Oliver Twist(雾都孤儿(孤星血泪))-30

garden gate; it was unlocked, and swung open on its hinges. Hetottered across the lawn; climbed the steps; knocked faintly at thedoor; and, his whole strength failing him, sank down against oneof the pillars of the little portico.It happened that about this time, Mr. Giles, Brittles, and thetinker were recruiting themselves, after the fatigues and terrors ofthe 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 loftyaffability, which, while it gratified, could not fail to remind them ofhis superior position in society. But death, fires, and burglary,Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 295make all men equals; so Mr. Giles sat with his legs stretched outbefore the kitchen fender, leaning his left arm on the table, while,with his right, he illustrated a circumstantial and minute accountof the robbery, to which his hearers (but especially the cook andhousemaid, who were of the party) listened with breathlessinterest.“It was about half-past two,” said Mr. Giles, “or I wouldn’tswear that it mightn’t have been a little nearer three, when I wokeup, and, turning round in my bed, as it might be so (here Mr. Gilesturned round in his chair, and pulled the corner of the table-clothover him to imitate bed-clothes), I fancied I heerd a noise.”At this point of the narrative the cook turned pale, and askedthe housemaid to shut the door; who asked Brittles, who asked thetinker, who pretended not to hear.“—Heerd a noise,” continued Mr. Giles. “I says, at first, ‘This isillusion’; and was composing myself off to sleep, when I heerd thenoise again, distinct.”“What sort of a noise?” asked the cook.“A kind of a busting noise,” replied Mr. Giles, looking roundhim.“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 thistime, it had a busting sound. I turned down the clothes,”continued Giles, rolling back the tablecloth, “sat up in bed; andlistened.”The cook and housemaid simultaneously ejaculated, “Lor!” anddrew their chairs closer together.“I heerd it now, quite apparent,” resumed Mr. Giles.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 296“‘Somebody,’ I says, ‘is forcing of a door, or window; what’s to bedone? I’ll call up that poor lad, Brittles, and save him from beingmurdered in his bed; or his throat,’ I says, ‘may be cut, from hisright ear to his left, without his ever knowing it’.”Here, all eyes were turned upon Brittles, who fixed his upon thespeaker, and stared at him, with his mouth wide open, and his faceexpressive of the most unmitigated horror.“I tossed off the clothes,” said Giles, throwing away the tablecloth, and looking very hard at the cook and housemaid, “got softlyout of bed; drew on a pair of—”“Ladies present, Mr. Giles,” murmured the tinker.“Of shoes, sir,” said Giles, turning upon him, and laying greatemphasis on the word; “seized the loaded pistol that always goesupstairs with the plate-basket; and walked on tiptoes 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! prettynear 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, andgroped our way downstairs in the pitch dark—as it might be so.”Mr. Giles had risen from his seat, and taken two steps with hisCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 297eyes shut, to accompany his description with appropriate action,when he started violently, in common with the rest of thecompany, and hurried back to his chair. The cook and housemaidscreamed.“It was a knock,” said Mr. Giles, assuming perfect serenity.“Open the door, somebody.”Nobody moved.“It seems a strange sort of a thing, a knock coming at such atime in the morning,” said Mr. Giles, surveying the pale faceswhich surrounded him, and looking very blank himself; “but thedoor 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, andso held that the inquiry could not have any application to him; atall events, he tendered no reply. Mr. Giles directed an appealingglance at the tinker; but he had suddenly fallen asleep. Thewomen were out of the question.“If Brittles would rather open the door, in the presence ofwitnesses,” said Mr. Giles, after a short silence, “I am ready tomake one.”“So am I,” said the tinker, waking up, as suddenly as he hadfallen asleep.Brittles capitulated on these terms; and the party beingsomewhat reassured by the discovery (made on throwing open theshutters) that it was now broad day, took their way upstairs, withthe dogs in front, and the two women, who were afraid to staybelow, bringing up the rear. By the advice of Mr. Giles, they alltalked very loud, to warn any evil-disposed person outside, thatthey were strong in numbers; and by a master-stroke of policy,Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 298originating in the brain of the same ingenious gentleman, thedogs’ tails were well pinched, in the hall, to make them barksavagely.These precautions having been taken, Mr. Giles held on fast bythe tinker’s arm (to prevent his running away, as he pleasantlysaid), and gave the word of command to open the door. Brittlesobeyed; the group, peeping timorously over each other’sshoulders, beheld no more formidable object than poor littleOliver Twist, speechless and exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes,and mutely solicited their compassion.