Oliver Twist(雾都孤儿(孤星血泪))-51

“Bolter, Bolter! Poor lad!” said Fagin, looking up with anexpression of devilish anticipation, and speaking slowly and withmarked emphasis. “He’s tired—tired with watching for her solong—watching for her, Bill.”“Wot d’ye mean?” asked Sikes, drawing back.Fagin made no answer, but bending over the sleeper again,hauled him into a sitting posture. When his assumed name hadbeen repeated several time, Noah rubbed his eyes, and, giving aheavy yawn, looked sleepily about him.“Tell me that again—once again, just for him to hear,” said theJew, pointing to Sikes as he spoke.“Tell yer what?” asked the sleepy Noah, shaking himselfpettishly.“That about—NANCY,” said Fagin, clutching Sikes by thewrist, as if to prevent his leaving the house before he had heardenough. “You followed her?”“Yes.”“To London Bridge?”“Yes.”“Where she met two people?”“So she did.”“A gentleman and a lady that she had gone to of her own accordbefore, who asked her to give up all her pals, and Monks first,which she did—and to describe him, which she did—and to tellher what house it was that we meet at, and go to, which she did—and where it could be best watched from, which she did—andwhat time the people went there, which she did. She did all this.She told it all every word without a threat, without a murmur—Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 506she did—did she not?” cried Fagin, half-mad with fury.“All right,” replied Noah, scratching his head. “That’s just whatit was!”“What did they say about last Sunday?”“About last Sunday!” replied Noah, considering. “Why, I toldyer that before.”“Again. Tell it again!” cried Fagin, tightening his grasp onSikes, and brandishing his other hand aloft, as the foam flew fromhis lips.“They asked her,” said Noah, who, as he grew more wakeful,seemed to have a dawning perception who Sikes was—“theyasked her why she didn’t come last Sunday, as she promised. Shesaid she couldn’t.”“Why—why? Tell him that.”“Because she was forcibly kept at home by Bill, the man shehad told them of before,” replied Noah.“What more of him?” cried Fagin. “What more of the man shehad told them of before? Tell him that, tell him that.”“Why, that she couldn’t very easily get out of doors unless heknew where she was going to,” said Noah; “and so the first timeshe went to see the lady, she—ha! ha! ha! it made me laugh whenshe said it, that it did— she gave him a drink of laudanum.”“Hell’s fire!” cried Sikes, breaking fiercely from Fagin. “Let mego!” Flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, anddarted, wildly and furiously, up the stairs.“Bill, Bill!” cried Fagin, following him hastily. “A word. Only aword.”The word would not have been exchanged, but that thehousebreaker was unable to open the door, on which he wasCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 507expending fruitless oaths and violence, when the Jew camepanting up.“Let me out,” said Sikes. “Don’t speak to me; it’s not safe. Letme out, I say!”“Hear me speak a word,” rejoined Fagin, laying his hand uponthe lock. “You won’t be—”“Well,” replied the other.“You won’t be—too—violent, Bill?”The day was breaking, and there was light enough for the mento see each other’s faces. They exchanged one brief glance; therewas a fire in the eyes of both, which could not be mistaken. “Imean,” said Fagin, showing that he felt all disguise was nowuseless, “not too violent for safety. Be crafty, Bill, and not toobold.”Sikes made no reply; but, pulling open the door, of which Faginhad turned the lock, dashed into the silent streets.Without one pause, or moment’s consideration, without onceturning his head to the right or left, or raising his eyes to the sky,or lowering them to the ground, but looking straight before himwith savage resolution, his teeth so tightly compressed that thestrained jaw seemed starting through his skin, the robber held onhis headlong course, nor muttered a word, nor relaxed a muscle,until he reached his own door. He opened it, softly, with a key;strode lightly up the stairs; and entering his own room, double-locked the door, and lifting a heavy table against it, drew back thecurtain of the bed.The girl was lying, half-dressed, upon it. He had roused herfrom her sleep, for she raised herself with a hurried and startledlook.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 508“Get up!” said the man.“It is you, Bill!” said the girl, with an expression of pleasure athis return.“It is,” was the reply. “Get up.”There was a candle burning, but the man hastily drew it fromthe candlestick and hurled it under the grate. Seeing the faintlight of early day without, the girl rose to undraw the curtain.“Let it be,” said Sikes, thrusting his hand before her. “There’slight enough for wot I’ve got to do.”“Bill,” said the girl, in the low voice of alarm, “why do you looklike that at me?”The robber sat regarding her for a few seconds, with dilatednostrils and heaving breast; and then, grasping her by the headand throat, dragged her into the middle of the room, and lookingonce towards the door, placed his heavy hand upon her mouth.“Bill, Bill!” gasped the girl, wrestling with the strength ofmortal fear; “I—won’t scream or cry—not once—hear me—speakto me—tell me what I have done?”