<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC '-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN' 'http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd'>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<meta content="text/css" http-equiv="Content-Style-Type"/>
<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens</title>

<link href="0.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
<link href="pgepub.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
<meta name="generator" content="Ebookmaker 0.12.19 by Project Gutenberg"/>
</head>
<body class="x-ebookmaker x-ebookmaker-2"><div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img alt="0263m " src="1646223070011777107_0263m.jpg" style="width:100%;" id="id-6643455964042859466"/><br/>
</div>
<h5>
<a href="1646223070011777107_0263.jpg.id-5652742086885853583.wrap-0.html.html" style="width:100%;" id="id-5652742086885853583" title="linked image"><i>Original</i></a>
</h5>
<p>
      At the very instant when he brought the loop over his head previous to
      slipping it beneath his arm-pits, and when the old gentleman
      before-mentioned (who had clung so tight to the railing of the bridge as
      to resist the force of the crowd, and retain his position) earnestly
      warned those about him that the man was about to lower himself down—at
      that very instant the murderer, looking behind him on the roof, threw his
      arms above his head, and uttered a yell of terror.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The eyes again!’ he cried in an unearthly screech.
    </p>
<p>
      Staggering as if struck by lightning, he lost his balance and tumbled over
      the parapet. The noose was on his neck. It ran up with his weight, tight
      as a bow-string, and swift as the arrow it speeds. He fell for
      five-and-thirty feet. There was a sudden jerk, a terrific convulsion of
      the limbs; and there he hung, with the open knife clenched in his
      stiffening hand.
    </p>
<p>
      The old chimney quivered with the shock, but stood it bravely. The
      murderer swung lifeless against the wall; and the boy, thrusting aside the
      dangling body which obscured his view, called to the people to come and
      take him out, for God’s sake.
    </p>
<p>
      A dog, which had lain concealed till now, ran backwards and forwards on
      the parapet with a dismal howl, and collecting himself for a spring,
      jumped for the dead man’s shoulders. Missing his aim, he fell into the
      ditch, turning completely over as he went; and striking his head against a
      stone, dashed out his brains.
    </p>
<p>
<br/><br/>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
<a id="link2HCH0051"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br/><br/><br/><br/>
</div>
<h2 id="pgepubid00058">
      CHAPTER LI — AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE,
      AND COMPREHENDING A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE WITH NO WORD OF SETTLEMENT OR
      PIN-MONEY
    </h2>
<p>
      The events narrated in the last chapter were yet but two days old, when
      Oliver found himself, at three o’clock in the afternoon, in a
      travelling-carriage rolling fast towards his native town. Mrs. Maylie, and
      Rose, and Mrs. Bedwin, and the good doctor were with him: and Mr. Brownlow
      followed in a post-chaise, accompanied by one other person whose name had
      not been mentioned.
    </p>
<p>
      They had not talked much upon the way; for Oliver was in a flutter of
      agitation and uncertainty which deprived him of the power of collecting
      his thoughts, and almost of speech, and appeared to have scarcely less
      effect on his companions, who shared it, in at least an equal degree. He
      and the two ladies had been very carefully made acquainted by Mr. Brownlow
      with the nature of the admissions which had been forced from Monks; and
      although they knew that the object of their present journey was to
      complete the work which had been so well begun, still the whole matter was
      enveloped in enough of doubt and mystery to leave them in endurance of the
      most intense suspense.
    </p>
<p>
      The same kind friend had, with Mr. Losberne’s assistance, cautiously
      stopped all channels of communication through which they could receive
      intelligence of the dreadful occurrences that so recently taken place. ‘It
      was quite true,’ he said, ‘that they must know them before long, but it
      might be at a better time than the present, and it could not be at a
      worse.’ So, they travelled on in silence: each busied with reflections on
      the object which had brought them together: and no one disposed to give
      utterance to the thoughts which crowded upon all.
