Oliver Twist(雾都孤儿(孤星血泪))-29

“They had better not!” said Mr. Bumble, clenching his fist. “Letme see any man, porochial or extra-porochial, as would presumeto do it; and I can tell him that he wouldn’t do it a second time!”Unembellished by any violence of gesticulation, this might haveseemed no very high compliment to the lady’s charms; but, as Mr.Bumble accompanied the threat with many warlike gestures, shewas much touched with this proof of his devotion, and protested,with great admiration, that he was indeed a dove.The dove then turned up his coat collar, and put on his cockedhat; and, having exchanged a long and affectionate embrace withhis future partner, once again braved the cold wind of the night;merely pausing, for a few minutes, in the male paupers’ ward, toabuse them a little, with the view of satisfying himself that hecould fill the office of workhouse-master with needful acerbity.Assured of his qualifications, Mr. Bumble left the building with alight heart, and bright visions of his future promotion, whichserved to occupy his mind until he reached the shop of theundertaker.Now, Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry having gone out to tea andsupper, and Noah Claypole not being at any time disposed to takeupon himself a greater amount of physical exertion than isnecessary to a convenient performance of the two functions ofeating and drinking, the shop was not closed, although it was pastCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 285the usual hour of shutting up. Mr. Bumble tapped with his cane onthe counter several times; but, attracting no attention, andbeholding a light shining through the glass window of the littleparlour at the back of the shop, he made bold to peep in and seewhat was going forward; and when he saw what was goingforward, he was not a little surprised.The cloth was laid for supper; the table was covered with bread-and-butter, plates and glasses; a porter pot and a wine-bottle. Atthe upper end of the table, Mr. Noah Claypole lolled negligently inan easy-chair, with his legs thrown over one of the arms, an openclasp-knife in one hand, and a mass of buttered bread in the other.Close beside him stood Charlotte, opening oysters from a barrel,which Mr. Claypole condescended to swallow, with remarkableavidity. A more than ordinary redness in the region of the youngman’s nose, and a kind of fixed wink in his right eye, denoted thathe was in a slight degree intoxicated; these symptoms wereconfirmed by the intense relish with which he took his oysters, forwhich nothing but a strong appreciation of their cooling propertiesin cases of internal fever, could have sufficiently accounted.“Here’s a delicious fat one, Noah, dear!” said Charlotte; “tryhim, do; only this one.”“What a delicious thing is a oyster!” remarked Mr. Claypole,after he had swallowed it. “What a pity it is, a number of ’emshould ever make you feel uncomfortable; isn’t it, Charlotte?”“It’s quite a cruelty,” said Charlotte.“So it is,” acquiesced Mr. Claypole. “Ain’t yer fond of oysters?”“Not overmuch,” replied Charlotte. “I like to see you eat ’em,Noah, dear, better than eating ’em myself.”“Lord!” said Noah reflectively; “how queer!”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 286“Have another,” said Charlotte. “Here’s one with such abeautiful, delicate beard!”“I can’t manage any more,” said Noah. “I’m very sorry. Comehere, Charlotte, and I’ll kiss yer.”“What!” said Mr. Bumble, bursting into the room. “Say thatagain, sir.”Charlotte uttered a scream, and hid her face in her apron. Mr.Claypole, without making any further change in his position thansuffering his legs to reach the ground, gazed at the beadle indrunken terror.“Say it again, you wile, owdacious fellow!” said Mr. Bumble.“How dare you mention such a thing, sir? And how dare youencourage him, you insolent minx? Kiss her!” exclaimed Mr.Bumble, in strong indignation. “Faugh!”“I didn’t mean to do it!” said Noah, blubbering. “She’s always a-kissing of me, whether I like it, or not.”“Oh, Noah,” cried Charlotte reproachfully.“Yer are; yer know yer are!” retorted Noah. “She’s always adoin’ of it. Mr. Bumble, sir; she chucks me under the chin, please,sir; and makes all manner of love!”“Silence!” cried Mr. Bumble sternly. “Take yourself downstairs,ma’am. Noah, you shut up the shop; say another word till yourmaster comes home, at your peril; and, when he does come home,tell him that Mr. Bumble said he was to send a old woman’s shellafter breakfast tomorrow morning. Do you hear, sir? Kissing!”cried Mr. Bumble, holding up his hands. “The sin and wickednessof the lower orders in this porochial district is frightful! IfParliament don’t take their abominable courses underconsideration, this country’s ruined, and the character of theCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 287peasantry gone for ever!” With these words, the beadle strode,with a lofty and gloomy air, from the undertaker’s premises.And now that we have accompanied him so far on his roadhome, and have made all necessary preparations for the oldwoman’s funeral, let us set on foot a few inquiries after youngOliver Twist, and ascertain whether he be still lying in the ditchwhere Toby Crackit left him.