Oliver Twist. Volume 1 of 3

“I don’t quite know, ma’am,” said Oliver, without taking his eyes from the canvass; “I have seen so few that I hardly know. What a beautiful, mild face that lady’s is!”

“Ah!” said the old lady, “painters always make ladies out prettier than they are, or they wouldn’t get any custom, child. The man that invented the machine for taking likenesses might have known that would never succeed; it’s a deal too honest, – a deal,” said the old lady, laughing very heartily at her own acuteness.

“Is – is that a likeness, ma’am?” said Oliver.

“Yes,” said the old lady, looking up for a moment from the broth; “that’s a portrait.”

“Whose, ma’am?” asked Oliver eagerly.

“Why, really, my dear, I don’t know,” answered the old lady in a good-humoured manner. “It’s not a likeness of anybody that you or I know, I expect. It seems to strike your fancy, dear.”

“It is so very pretty – so very beautiful,” replied Oliver.

“Why, sure you’re not afraid of it?” said the old lady, observing in great surprise the look of awe with which the child regarded the painting.

“Oh no, no,” returned Oliver quickly; “but the eyes look so sorrowful, and where I sit they seem fixed upon me. It makes my heart beat,” added Oliver in a low voice, “as if it was alive, and wanted to speak to me, but couldn’t.”

“Lord save us!” exclaimed the old lady, starting; “don’t talk in that way, child. You’re weak and nervous after your illness. Let me wheel your chair round to the other side, and then you won’t see it. There,” said the old lady, suiting the action to the word; “you don’t see it now, at all events.”

Oliver did see it in his mind’s eye as distinctly as if he had not altered his position, but he thought it better not to worry the kind old lady; so he smiled gently when she looked at him, and Mrs. Bedwin, satisfied that he felt more comfortable, salted and broke bits of toasted bread into the broth with all the bustle befitting so solemn a preparation. Oliver got through it with extraordinary expedition, and had scarcely swallowed the last spoonful when there came a soft tap at the door. “Come in,” said the old lady; and in walked Mr. Brownlow.

Now, the old gentleman came in as brisk as need be; but he had no sooner raised his spectacles on his forehead, and thrust his hands behind the skirts of his dressing-gown to take a good long look at Oliver, than his countenance underwent a very great variety of odd contortions. Oliver looked very worn and shadowy from sickness, and made an ineffectual attempt to stand up, out of respect to his benefactor, which terminated in his sinking back into the chair again; and the fact is, if the truth must be told, that Mr. Brownlow’s heart being large enough for any six ordinary old gentlemen of humane disposition, forced a supply of tears into his eyes by some hydraulic process which we are not sufficiently philosophical to be in a condition to explain.

“Poor boy, poor boy!” said Mr. Brownlow, clearing his throat. “I’m rather hoarse this morning, Mrs. Bedwin; I’m afraid I have caught cold.”

“I hope not, sir,” said Mrs. Bedwin. “Everything you have had, has been well aired, sir.”

“I don’t know, Bedwin, – I don’t know,” said Mr. Brownlow; “I rather think I had a damp napkin at dinner-time yesterday: but never mind that. How do you feel, my dear?”

“Very happy, sir,” replied Oliver, “and very grateful indeed, sir, for your goodness to me.”

“Good boy,” said Mr. Brownlow stoutly. “Have you given him any nourishment, Bedwin? – any slops, eh?”

“He has just had a basin of beautiful strong broth, sir,” replied Mrs. Bedwin, drawing herself up slightly, and laying a strong emphasis on the last word, to intimate that between slops, and broth well compounded, there existed no affinity or connexion whatsoever.

“Ugh!” said Mr. Brownlow, with a slight shudder; “a couple of glasses of port wine would have done him a great deal more good, – wouldn’t they, Tom White, – eh?”

“My name is Oliver, sir,” replied the little invalid with a look of great astonishment.

“Oliver,” said Mr. Brownlow; “Oliver what? Oliver White, – eh?”

“No, sir, Twist, – Oliver Twist.”

“Queer name,” said the old gentleman. “What made you tell the magistrate your name was White?”

“I never told him so, sir,” returned Oliver in amazement.

This sounded so like a falsehood, that the old gentleman looked somewhat sternly in Oliver’s face. It was impossible to doubt him; there was truth in every one of its thin and sharpened lineaments.

“Some mistake,” said Mr. Brownlow. But, although his motive for looking steadily at Oliver no longer existed, the old idea of the resemblance between his features and some familiar face came upon him so strongly that he could not withdraw his gaze.

“I hope you are not angry with me, sir?” said Oliver, raising his eyes beseechingly.

“No, no,” replied the old gentleman. – “Gracious God, what’s this! – Bedwin, look, look there!”

As he spoke, he pointed hastily to the picture above Oliver’s head, and then to the boy’s face. There was its living copy, – the eyes, the head, the mouth; every feature was the same. The expression was for the instant so precisely alike, that the minutest line seemed copied with an accuracy which was perfectly unearthly.

Oliver knew not the cause of this sudden exclamation, for he was not strong enough to bear the start it gave him, and he fainted away.