    </p>
<p>
      But if Oliver, under these influences, had remained silent while they
      journeyed towards his birth-place by a road he had never seen, how the
      whole current of his recollections ran back to old times, and what a crowd
      of emotions were wakened up in his breast, when they turned into that
      which he had traversed on foot: a poor houseless, wandering boy, without a
      friend to help him, or a roof to shelter his head.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘See there, there!’ cried Oliver, eagerly clasping the hand of Rose, and
      pointing out at the carriage window; ‘that’s the stile I came over; there
      are the hedges I crept behind, for fear any one should overtake me and
      force me back! Yonder is the path across the fields, leading to the old
      house where I was a little child! Oh Dick, Dick, my dear old friend, if I
      could only see you now!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You will see him soon,’ replied Rose, gently taking his folded hands
      between her own. ‘You shall tell him how happy you are, and how rich you
      have grown, and that in all your happiness you have none so great as the
      coming back to make him happy too.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Yes, yes,’ said Oliver, ‘and we’ll—we’ll take him away from here,
      and have him clothed and taught, and send him to some quiet country place
      where he may grow strong and well,—shall we?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Rose nodded ‘yes,’ for the boy was smiling through such happy tears that
      she could not speak.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You will be kind and good to him, for you are to every one,’ said Oliver.
      ‘It will make you cry, I know, to hear what he can tell; but never mind,
      never mind, it will be all over, and you will smile again—I know
      that too—to think how changed he is; you did the same with me. He
      said “God bless you” to me when I ran away,’ cried the boy with a burst of
      affectionate emotion; ‘and I will say “God bless you” now, and show him
      how I love him for it!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      As they approached the town, and at length drove through its narrow
      streets, it became matter of no small difficulty to restrain the boy
      within reasonable bounds. There was Sowerberry’s the undertaker’s just as
      it used to be, only smaller and less imposing in appearance than he
      remembered it—there were all the well-known shops and houses, with
      almost every one of which he had some slight incident connected—there
      was Gamfield’s cart, the very cart he used to have, standing at the old
      public-house door—there was the workhouse, the dreary prison of his
      youthful days, with its dismal windows frowning on the street—there
      was the same lean porter standing at the gate, at sight of whom Oliver
      involuntarily shrunk back, and then laughed at himself for being so
      foolish, then cried, then laughed again—there were scores of faces
      at the doors and windows that he knew quite well—there was nearly
      everything as if he had left it but yesterday, and all his recent life had
      been but a happy dream.
    </p>
<p>
      But it was pure, earnest, joyful reality. They drove straight to the door
      of the chief hotel (which Oliver used to stare up at, with awe, and think
      a mighty palace, but which had somehow fallen off in grandeur and size);
      and here was Mr. Grimwig all ready to receive them, kissing the young
      lady, and the old one too, when they got out of the coach, as if he were
      the grandfather of the whole party, all smiles and kindness, and not
      offering to eat his head—no, not once; not even when he contradicted
      a very old postboy about the nearest road to London, and maintained he
      knew it best, though he had only come that way once, and that time fast
      asleep. There was dinner prepared, and there were bedrooms ready, and
      everything was arranged as if by magic.
    </p>
<p>
      Notwithstanding all this, when the hurry of the first half-hour was over,
      the same silence and constraint prevailed that had marked their journey
      down. Mr. Brownlow did not join them at dinner, but remained in a separate
      room. The two other gentlemen hurried in and out with anxious faces, and,
      during the short intervals when they were present, conversed apart. Once,
      Mrs. Maylie was called away, and after being absent for nearly an hour,
      returned with eyes swollen with weeping. All these things made Rose and
      Oliver, who were not in any new secrets, nervous and uncomfortable. They
      sat wondering, in silence; or, if they exchanged a few words, spoke in
      whispers, as if they were afraid to hear the sound of their own voices.
