Oliver Twist. Volume 1 of 3

“A porochial life, ma’am,” continued Mr. Bumble, striking the table with his cane, “is a life of worry, and vexation, and hardihood; but all public characters, as I may say, must suffer prosecution.”

Mrs. Mann, not very well knowing what the beadle meant, raised her hands with a look of sympathy, and sighed.

“Ah! You may well sigh, Mrs. Mann!” said the beadle.

Finding she had done right, Mrs. Mann sighed again, evidently to the satisfaction of the public character, who, repressing a complacent smile by looking sternly at his cocked hat, said,

“Mrs. Mann, I am a-going to London.”

“Lauk, Mr. Bumble!” said Mrs. Mann, starting back.

“To London, ma’am,” resumed the inflexible beadle, “by coach; I and two paupers, Mrs. Mann. A legal action is coming on about a settlement, and the board has appointed me – me, Mrs. Mann – to depose to the matter before the quarter-sessions at Clerkinwell; and I very much question,” added Mr. Bumble, drawing himself up, “whether the Clerkinwell Sessions will not find themselves in the wrong box before they have done with me.”

“Oh! you mustn’t be too hard upon them, sir,” said Mrs. Mann coaxingly.

“The Clerkinwell Sessions have brought it upon themselves, ma’am,” replied Mr. Bumble; “and if the Clerkinwell Sessions find that they come off rather worse than they expected, the Clerkinwell Sessions have only themselves to thank.”

There was so much determination and depth of purpose about the menacing manner in which Mr. Bumble delivered himself of these words, that Mrs. Mann appeared quite awed by them. At length she said,

“You’re going by coach, sir? I thought it was always usual to send them paupers in carts.”

“That’s when they’re ill, Mrs. Mann,” said the beadle. “We put the sick paupers into open carts in the rainy weather, to prevent their taking cold.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Mann.

“The opposition coach contracts for these two, and takes them cheap,” said Mr. Bumble. “They are both in a very low state, and we find it would come two pound cheaper to move ’em than to bury ’em, – that is, if we can throw ’em upon another parish, which I think we shall be able to do, if they don’t die upon the road to spite us. Ha! ha! ha!”

When Mr. Bumble had laughed a little while, his eyes again encountered the cocked hat, and he became grave.

“We are forgetting business, ma’am,” said the beadle; – “here is your porochial stipend for the month.”

Wherewith Mr. Bumble produced some silver money, rolled up in paper, from his pocket-book, and requested a receipt, which Mrs. Mann wrote.

“It’s very much blotted, sir,” said the farmer of infants; “but it’s formal enough, I dare say. Thank you, Mr. Bumble, sir; I am very much obliged to you, I’m sure.”

Mr. Bumble nodded blandly in acknowledgment of Mrs. Mann’s curtsey, and inquired how the children were.

“Bless their dear little hearts!” said Mrs. Mann with emotion, “they’re as well as can be, the dears! Of course, except the two that died last week, and little Dick.”

“Isn’t that boy no better?” inquired Mr. Bumble. Mrs. Mann shook her head.

“He’s a ill-conditioned, vicious, bad-disposed porochial child that,” said Mr. Bumble angrily. “Where is he?”

“I’ll bring him to you in one minute, sir,” replied Mrs. Mann. “Here, you Dick!”

After some calling, Dick was discovered; and having had his face put under the pump, and dried upon Mrs. Mann’s gown, he was led into the awful presence of Mr. Bumble, the beadle.

The child was pale and thin; his cheeks were sunken, and his eyes large and bright. The scanty parish dress, the livery of his misery, hung loosely upon his feeble body; and his young limbs had wasted away like those of an old man.

Such was the little being who stood trembling beneath Mr. Bumble’s glance, not daring to lift his eyes from the floor, and dreading even to hear the beadle’s voice.

“Can’t you look at the gentleman, you obstinate boy?” said Mrs. Mann.

The child meekly raised his eyes, and encountered those of Mr. Bumble.