“A boy!” exclaimed Mr. Giles, valiantly pushing the tinker intothe background. “What’s the matter with the Eh?—Why—Brittles—look here—don’t you know?”Brittles, who had got behind the door to open it, no sooner sawOliver, than he uttered a loud cry. Mr. Giles, seizing the boy by oneleg and one arm (fortunately not the broken limb) lugged himstraight into the hall, and deposited him at full length on the floorthereof.“Here he is!” bawled Giles, calling, in a state of greatexcitement, up the staircase; “here’s one of the thieves, ma’am!Here’s a thief, miss! Wounded, miss! I shot him, miss; and Brittlesheld the light.”“In a lantern, miss,” cried Brittles, applying one hand to theside of his mouth, so that his voice might travel the better.The two women-servants ran upstairs to carry the intelligencethat Mr. Giles had captured a robber; and the tinker busiedhimself in endeavouring to restore Oliver, lest he should die beforehe could be hanged. In the midst of all this noise and commotionthere was heard a sweet female voice, which quelled it in anCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 299instant.“Giles!” whispered the voice from the stair-head.“I’m here, miss,” replied Mr. Giles. “Don’t be frightened, miss; Iain’t much injured. He didn’t make a very desperate resistance,miss! I was soon too many for him.”“Hush!” replied the young lady; “you frighten my aunt as muchas the thieves did. Is the poor creature much hurt?”“Wounded desperate, miss,” replied Giles, with indescribablecomplacency.“He looks as if he was a-going, miss,” bawled Brittles, in thesame manner as before. “Wouldn’t you like to come and look athim, miss, in case he should ?”“Hush, pray, there’s a good man!” rejoined the lady. “Waitquietly only one instant, while I speak to aunt.”With a footstep as soft and gentle as the voice, the speakertripped away. She soon returned, with the direction that thewounded person was to be carried, carefully, upstairs to Mr.Giles’s room; and that Brittles was to saddle the pony and betakehimself instantly to Chertsey; from which place, he was todespatch, with all speed, a constable and doctor.“But won’t you take one look at him first, miss?” asked Mr.Giles, with as much pride as if Oliver were some bird of rareplumage, that he had skilfully brought down. “Not one little peep,miss?”“Not now, for the world,” replied the young lady. “Poor fellow!Oh! treat him kindly, Giles, for my sake!”The old servant looked up at the speaker, as she turned away,with a glance as proud and admiring as if she had been his ownchild. Then, bending over Oliver, he helped to carry him upstairs,Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 300with the care and solicitude of a woman.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 301Chapter 29Has An Introductory Account Of The Inmates OfThe House, To Which Oliver Resorted.In a handsome room, though its furniture had rather the air ofold-fashioned comfort, than of modern elegance, there sat twoladies at a well-spread breakfast-table. Mr. Giles, dressed withscrupulous care in a full suit of black, was in attendance uponthem. He had taken his station some halfway between thesideboard and the breakfast-table; and, with his body drawn up toits full height, his head thrown back, and inclined the merest trifleon one side, his left leg advanced, and his right hand thrust intohis waistcoat, while his left hung down by his side, grasping awaiter, looked like one who laboured under a very agreeable senseof his own merits and importance.Of the two ladies, one was well advanced in years; but the high-backed oaken chair in which she sat, was not more upright thanshe. Dressed with the utmost nicety and precision, in a quaintmixture of bygone costume, with some slight concessions to theprevailing taste, which rather served to point the old stylepleasantly than to impair its effect, she sat, in a stately manner,with her hands folded on the table before her. Her eyes (and agehad dimmed but little of their brightness) were attentively fixedupon her young companion.The younger lady was in the lovely bloom and springtime ofwomanhood; at that age, when, if ever angels be for God’s goodpurposes enthroned in mortal forms, they may be, withoutCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 302impiety, supposed to abide in such as hers.She was not past seventeen. Cast