    </p>
<p>
      At length, when nine o’clock had come, and they began to think they were
      to hear no more that night, Mr. Losberne and Mr. Grimwig entered the room,
      followed by Mr. Brownlow and a man whom Oliver almost shrieked with
      surprise to see; for they told him it was his brother, and it was the same
      man he had met at the market-town, and seen looking in with Fagin at the
      window of his little room. Monks cast a look of hate, which, even then, he
      could not dissemble, at the astonished boy, and sat down near the door.
      Mr. Brownlow, who had papers in his hand, walked to a table near which
      Rose and Oliver were seated.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘This is a painful task,’ said he, ‘but these declarations, which have
      been signed in London before many gentlemen, must be in substance repeated
      here. I would have spared you the degradation, but we must hear them from
      your own lips before we part, and you know why.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Go on,’ said the person addressed, turning away his face. ‘Quick. I have
      almost done enough, I think. Don’t keep me here.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘This child,’ said Mr. Brownlow, drawing Oliver to him, and laying his
      hand upon his head, ‘is your half-brother; the illegitimate son of your
      father, my dear friend Edwin Leeford, by poor young Agnes Fleming, who
      died in giving him birth.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Yes,’ said Monks, scowling at the trembling boy: the beating of whose
      heart he might have heard. ‘That is the bastard child.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The term you use,’ said Mr. Brownlow, sternly, ‘is a reproach to those
      long since passed beyond the feeble censure of the world. It reflects
      disgrace on no one living, except you who use it. Let that pass. He was
      born in this town.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘In the workhouse of this town,’ was the sullen reply. ‘You have the story
      there.’ He pointed impatiently to the papers as he spoke.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I must have it here, too,’ said Mr. Brownlow, looking round upon the
      listeners.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Listen then! You!’ returned Monks. ‘His father being taken ill at Rome,
      was joined by his wife, my mother, from whom he had been long separated,
      who went from Paris and took me with her—to look after his property,
      for what I know, for she had no great affection for him, nor he for her.
      He knew nothing of us, for his senses were gone, and he slumbered on till
      next day, when he died. Among the papers in his desk, were two, dated on
      the night his illness first came on, directed to yourself’; he addressed
      himself to Mr. Brownlow; ‘and enclosed in a few short lines to you, with
      an intimation on the cover of the package that it was not to be forwarded
      till after he was dead. One of these papers was a letter to this girl
      Agnes; the other a will.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘What of the letter?’ asked Mr. Brownlow.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The letter?—A sheet of paper crossed and crossed again, with a
      penitent confession, and prayers to God to help her. He had palmed a tale
      on the girl that some secret mystery—to be explained one day—prevented
      his marrying her just then; and so she had gone on, trusting patiently to
      him, until she trusted too far, and lost what none could ever give her
      back. She was, at that time, within a few months of her confinement. He
      told her all he had meant to do, to hide her shame, if he had lived, and
      prayed her, if he died, not to curse his memory, or think the consequences
      of their sin would be visited on her or their young child; for all the
      guilt was his. He reminded her of the day he had given her the little
      locket and the ring with her christian name engraved upon it, and a blank
      left for that which he hoped one day to have bestowed upon her—prayed
      her yet to keep it, and wear it next her heart, as she had done before—and
      then ran on, wildly, in the same words, over and over again, as if he had
      gone distracted. I believe he had.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The will,’ said Mr. Brownlow, as Oliver’s tears fell fast.
    </p>
<p>
      Monks was silent.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The will,’ said Mr. Brownlow, speaking for him, ‘was in the same spirit
      as the letter. He talked of miseries which his wife had brought upon him;
      of the rebellious disposition, vice, malice, and premature bad passions of
      you his only son, who had been trained to hate him; and left you, and your
      mother, each an annuity of eight hundred pounds. The bulk of his property
      he divided into two equal portions—one for Agnes Fleming, and the
      other for their child, if it should be born alive, and ever come of age.
