Oliver Twist. Volume 2 of 3

The elder lady smiled; but her heart was full, and she brushed away a tear as she did so.

“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-by, that Brittles had been a slow boy for upwards of thirty years, there appeared no great probability of his ever 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 other boys,” said the young lady, smiling.

Mr. Giles was apparently considering the propriety of indulging in a respectful smile himself, when a gig drove up to the garden-gate, out of which there jumped a fat gentleman, who ran straight up to the door, and getting quickly into the house by some mysterious process, burst into the room, and nearly overturned Mr. 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 shook hands with both ladies, and drawing up a chair, inquired how they found themselves.

“You ought to be dead – positively dead with the fright,” said the fat gentleman. “Why didn’t you send? Bless me, my man should have come in a minute, and so would I, and my assistant would have been delighted, or anybody, I’m sure, under such circumstances; dear, dear – so unexpected – in the silence of night, too!”

The doctor seemed especially troubled by the fact of the robbery 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 an appointment, by the twopenny post, a day or two previous.

“And you, Miss Rose,” said the doctor, turning to the young lady, “I – ”

“Oh! very much so, indeed,” said Rose, interrupting him; “but there is a poor creature up stairs, whom aunt wishes you to see.”

“Ah! to be sure,” replied the doctor, “so there is. That was your handiwork, Giles, I understand.”

Mr. Giles, who had been feverishly putting the tea-cups to rights, blushed very red, and said that he had had that honour.

“Honour, eh?” said the doctor; “well, I don’t know; perhaps it’s as honourable to hit a thief in a back kitchen as to hit your man at twelve paces. Fancy that he fired in the air, and you’ve fought a duel, Giles.”

Mr. Giles, who thought this light treatment of the matter an unjust attempt at diminishing his glory, answered respectfully, that it was not for the like of him to judge about that, but he rather thought it was no joke to the opposite party.

“‘Gad, that’s true!” said the doctor. “Where is he? Shew me the way. I’ll look in again as I come down, Mrs. Maylie. That’s the little window that he got in at, eh? Well, I couldn’t have believed it.” Talking all the way, he followed Mr. Giles up stairs; and while he is going up stairs, the reader may be informed, that Mr. Losberne, a surgeon in the neighbourhood, known through a circuit of ten miles round as “the doctor,” had grown fat more from goodhumour than from good living, and was as kind and hearty, and withal as eccentric an old bachelor, as will be found in five times that space by any explorer alive.

The doctor was absent much longer than either he or the ladies had anticipated. A large flat box was fetched out of the gig, and a bedroom bell was rung very often, and the servants ran up and down stairs perpetually; from which tokens it was justly concluded that something important was going on above. At length he returned; 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 doctor, standing with his back to the door, as if to keep it shut.

“He is not in danger, I hope?” said the old lady.

“Why, that would not be an extraordinary thing, under the circumstances,” replied the doctor; “though I don’t think he is. Have you seen this thief?”

“No,” rejoined the old lady.

“Nor heard anything about him?”

“No.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” interposed Mr. Giles; “but I was going to tell you about him when Doctor Losberne came in.”

The fact was, that Mr. Giles had not at first been able to bring his mind to the avowal, that he had only shot a boy. Such commendations had been bestowed upon his bravery that he could not, for the life of him, help postponing the explanation for a few delicious minutes, during which he had flourished in the very zenith of a brief reputation for undaunted courage.

“Rose wished to see the man,” said Mrs. Maylie; “but I wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Humph!” rejoined the doctor. “There’s nothing very alarming in his appearance. Have you any objection to see him in my presence?”

“If it be necessary,” replied the old lady, “certainly not.”

“Then I think it is necessary,” said the doctor; “at all events, I am quite sure that you would deeply regret not having done so, if you postponed it. He is perfectly quiet and comfortable now. Allow me – Miss Rose, will you permit me? Not the slightest fear, I pledge you my honour.”

With many more loquacious assurances that they would be agreeably surprised in the aspect of the criminal, the doctor drew the young lady’s arm through one of his, and offering his disengaged hand to Mrs. Maylie, led them, with much ceremony and stateliness, up stairs.

“Now,” said the doctor, in a whisper, as he softly turned the handle of a bedroom-door, “let us hear what you think of him. He has not been shaved very recently, but he doesn’t look at all ferocious notwithstanding. Stop, though – let me see that he is in visiting order first.”

Stepping before them, he looked into the room, and motioning them to advance, closed the door when they had entered, and gently drew back the curtains of the bed. Upon it, in lieu of the dogged, black-visaged ruffian they had expected to behold, there lay a mere child, worn with pain and exhaustion, and sunk into a deep sleep. His wounded arm, bound and splintered up, was crossed upon his breast, and his head reclined upon the other, which was half hidden by his long hair, as it streamed over the pillow.

The honest gentleman held the curtain in his hand, and looked on, for a minute or so, in silence. Whilst he was watching the patient thus, the younger lady glided softly past, and seating herself in a chair by the bedside, gathered Oliver’s hair from his face, and as she stooped over him, her tears fell upon his forehead.

The boy stirred and smiled in his sleep, as though those marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known; as a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or even the mention of a familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes that never were, in this life, which vanish like a breath, and which some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have awakened, for no power of the human mind can ever recall them.

“What can this mean?” exclaimed the elder lady. “This poor child can never have been the pupil of robbers!”

“Vice,” sighed the surgeon, replacing the curtain, “takes up her abode in many temples; and who can say that a fair outside shall not enshrine her?”

“But at so early an age!” urged Rose.

“My dear young lady,” rejoined the surgeon, mournfully shaking his head, “crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered alone. The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims.”

“But, can you – oh, sir! can you, really believe that this delicate boy has been the voluntary associate of the worst outcasts of society?” said Rose, anxiously.

The surgeon shook his head in a manner which intimated that he feared it was very possible; and observing that they might disturb the patient, led the way into an adjoining apartment.

“But even if he has been wicked,” pursued Rose, “think how young he is; think that he may never have known a mother’s love, or even the comfort of a home, and that ill-usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have driven him to herd with the men who have forced him to guilt. Aunt, dear aunt, for mercy’s sake, think of this before you let them drag this sick child to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his chances of amendment. Oh! as you love me, and know that I have never felt the want of parents in your goodness and affection, but that I might have done so, and might have been equally helpless and unprotected with this poor child, have pity upon him before it is too late.”

“My dear love!” said the elder lady, as she folded the weeping girl to her bosom, “do you think I would harm a hair of his head?”

“Oh, no!” replied Rose, eagerly; “not you, aunt, not you!”

“No,” said the old lady, with a trembling lip; “my days are drawing to their close, and may mercy be shewn to me as I shew it to others. What can I do to save him, sir?”

“Let me think, ma’am,” said the doctor; “let me think.”

Mr. Losberne thrust his hands into his pockets, and took several turns up and down the room, often stopping and balancing himself on his toes, and frowning frightfully. After various exclamations of “I’ve got it now” and “no, I haven’t,” and as many renewals of the walking and frowning, he at length made a dead halt, and spoke as follows: —

“I think if you give me a full and unlimited commission to bully Giles and that little boy, Brittles, I can manage it. He is a faithful fellow and an old servant, I know; but you can make it up to him in a thousand ways, and reward him for being such a good shot besides. You don’t object to that?”