“You know, you she-devil!” returned the robber, suppressinghis breath. “You were watched tonight; every word you said washeard.”“Then spare my life for the love of Heaven, as I spared yours,”rejoined the girl, clinging to him. “Bill, dear Bill, you cannot havethe heart to kill me. Oh! think of all I have given up, only this onenight, for you. You shall have time to think, and save yourself thiscrime; I will not loose my hold, you cannot throw me off. Bill, Bill,for dear God’s sake, for your own, for mine, stop before you spillmy blood! I have been true to you, upon my guilty soul I have!”The man struggled violently to release his arms; but those ofCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 509the girl were clasped round his, and tear her as he would, he couldnot tear them away.“Bill,” cried the girl, striving to lay her head upon his breast,“the gentleman and that dear lady, told me tonight of a home insome foreign country where I could end my days in solitude andpeace. Let me see them again, and beg them, on my knees, to showthe same mercy and goodness to you; and let us both leave thisdreadful place, and far apart lead better lives, and forget how wehave lived, except in prayers, and never see each other more. It isnever too late to repent. They told me so—I feel it now—but wemust have time—a little, little time!”The housebreaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol. Thecertainty of immediate detection if he fired, flashed across hismind even in the midst of his fury; and he beat it twice with all theforce he could summon, upon the upturned face that almosttouched his own.She staggered and fell, nearly blinded with the blood thatrained down from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself,with difficulty, on her knees, drew from her bosom a whitehandkerchief—Rose Maylie’s own—and holding it up, in herfolded hands, as high towards Heaven as her feeble strengthwould allow, breathed one prayer for mercy to her Maker.It was a ghastly figure to look upon. The murderer, staggeringbackward to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand,seized a heavy club and struck her down.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 510Chapter 48The Flight Of Sikes.O f all bad deeds that, under cover of the darkness, had beencommitted within wide London’s bounds since night hungover it, that was the worst. Of all the horrors that rosewith an ill scent upon the morning air, that was the foulest andmost cruel.The sun—the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, butnew life, and hope, and freshness to man—burst upon thecrowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly colouredglass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome androtten crevice, it shed its equal ray. It lighted up the room wherethe murdered woman lay. It did. He tried to shut it out, but itwould stream in. If the sight had been a ghastly one in the dullmorning, what was it now, in all that brilliant light!He had not moved; he had been afraid to stir. There had been amoan and motion of the hand; and, with terror added to rage, hehad struck and struck again. Once he threw a rug over it; but itwas worse to fancy the eyes, and imagine them moving towardshim, than to see them glaring upward, as if watching the reflectionof the pool of gore that quivered and danced in the sunlight on theceiling. He had plucked it off again. And there was the body—mere flesh and blood, no more—but such flesh, and so muchblood!He struck a light, kindled a fire, and thrust the club into it.There was hair upon the edge, which blazed and shrank into aCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 511light cinder, and, caught by the air, whirled up the chimney. Eventhat frightened him, sturdy as he was; but he held the weapon tillit broke, and then piled it on the coals to burn away, and smoulderinto ashes. He washed himself, and rubbed his clothes; there werespots that would not be removed, but he cut the pieces out, andburned them. How those stains were dispersed about the room!The very feet of the dog were bloody.All this time he had, never once, turned his back upon thecorpse; no, not for a moment. Such preparations completed, hemoved, backward, towards the door, dragging the dog with him,lest he should soil his feet anew and carry out new evidences ofthe crime into the streets. He shut the door softly, locked it, tookthe key, and left the house.He crossed over, and glanced up at the window, to be sure thatnothing was visible from the outside. There was the curtain stilldrawn, which she would have opened to admit the light she neversaw again. It lay nearly under there. He knew that. God, how thesun poured down upon the very spot!The glance was instantaneous. It was a relief to have got free ofthe room. He whistled on the dog and walked rapidly away.He went through Islington; strode up the hill at Highgate onwhich stands the stone in honour of Whittington; turned down toHighgate Hill, unsteady of purpose, and uncertain where to go;struck off to the right again, almost as soon as he began to descendit; and taking the footpath across the fields, skirted Caen Wood,and so came out on Hampstead Heath. Traversing the hollow bythe Vale of Health, he