sworth two of Toby any time.”“And about what I was saying, my dear?” observed the Jew,keeping his glistening eye steadily upon her.“You must say it all over again, if it’s anything you want me todo,” rejoined Nancy; “and if it is, you had better wait tillCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 271tomorrow. You put me up for a minute; but now I’m stupid again.”Fagin put several other questions, all with the same drift ofascertaining whether the girl had profited by his unguarded hints;but, she answered them so readily, and was withal so utterlyunmoved by his searching looks that his original impression of herbeing more than a trifle in liquor, was confirmed. Nancy, indeed,was not exempt from a failing which was very common among theJew’s female pupils; and in which, in their tenderer years, theywere rather encouraged than checked. Her disorderedappearance, and a wholesale perfume of Geneva which pervadedthe apartment, afforded strong confirmatory evidence of thejustice of the Jew’s supposition; and when, after indulging in thetemporary display of violence above described, she subsided, firstinto dullness, and afterwards into a compound of feelings; underthe influence of which she shed tears one minute, and in the nextgave utterance to various exclamations of “Never say die!” anddivers calculations as to what might be the amount of the odds solong as a lady or gentleman was happy, Mr. Fagin, who had hadconsiderable experience of such matters in his time, saw, withgreat satisfaction, that she was very far gone indeed.Having eased his mind by this discovery, and havingaccomplished his twofold object of imparting to the girl what hehad, that night, heard, and of ascertaining, with his own eyes, thatSikes had not returned, Mr. Fagin again turned his facehomeward; leaving his young friend asleep, with her head uponthe table.It was within an hour of midnight. The weather being dark, andpiercing cold, he had no great temptation to loiter. The sharp windthat scoured the streets, seemed to have cleared them ofCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 272passengers, as of dust and mud, for few people were abroad, andthey were to all appearance hastening fast home. It blew from theright quarter for the Jew, however, and straight before it he went;trembling, and shivering, as every fresh gust drove him rudely onhis way. He had reached the corner of his own street, and wasalready fumbling in his pocket for the door-key, when a darkfigure emerged from a projecting entrance which lay in deepshadow, and, crossing the road, glided up to him unperceived.“Fagin!” whispered a voice close to his ear.“Ah!” said the Jew, turning quickly round, “is that—”“Yes!” interrupted the stranger. “I have been lingering herethese two hours. Where the devil have you been?”“On your business, my dear,” replied the Jew, glancing uneasilyat his companion, and slackening his pace as he spoke. “On yourbusiness all night.”“Oh, of course!” said the stranger, with a sneer. “Well; andwhat’s come of it?”“Nothing good,” said the Jew.“Nothing bad, I hope?” said the stranger, stopping short, andturning a startled look on his companion.The Jew shook his head, and was about to reply, when thestranger, interrupting him, motioned to the house, before whichthey had by this time arrived; remarking, that he had better saywhat he had got to say, under cover; for his blood was chilled withstanding about so long, and the wind blew through him.Fagin looked as if he could have willingly excused himself fromtaking home a visitor at that unseasonable hour; and, indeed,muttered something about having no fire; but, his companionrepeating his request in a peremptory manner, he unlocked theCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 273door, and requested him to close it softly, while he got a light.“It’s as dark as the grave,” said the man, groping forward a fewsteps. “Make haste!”“Shut the door,” whispered Fagin from the end of the passage.As he spoke it closed with a loud noise.“That wasn’t my doing,” said the other man, feeling his way.“The wind blew it to, or it shut of its own accord; one or the other.Look sharp with the light, or I shall knock my brains out againstsomething in this confounded hole.”Fagin stealthily descended the kitchen stairs. After a shortabsence, he returned with a lighted candle, and the intelligencethat Toby Crackit was asleep in the back room below, and that theboys were in the front one. Beckoning the man to follow him, heled the way upstairs.“We can say the few words we’ve got to say in here, my dear,”said the Jew, throwing open a door on the first floor; “and as thereare holes in the shutters, and we never show lights to ourneighbours, we’ll set the candle on the stairs. There!”With those words, the Jew, stooping down, placed the candle onan upper flight of stairs, exactly opposite to the room door. Thisdone, he led the way into the apartment; which was destitute of allmovables save a broken armchair, and an old couch or sofawithout covering, which stood behind the door. Upon this piece offurniture, the stranger sat himself with the air of a weary man; andthe Jew, drawing up the armchair opposite, they sat face to face. Itwas not quite dark; for the door was partially open; and the candleoutside, threw a feeble reflection on the opposite wall.They conversed for some time in whispers. Though nothing ofthe conversation was distinguishable beyond a few disjointedCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 274words here and there, a listener might easily have perceived thatFagin appeared to be defending himself against some remarks ofthe stranger; and that the latter was in a state of considerableirritation. They might have been talking, thus, for a quarter of anhour or more, when Monks—by which name the Jew haddesignated the strange man several times in the course of their