      If it were a girl, it was to inherit the money unconditionally; but if a
      boy, only on the stipulation that in his minority he should never have
      stained his name with any public act of dishonour, meanness, cowardice, or
      wrong. He did this, he said, to mark his confidence in the mother, and his
      conviction—only strengthened by approaching death—that the
      child would share her gentle heart, and noble nature. If he were
      disappointed in this expectation, then the money was to come to you: for
      then, and not till then, when both children were equal, would he recognise
      your prior claim upon his purse, who had none upon his heart, but had,
      from an infant, repulsed him with coldness and aversion.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘My mother,’ said Monks, in a louder tone, ‘did what a woman should have
      done. She burnt this will. The letter never reached its destination; but
      that, and other proofs, she kept, in case they ever tried to lie away the
      blot. The girl’s father had the truth from her with every aggravation that
      her violent hate—I love her for it now—could add. Goaded by
      shame and dishonour he fled with his children into a remote corner of
      Wales, changing his very name that his friends might never know of his
      retreat; and here, no great while afterwards, he was found dead in his
      bed. The girl had left her home, in secret, some weeks before; he had
      searched for her, on foot, in every town and village near; it was on the
      night when he returned home, assured that she had destroyed herself, to
      hide her shame and his, that his old heart broke.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      There was a short silence here, until Mr. Brownlow took up the thread of
      the narrative.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Years after this,’ he said, ‘this man’s—Edward Leeford’s—mother
      came to me. He had left her, when only eighteen; robbed her of jewels and
      money; gambled, squandered, forged, and fled to London: where for two
      years he had associated with the lowest outcasts. She was sinking under a
      painful and incurable disease, and wished to recover him before she died.
      Inquiries were set on foot, and strict searches made. They were unavailing
      for a long time, but ultimately successful; and he went back with her to
      France.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘There she died,’ said Monks, ‘after a lingering illness; and, on her
      death-bed, she bequeathed these secrets to me, together with her
      unquenchable and deadly hatred of all whom they involved—though she
      need not have left me that, for I had inherited it long before. She would
      not believe that the girl had destroyed herself, and the child too, but
      was filled with the impression that a male child had been born, and was
      alive. I swore to her, if ever it crossed my path, to hunt it down; never
      to let it rest; to pursue it with the bitterest and most unrelenting
      animosity; to vent upon it the hatred that I deeply felt, and to spit upon
      the empty vaunt of that insulting will by draggin it, if I could, to the
      very gallows-foot. She was right. He came in my way at last. I began well;
      and, but for babbling drabs, I would have finished as I began!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      As the villain folded his arms tight together, and muttered curses on
      himself in the impotence of baffled malice, Mr. Brownlow turned to the
      terrified group beside him, and explained that the Jew, who had been his
      old accomplice and confidant, had a large reward for keeping Oliver
      ensnared: of which some part was to be given up, in the event of his being
      rescued: and that a dispute on this head had led to their visit to the
      country house for the purpose of identifying him.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The locket and ring?’ said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Monks.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I bought them from the man and woman I told you of, who stole them from
      the nurse, who stole them from the corpse,’ answered Monks without raising
      his eyes. ‘You know what became of them.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Mr. Brownlow merely nodded to Mr. Grimwig, who disappearing with great
      alacrity, shortly returned, pushing in Mrs. Bumble, and dragging her
      unwilling consort after him.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Do my hi’s deceive me!’ cried Mr. Bumble, with ill-feigned enthusiasm,
      ‘or is that little Oliver? Oh O-li-ver, if you know’d how I’ve been
      a-grieving for you—’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Hold your tongue, fool,’ murmured Mrs. Bumble.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Isn’t natur, natur, Mrs. Bumble?’ remonstrated the workhouse master.
      ‘Can’t I be supposed to feel—<i>I</i> as brought him up porochially—when
      I see him a-setting here among ladies and gentlemen of the very affablest
      description! I always loved that boy as if he’d been my—my—my
      own grandfather,’ said Mr. Bumble, halting for an appropriate comparison.