mounted the opposite bank, and crossingthe road which joins the villages of Hampstead and Highgate,made along the remaining portion of the heath to the fields atCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 512North End, in one of which he laid himself down under a hedge,and slept.Soon he was up again, and away—not far into the country, butbackwards towards London by the highroad—then back again—then over another part of the same ground as he alreadytraversed—then wandering up and down in fields, and lying onditches’ brinks to rest, and starting up to make for some otherspot, and do the same, and ramble on again.Where could he go, that was near and not too public, to getsome meat and drink? Hendon. That was a good place, not far off,and out of most people’s way. Thither he directed his steps—running sometimes, and sometimes, with a strange perversity,loitering at a snail’s pace, or stopping altogether and idly breakingthe hedges with his stick. But when he got there, all the people hemet—the very children at the doors—seemed to view him withsuspicion. Back he turned again, without the courage to purchasebit or drop, though he had tasted no food for many hours; andonce more he lingered on the heath uncertain where to go.He wandered over miles and miles of ground, and still cameback to the old place. Morning and noon had passed, and the daywas on the wane, and still he rambled to and fro, and up anddown, and round and round, and still lingered about the samespot. At last he got away, and shaped his course for Hatfield.It was nine o’clock at night, when the man, quite tired out, andthe dog, limping and lame from the unaccustomed exercise,turned down the hill by the church of the quiet village, andplodding along the little street, crept into a small public-house,whose scanty light had guided them to the spot. There was a firein the taproom, and some country labourers were drinking beforeCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 513it. They made room for the stranger, but he sat down in thefarthest corner, and ate and drank alone, or rather with his dog, towhom he cast a morsel of food from time to time.The conversation of the men assembled here, turned upon theneighbouring land, and farmers; and when those topics wereexhausted, upon the age of some old man who had been buried onthe previous Sunday; the young men present considering him veryold, and the old men present declaring him to have been quiteyoung—not older, one white-haired grandfather said, than hewas—with ten or fifteen year of life in him at least if he had takencare; if he had taken care.There was nothing to attract attention, or excite alarm in this.The robber, after paying his reckoning, sat silent and unnoticed inthe corner, and had almost dropped asleep, when he was half-awakened by the noisy entrance of a newcomer.This was an antic fellow, half-pedlar and half-mountebank, whotravelled about the country on foot to vend hones, strops, razors,wash-balls, harness-paste, medicine for dogs—and horses, cheapperfumery, cosmetics, and such like wares, which he carried in acase slung to his back. His entrance was the signal for varioushomely jokes with the countrymen, which slackened not until hehad made his supper, and opened his box of treasures, when heingeniously contrived to unite business with amusement.“And what be that stoof? Good to eat, Harry?” asked a grinningcountryman, pointing to some composition-cakes in one corner.“This,” said the fellow, producing one—“this is the infallibleand invaluable composition for removing all sorts of stain, rust,dirt, mildew, spick, speck, spot, or spatter, from silk, satin, linen,cambric, cloth, crape, stuff, carpet, merino, muslin, bombazeen, orCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 514woollen stuff. Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains,paint-stains, pitch-stains, any stains, all come out at one rub withthe infallible and invaluable composition. If a lady stains herhonour, she has only need to swallow one cake and she’s cured atonce—for it’s poison. If a gentleman wants to prove this, he hasonly need to bolt one little square, and he has put it beyondquestion—for it’s quite as satisfactory as a pistol-bullet, and agreat deal nastier in the flavour, consequently the more credit intaking it. One penny a square. With all these virtues, one penny asquare!”There were two buyers directly, and more of the listenersplainly hesitated. The vendor observing this, increased inloquacity.“It’s all bought up as fast as it can be made,” said the fellow.“There are fourteen water-mills, six steam-engines, and a galvanicbattery, always a-working upon it, and they can’t make it fastenough, though the men work so hard that they die off, and thewidows is pensioned directly, with twenty pound a year for each ofthe children, and a premium of fifty for twins. One penny asquare! Two halfpence is all the same, and four farthings isreceived with joy. One penny a square! Wine-stains, fruit-stains,beer-stains, water-stains, paint-stains, pitch-stains, mud-stains,blood-stains! Here is a stain upon the hat of a gentleman incompany, that I’ll take clean out, before he can order me a pint ofale.”“Ah!” cried Sikes, starting up. “Give that back.”