CHAPTER XIII

REVERTS TO THE MERRY OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS YOUTHFUL FRIENDS, THROUGH WHOM A NEW ACQUAINTANCE IS INTRODUCED TO THE INTELLIGENT READER, AND CONNECTED WITH WHOM VARIOUS PLEASANT MATTERS ARE RELATED APPERTAINING TO THIS HISTORY

When the Dodger and his accomplished friend Master Bates joined in the hue-and-cry which was raised at Oliver’s heels, in consequence of their executing an illegal conveyance of Mr. Brownlow’s personal property, as has been already described with great perspicuity in a foregoing chapter, they were actuated, as we therein took occasion to observe, by a very laudable and becoming regard for themselves: and forasmuch as the freedom of the subject and the liberty of the individual are among the first and proudest boasts of a true-hearted Englishman, so I need hardly beg the reader to observe that this action must tend to exalt them in the opinion of all public and patriotic men, in almost as great a degree as this strong proof of their anxiety for their own preservation and safety goes to corroborate and confirm the little code of laws which certain profound and sound-judging philosophers have laid down as the mainsprings of all Nature’s deeds and actions; the said philosophers very wisely reducing the good lady’s proceedings to matters of maxim and theory, and by a very neat and pretty compliment to her exalted wisdom and understanding, putting entirely out of sight any considerations of heart, or generous impulse and feeling, as matters totally beneath a female who is acknowledged by universal admission to be so far beyond the numerous little foibles and weaknesses of her sex.

If I wanted any further proof of the strictly philosophical nature of the conduct of these young gentlemen in their very delicate predicament, I should at once find it in the fact (also recorded in a foregoing part of this narrative) of their quitting the pursuit when the general attention was fixed upon Oliver, and making immediately for their home by the shortest possible cut; for although I do not mean to assert that it is the practice of renowned and learned sages at all to shorten the road to any great conclusion, their course indeed being rather to lengthen the distance by various circumlocutions and discursive staggerings, like unto those in which drunken men under the pressure of a too mighty flow of ideas are prone to indulge, still I do mean to say, and do say distinctly, that it is the invariable practice of all mighty philosophers, in carrying out their theories, to evince great wisdom and foresight in providing against every possible contingency which can be supposed at all likely to affect themselves. Thus, to do a great right, you may do a little wrong, and you may take any means which the end to be attained will justify; the amount of the right or the amount of the wrong, or indeed the distinction between the two, being left entirely to the philosopher concerned: to be settled and determined by his clear, comprehensive, and impartial view of his own particular case.

It was not until the two boys had scoured with great rapidity through a most intricate maze of narrow streets and courts, that they ventured to halt by one consent beneath a low and dark archway. Having remained silent here, just long enough to recover breath to speak, Master Bates uttered an exclamation of amusement and delight, and, bursting into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, flung himself upon a door-step, and rolled thereon in a transport of mirth.

“What’s the matter?” inquired the Dodger.

“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Charley Bates.

“Hold your noise,” remonstrated the Dodger, looking cautiously round. “Do you want to be grabbed, stupid?”

“I can’t help it,” said Charley, “I can’t help it. To see him splitting away at that pace, and cutting round the corners, and knocking up against the posts, and starting on again as if he was made of iron as well as them, and me with the wipe in my pocket, singing out arter him – oh, my eye!” The vivid imagination of Master Bates presented the scene before him in too strong colours. As he arrived at this apostrophe, he again rolled upon the door-step, and laughed louder than before.

“What’ll Fagin say?” inquired the Dodger, taking advantage of the next interval of breathlessness on the part of his friend to propound the question.

“What!” repeated Charley Bates.

“Ah, what?” said the Dodger.

“Why, what should he say?” inquired Charley, stopping rather suddenly in his merriment, for the Dodger’s manner was impressive; “what should he say?”

Mr. Dawkins whistled for a couple of minutes, and then, taking off his hat, scratched his head and nodded thrice.

“What do you mean?” said Charley.

“Toor rul lol loo, gammon and spinnage, the frog he wouldn’t, and high cockolorum,” said the Dodger, with a slight sneer on his intellectual countenance.

This was explanatory, but not satisfactory. Master Bates felt it so, and again said, “What do you mean?”

The Dodger made no reply, but putting his hat on again, and gathering the skirts of his long-tailed coat under his arms, thrust his tongue into his cheek, slapped the bridge of his nose some half-dozen times in a familiar but expressive manner, and turning on his heel, slunk down the court. Master Bates followed, with a thoughtful countenance. The noise of footsteps on the creaking stairs a few minutes after the occurrence of this conversation roused the merry old gentleman as he sat over the fire with a saveloy and a small loaf in his left hand, a pocket knife in his right, and a pewter pot on the trivet. There was a rascally smile on his white face as he turned round, and, looking sharply out from under his thick red eyebrows, bent his ear towards the door and listened intently.

“Why, how’s this?” muttered the Jew, changing countenance; “only two of ’em! Where’s the third? They can’t have got into trouble. Hark!”

The footsteps approached nearer; they reached the landing, the door was slowly opened, and the Dodger and Charley Bates entered and closed it behind them.