      ‘Master Oliver, my dear, you remember the blessed gentleman in the white
      waistcoat? Ah! he went to heaven last week, in a oak coffin with plated
      handles, Oliver.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Come, sir,’ said Mr. Grimwig, tartly; ‘suppress your feelings.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I will do my endeavours, sir,’ replied Mr. Bumble. ‘How do you do, sir? I
      hope you are very well.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      This salutation was addressed to Mr. Brownlow, who had stepped up to
      within a short distance of the respectable couple. He inquired, as he
      pointed to Monks,
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Do you know that person?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘No,’ replied Mrs. Bumble flatly.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Perhaps <i>you</i> don’t?’ said Mr. Brownlow, addressing her spouse.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I never saw him in all my life,’ said Mr. Bumble.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Nor sold him anything, perhaps?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘No,’ replied Mrs. Bumble.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You never had, perhaps, a certain gold locket and ring?’ said Mr.
      Brownlow.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Certainly not,’ replied the matron. ‘Why are we brought here to answer to
      such nonsense as this?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Again Mr. Brownlow nodded to Mr. Grimwig; and again that gentleman limped
      away with extraordinary readiness. But not again did he return with a
      stout man and wife; for this time, he led in two palsied women, who shook
      and tottered as they walked.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You shut the door the night old Sally died,’ said the foremost one,
      raising her shrivelled hand, ‘but you couldn’t shut out the sound, nor
      stop the chinks.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘No, no,’ said the other, looking round her and wagging her toothless
      jaws. ‘No, no, no.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘We heard her try to tell you what she’d done, and saw you take a paper
      from her hand, and watched you too, next day, to the pawnbroker’s shop,’ 
      said the first.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Yes,’ added the second, ‘and it was a “locket and gold ring.” We found
      out that, and saw it given you. We were by. Oh! we were by.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘And we know more than that,’ resumed the first, ‘for she told us often,
      long ago, that the young mother had told her that, feeling she should
      never get over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was taken ill,
      to die near the grave of the father of the child.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Would you like to see the pawnbroker himself?’ asked Mr. Grimwig with a
      motion towards the door.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘No,’ replied the woman; ‘if he’—she
      pointed to Monks—‘has been coward enough to confess, as I see
      he has, and you have sounded all these hags till you have found the right
      ones, I have nothing more to say. I <i>did</i> sell them, and
      they’re where you’ll never get them. What then?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Nothing,’ replied Mr. Brownlow, ‘except that it remains for us to take
      care that neither of you is employed in a situation of trust again. You
      may leave the room.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I hope,’ said Mr. Bumble, looking about him with great ruefulness, as Mr.
      Grimwig disappeared with the two old women: ‘I hope that this unfortunate
      little circumstance will not deprive me of my porochial office?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Indeed it will,’ replied Mr. Brownlow. ‘You may make up your mind to
      that, and think yourself well off besides.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘It was all Mrs. Bumble. She <i>would</i> do it,’ urged Mr. Bumble; first
      looking round to ascertain that his partner had left the room.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘That is no excuse,’ replied Mr. Brownlow. ‘You were present on the
      occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more
      guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your
      wife acts under your direction.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat
      emphatically in both hands, ‘the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the
      eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is,
      that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Laying great stress on the repetition of these two words, Mr. Bumble fixed
      his hat on very tight, and putting his hands in his pockets, followed his
      helpmate downstairs.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Young lady,’ said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Rose, ‘give me your hand. Do
      not tremble. You need not fear to hear the few remaining words we have to
      say.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘If they have—I do not know how they can, but if they have—any
      reference to me,’ said Rose, ‘pray let me hear them at some other time. I
      have not strength or spirits now.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Nay,’ returned the old gentlman, drawing her arm through his; ‘you have
      more fortitude than this, I am sure. Do you know this young lady, sir?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Yes,’ replied Monks.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I never saw you before,’ said Rose faintly.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I have seen you often,’ returned Monks.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The father of the unhappy Agnes had <i>two</i> daughters,’ said Mr.