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 288Chapter 28Looks After Oliver, And Proceeds With HisAdventures.“W olves tear your throats!” muttered Sikes, grindinghis teeth. “I wish I was among some of you; you’dhowl the hoarser for it.”As Sikes growled forth this imprecation, with the mostdesperate ferocity that his desperate nature was capable of, herested the body of the wounded boy across his bended knee; andturned his head, for an instant, to look back at his pursuers.There was little to be made out, in the mist and darkness; butthe loud shouting of men vibrated through the air, and the barkingof the neighbouring dogs, roused by the sound of the alarm-bell,resounded in every direction.“Stop, you white-livered hound!” cried the robber, shoutingafter Toby Crackit, who, making the best use of his long legs, wasalready ahead. “Stop!”The repetition of the word brought Toby to a dead standstill.For he was not quite satisfied that he was beyond the range ofpistol-shot; and Sikes was in no mood to be played with.“Bear a hand with the boy,” cried Sikes, beckoning furiously tohis confederate. “Come back!”Toby made a show of returning; but ventured, in a low voice,broken for want of breath, to intimate considerable reluctance ashe came slowly along.“Quicker!” cried Sikes, laying the boy in a dry ditch at his feet,Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 289and drawing a pistol from his pocket. “Don’t play booty with me.”At this moment the noise grew louder. Sikes, again lookinground, could discern that the men who had given chase werealready climbing the gate of the field in which he stood; and that acouple of dogs were some paces in advance of them.“It’s all up, Bill!” cried Toby; “drop the kid, and show ’em yourheels.” With this parting advice, Mr. Crackit, preferring thechance of being shot by his friend, to the certainty of being takenby his enemies, fairly turned tail, and darted off at full speed. Sikesclenched his teeth; took one look around; threw over the prostrateform of Oliver the cape in which he had been hurriedly muffled;ran along the front of the hedge, as if to distract the attention ofthose behind, from the spot where the boy lay; paused, for asecond, before another hedge which met it at right angles; andwhirling his pistol high in the air, cleared it at a bound, and wasgone.“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 haveno particular relish for the sport in which they were engaged,readily answered to the command. Three men, who had by thistime advanced some distance into the field, stopped to takecounsel together.“My advice, or, leastways, I should say, my orders, is,” said thefattest 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 whowas very pale in the face, and very polite; as frightened menfrequently are.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 290“I shouldn’t wish to appear ill-mannered, gentlemen,” said thethird, who had called the dogs back, “Mr. Giles ought to know.”“Certainly,” replied the shorter man; “and whatever Mr. Gilessays, it isn’t our place to contradict him. No, no, I know mysitiwation! Thank my stars, I know my sitiwation.” To tell thetruth, the little man did seem to know his situation, and to knowperfectly well that it was by no means a desirable one; for his teethchattered in his head as he spoke.“You are afraid, Brittles,” said Mr. Giles.“I ain’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 theresponsibility of going home again, imposed upon himself undercover of a compliment. The third man brought the dispute to aclose, 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 ofthe 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 ownedthat he was afraid; upon which, they all three faced about, and ranback again with the completest unanimity, until Mr. Giles (whohad the shortest wind of the party, and was encumbered with aCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 291pitchfork) most handsomely insisted on stopping, to make anapology 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 havecommitted murder—I know I should—if we’d caught one of themrascals.”As the other two were impressed with a similar presentiment;and as their blood, like his, had all gone down again; somespeculation ensued upon the cause of this sudden change in theirtemperament.“I know what it was,” said Mr. Giles; “it was the gate.”“I shouldn’t wonder if it was,” exclaimed Brittles, catching atthe idea.