in so slight and exquisite amould; so mild and gentle; so pure and beautiful; that earthseemed not her element, not its rough creatures her fitcompanions. The very intelligence that shone in her deep-blueeye, and was stamped upon her noble head, seemed scarcely ofher age, or of the world; and yet the changing expression ofsweetness and good-humour, the thousand lights that playedabout the face, and left no shadow there; above all, the smile, thecheerful, happy smile, were made for home and fireside peace andhappiness.She was busily engaged in the little offices of the table.Chancing to raise her eyes as the elder lady was regarding her, sheplayfully put back her hair, which was simply braided on herforehead; and threw into her beaming look, such an expression ofaffection and artless loveliness, that blessed spirits might havesmiled to look upon her.“And Brittles has been gone upwards of an hour, has he?”asked the old lady, after a pause.“An hour and twelve minutes, ma’am,” replied Mr. Giles,referring to a silver watch, which he drew forth by a black ribbon.“He is always slow,” remarked the old lady.“Brittles always was a slow boy, ma’am,” replied the attendant.And seeing, by the bye, that Brittles had been a slow boy forupwards of thirty years, there appeared no great probability of hisever being a fast one.“He gets worse instead of better, I think,” said the elder lady.“It is very inexcusable in him if he stops to play with any otherboys,” said the young lady, smiling.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 303Mr. Giles was apparently considering the propriety of indulgingin a respectful smile himself, when a gig drove up to the gardengate, out of which there jumped a fat gentleman, who ran straightup to the door; and who, getting quickly into the house by somemysterious process, burst into the room, and nearly overturnedMr. Giles and the breakfast-table together.“I never heard of such a thing!” exclaimed the fat gentleman.“My dear Mrs. Maylie—bless my soul—in the silence of night,too—I never heard of such a thing!”With these expressions of condolence, the fat gentleman shookhands with both ladies, and drawing up a chair, inquired how theyfound themselves.“You ought to be dead; positively dead with the fright,” said thefat gentleman. “Why didn’t you send? Bless me, my man shouldhave come in a minute; and so would I; and my assistant wouldhave been delighted; or anybody, I’m sure, under suchcircumstances. Dear, dear! So unexpected! In the silence of night,too!”The doctor seemed especially troubled by the fact of therobbery having been unexpected, and attempted in the night-time;as if it were the established custom of gentlemen in the housebreaking way to transact business at noon, and to make anappointment, by post, a day or two previous.“And you, Miss Rose,” said the doctor, turning to the younglady, “I”“Oh! very much so, indeed,” said Rose, interrupting him; “butthere is a poor creature upstairs, whom aunt wishes you to see.”“Ah! to be sure,” replied the doctor, “so there is. That was yourhandiwork, Giles, I understand.”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 304Mr. Giles, who had been feverishly putting the tea-cups torights, blushed very red, and said that he had had that honour.“Honour, eh?” said the doctor; “well, I don’t know; perhaps it’sas honourable to hit a thief in a back kitchen, as to hit your man attwelve paces. Fancy that he fired in the air, and you’ve fought aduel, Giles.”Mr. Giles, who thought this light treatment of the matter anunjust attempt at diminishing his glory, answered respectfully thatit was not for the like of him to judge about that; but he ratherthought it was no joke to the opposite party.“Gad, that’s true!” said the doctor. “Where is he? Show me theway. I’ll look in again, as I come down, Mrs. Maylie. That’s thelittle window that he got in at, eh? Well, I couldn’t have believedit!”Talking all the way, he followed Mr. Giles upstairs; and while heis going upstairs, the reader may be informed, that Mr. Losberne,a surgeon in the neighbourhood, known through a circuit of tenmiles round as “the doctor,” had grown fat, more from good-humour than from good living; and was as kind and hearty, andwithal as eccentric an old bachelor, as will be found in five timesthat space, by any explorer alive.The doctor was absent much longer than either he or the ladieshad anticipated. A large flat box was fetched out of the gig; and abedroom bell was rung very often; and the servants ran up anddownstairs perpetually; from which tokens it was justly concludedthat something important was going on above. At length hereturned; and in reply to an anxious inquiry after his patient,looked very mysterious, and closed the door carefully.“This is a very extraordinary thing, Mrs. Maylie,” said the