      Brownlow. ‘What was the fate of the other—the child?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The child,’ replied Monks, ‘when her father died in a strange place, in a
      strange name, without a letter, book, or scrap of paper that yielded the
      faintest clue by which his friends or relatives could be traced—the
      child was taken by some wretched cottagers, who reared it as their own.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Go on,’ said Mr. Brownlow, signing to Mrs. Maylie to approach. ‘Go on!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You couldn’t find the spot to which these people had repaired,’ said
      Monks, ‘but where friendship fails, hatred will often force a way. My
      mother found it, after a year of cunning search—ay, and found the
      child.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘She took it, did she?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘No. The people were poor and began to sicken—at least the man did—of
      their fine humanity; so she left it with them, giving them a small present
      of money which would not last long, and promised more, which she never
      meant to send. She didn’t quite rely, however, on their discontent and
      poverty for the child’s unhappiness, but told the history of the sister’s
      shame, with such alterations as suited her; bade them take good heed of
      the child, for she came of bad blood; and told them she was illegitimate,
      and sure to go wrong at one time or other. The circumstances countenanced
      all this; the people believed it; and there the child dragged on an
      existence, miserable enough even to satisfy us, until a widow lady,
      residing, then, at Chester, saw the girl by chance, pitied her, and took
      her home. There was some cursed spell, I think, against us; for in spite
      of all our efforts she remained there and was happy. I lost sight of her,
      two or three years ago, and saw her no more until a few months back.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Do you see her now?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Yes. Leaning on your arm.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘But not the less my niece,’ cried Mrs. Maylie, folding the fainting girl
      in her arms; ‘not the less my dearest child. I would not lose her now, for
      all the treasures of the world. My sweet companion, my own dear girl!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The only friend I ever had,’ cried Rose, clinging to her. ‘The kindest,
      best of friends. My heart will burst. I cannot bear all this.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You have borne more, and have been, through all, the best and gentlest
      creature that ever shed happiness on every one she knew,’ said Mrs.
      Maylie, embracing her tenderly. ‘Come, come, my love, remember who this is
      who waits to clasp you in his arms, poor child! See here—look, look,
      my dear!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Not aunt,’ cried Oliver, throwing his arms about her neck; ‘I’ll never
      call her aunt—sister, my own dear sister, that something taught my
      heart to love so dearly from the first! Rose, dear, darling Rose!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the
      long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father, sister, and
      mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and grief were
      mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief itself
      arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections,
      that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.
    </p>
<p>
      They were a long, long time alone. A soft tap at the door, at length
      announced that some one was without. Oliver opened it, glided away, and
      gave place to Harry Maylie.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I know it all,’ he said, taking a seat beside the lovely girl. ‘Dear
      Rose, I know it all.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I am not here by accident,’ he added after a lengthened silence; ‘nor
      have I heard all this to-night, for I knew it yesterday—only
      yesterday. Do you guess that I have come to remind you of a promise?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Stay,’ said Rose. ‘You <i>do</i> know all.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘All. You gave me leave, at any time within a year, to renew the subject
      of our last discourse.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I did.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Not to press you to alter your determination,’ pursued the young man,
      ‘but to hear you repeat it, if you would. I was to lay whatever of station
      or fortune I might possess at your feet, and if you still adhered to your
      former determination, I pledged myself, by no word or act, to seek to
      change it.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The same reasons which influenced me then, will influence me now,’ said
      Rose firmly. ‘If I ever owed a strict and rigid duty to her, whose
      goodness saved me from a life of indigence and suffering, when should I
      ever feel it, as I should to-night? It is a struggle,’ said Rose, ‘but one