“What’s the matter with you, porochial Dick?” inquired Mr. Bumble with well-timed jocularity.

“Nothing, sir,” replied the child faintly.

“I should think not,” said Mrs. Mann, who had of course laughed very much at Mr. Bumble’s exquisite humour. “You want for nothing, I’m sure.”

“I should like – ” faltered the child.

“Hey-day!” interposed Mrs. Mann, “I suppose you’re going to say that you do want for something, now? Why, you little wretch – ”

“Stop, Mrs. Mann, stop!” said the beadle, raising his hand with a show of authority. “Like what, sir; eh?”

“I should like,” faltered the child, “if somebody that can write, would put a few words down for me on a piece of paper, and fold it up, and seal it, and keep it for me after I am laid in the ground.”

“Why, what does the boy mean?” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, on whom the earnest manner and wan aspect of the child had made some impression, accustomed as he was to such things. “What do you mean, sir?”

“I should like,” said the child, “to leave my dear love to poor Oliver Twist, and to let him know how often I have sat by myself and cried to think of his wandering about in the dark nights with nobody to help him; and I should like to tell him,” said the child, pressing his small hands together, and speaking with great fervour, “that I was glad to die when I was very young; for, perhaps, if I lived to be a man, and grew old, my little sister, who is in heaven, might forget me, or be unlike me; and it would be so much happier if we were both children there together.”

Mr. Bumble surveyed the little speaker from head to foot with indescribable astonishment, and, turning to his companion, said, “They’re all in one story, Mrs. Mann. That out-dacious Oliver has demoralized them all!”

“I couldn’t have believed it, sir!” said Mrs. Mann, holding up her hands, and looking malignantly at Dick. “I never see such a hardened little wretch!”

“Take him away, ma’am!” said Mr. Bumble imperiously. “This must be stated to the board, Mrs. Mann.”

“I hope the gentlemen will understand that it isn’t my fault, sir?” said Mrs. Mann, whimpering pathetically.

“They shall understand that, ma’am; they shall be acquainted with the true state of the case,” said Mr. Bumble pompously. “There; take him away. I can’t bear the sight of him.”

Dick was immediately taken away, and locked up in the coal-cellar; and Mr. Bumble shortly afterwards took himself off to prepare for his journey.

At six o’clock next morning, Mr. Bumble having exchanged his cocked hat for a round one, and encased his person in a blue great-coat with a cape to it, took his place on the outside of the coach, accompanied by the criminals whose settlement was disputed, with whom, in due course of time, he arrived in London, having experienced no other crosses by the way than those which originated in the perverse behaviour of the two paupers, who persisted in shivering, and complaining of the cold in a manner which, Mr. Bumble declared, caused his teeth to chatter in his head, and made him feel quite uncomfortable, although he had a great-coat on.

Having disposed of these evil-minded persons for the night, Mr. Bumble sat himself down in the house at which the coach stopped, and took a temperate dinner of steaks, oyster-sauce, and porter. Putting a glass of hot gin-and-water on the mantel-piece, he drew his chair to the fire, and, with sundry moral reflections on the too-prevalent sin of discontent and complaining, he then composed himself comfortably to read the paper.

The very first paragraph upon which Mr. Bumble’s eyes rested, was the following advertisement.

“FIVE GUINEAS REWARD.

“Whereas a young boy, named Oliver Twist, absconded, or was enticed, on Thursday evening last, from his home at Pentonville, and has not since been heard of; the above reward will be paid to any person who will give such information as may lead to the discovery of the said Oliver Twist, or tend to throw any light upon his previous history, in which the advertiser is for many reasons warmly interested.”

And then followed a full description of Oliver’s dress, person, appearance, and disappearance, with the name and address of Mr. Brownlow at full length.

Mr. Bumble opened his eyes, read the advertisement slowly and carefully three several times, and in something more than five minutes was on his way to Pentonville, having actually in his excitement left the glass of hot gin-and-water untasted on the mantel-piece.