“You may depend upon it,” said Giles, “that that gate stoppedthe flow of the excitement. I felt all mine suddenly going away, as Iwas climbing over it.”By a remarkable coincidence, the other two had been visitedwith the same unpleasant sensation at that precise moment. It wasquite obvious, therefore, that it was the gate; especially as therewas no doubt regarding the time at which the change had takenplace, because all three remembered that they had come in sightof the robbers at the instant of its occurrence.This dialogue was held between the two men who hadsurprised the burglars, and a travelling tinker who had beensleeping in an outhouse, and who had been roused, together withhis two mongrel curs, to join the pursuit. Mr. Giles acted in thedouble capacity of butler and steward to the old lady of themansion; Brittles was a lad of all work, who, having entered herservice a mere child, was treated as a promising young boy still,Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 292though he was something past thirty.Encouraging each other with such converse as this; but,keeping very close together, notwithstanding, and lookingfurtively round, whenever a fresh gust rattled through the boughs;the three men hurried back to a tree, behind which they had lefttheir lantern, lest its light should inform the thieves in whatdirection to fire. Catching up the light, they made the best of theirway home, at a good round trot; and long after their dusky formshad ceased to be discernible, the light might have been seentwinkling and dancing in the distance, like some exhalation of thedamp and gloomy atmosphere through which it was swiftly borne.The air grew colder, as day came slowly on; and the mist rolledalong the ground like a dense cloud of smoke. The grass was wet;the pathways, and low places were all mire and water; and thedamp breath of an unwholesome wind went languidly by, with ahollow moaning. Still, Oliver lay motionless and insensible on thespot where Sikes had left him.Morning drew on apace. The air became more sharp andpiercing, as its first dull hue—the death of night, rather than thebirth of day—glimmered faintly in the sky. The objects which hadlooked dim and terrible in the darkness, grew more and moredefined, and gradually resolved into their familiar shapes. Therain came down, thick and fast, and pattered noisily among theleafless bushes. But Oliver felt it not, as it beat against him; for hestill 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 ashawl, hung heavy and useless at his side; the bandage wassaturated with blood. He was so weak, that he could scarcely raiseCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 293himself into a sitting posture; when he had done so, he lookedfeebly round for help, and groaned with pain. Trembling in everyjoint, from cold and exhaustion, he made an effort to standupright; but, shuddering from head to foot, fell prostrate on theground.After a short return of the stupor in which he had been so longplunged, Oliver, urged by a creeping sickness at his heart, whichseemed to warn him that if he lay there, he must surely die, gotupon his feet, and essayed to walk. His head was dizzy, and hestaggered 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 camecrowding on his mind. He seemed to be still walking betweenSikes and Crackit, who were angrily disputing—for the very wordsthey said, sounded in his ears; and when he caught his ownattention, as it were, by making some violent effort to save himselffrom falling, he found that he was talking to them. Then, he wasalone with Sikes, plodding on as on the previous day; and asshadowy people passed them, he felt the robber’s grasp upon hiswrist. Suddenly, he started back at the report of firearms; thererose in the air, loud cries and shouts; lights gleamed before hiseyes; all was noise and tumult, as some unseen hand bore himhurriedly away. Through all these rapid visions, there ran anundefined, uneasy consciousness of pain, which wearied andtormented him incessantly.Thus he staggered on, creeping almost mechanically, betweenthe 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, thatCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 294it roused him.He looked about, and saw that at no great distance there was ahouse, which perhaps he could reach. Pitying his condition, theymight have compassion on him; and if they did not, it would bebetter, he thought, to die near human beings, than in the lonely,open fields. He summoned up all his strength for one last trial, andbent his faltering steps towards it. As he drew nearer to this house,a feeling came over him that he had seen it before. Heremembered nothing of its details; but the shape and aspect of thebuilding seemed familiar to him.That garden wall! On the grass inside, he had fallen on hisknees last night, and prayed the two men’s mercy. It was the veryhouse they had attempted to rob.Oliver felt such fear come over him when he recognised theplace, that, for the instant, he forgot the agony of his wound, andthought only of flight. Flight! He could scarcely stand; and if hewere in full possession of all the best powers of his slight andyouthful frame, whither could he fly? He pushed against the