      I am proud to make; it is a pang, but one my heart shall bear.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The disclosure of to-night,’—Harry began.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The disclosure of to-night,’ replied Rose softly, ‘leaves me in the same
      position, with reference to you, as that in which I stood before.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You harden your heart against me, Rose,’ urged her lover.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Oh Harry, Harry,’ said the young lady, bursting into tears; ‘I wish I
      could, and spare myself this pain.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Then why inflict it on yourself?’ said Harry, taking her hand. ‘Think,
      dear Rose, think what you have heard to-night.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘And what have I heard! What have I heard!’ cried Rose. ‘That a sense of
      his deep disgrace so worked upon my own father that he shunned all—there,
      we have said enough, Harry, we have said enough.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Not yet, not yet,’ said the young man, detaining her as she rose. ‘My
      hopes, my wishes, prospects, feeling: every thought in life except my love
      for you: have undergone a change. I offer you, now, no distinction among a
      bustling crowd; no mingling with a world of malice and detraction, where
      the blood is called into honest cheeks by aught but real disgrace and
      shame; but a home—a heart and home—yes, dearest Rose, and
      those, and those alone, are all I have to offer.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘What do you mean!’ she faltered.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I mean but this—that when I left you last, I left you with a firm
      determination to level all fancied barriers between yourself and me;
      resolved that if my world could not be yours, I would make yours mine;
      that no pride of birth should curl the lip at you, for I would turn from
      it. This I have done. Those who have shrunk from me because of this, have
      shrunk from you, and proved you so far right. Such power and patronage:
      such relatives of influence and rank: as smiled upon me then, look coldly
      now; but there are smiling fields and waving trees in England’s richest
      county; and by one village church—mine, Rose, my own!—there
      stands a rustic dwelling which you can make me prouder of, than all the
      hopes I have renounced, measured a thousandfold. This is my rank and
      station now, and here I lay it down!’ 
    </p>
<p>
<br/><br/>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
<br/><br/>
</p>
<p>
      ‘It’s a trying thing waiting supper for lovers,’ said Mr. Grimwig, waking
      up, and pulling his pocket-handkerchief from over his head.
    </p>
<p>
      Truth to tell, the supper had been waiting a most unreasonable time.
      Neither Mrs. Maylie, nor Harry, nor Rose (who all came in together), could
      offer a word in extenuation.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I had serious thoughts of eating my head to-night,’ said Mr. Grimwig,
      ‘for I began to think I should get nothing else. I’ll take the liberty, if
      you’ll allow me, of saluting the bride that is to be.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Mr. Grimwig lost no time in carrying this notice into effect upon the
      blushing girl; and the example, being contagious, was followed both by the
      doctor and Mr. Brownlow: some people affirm that Harry Maylie had been
      observed to set it, originally, in a dark room adjoining; but the best
      authorities consider this downright scandal: he being young and a
      clergyman.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Oliver, my child,’ said Mrs. Maylie, ‘where have you been, and why do you
      look so sad? There are tears stealing down your face at this moment. What
      is the matter?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      It is a world of disappointment: often to the hopes we most cherish, and
      hopes that do our nature the greatest honour.
    </p>
<p>
      Poor Dick was dead!
    </p>
<p>
<br/><br/>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
<a id="link2HCH0052"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br/><br/><br/><br/>
</div>
<h2 id="pgepubid00059">
      CHAPTER LII — FAGIN’S LAST NIGHT ALIVE
    </h2>
<p>
      The court was paved, from floor to roof, with human faces. Inquisitive and
      eager eyes peered from every inch of space. From the rail before the dock,
      away into the sharpest angle of the smallest corner in the galleries, all
      looks were fixed upon one man—Fagin. Before him and behind: above,
      below, on the right and on the left: he seemed to stand surrounded by a
      firmament, all bright with gleaming eyes.
    </p>
<p>
      He stood there, in all this glare of living light, with one hand resting
      on the wooden slab before him, the other held to his ear, and his head
      thrust forward to enable him to catch with greater distinctness every word
      that fell from the presiding judge, who was delivering his charge to the
      jury. At times, he turned his eyes sharply upon them to observe the effect
      of the slightest featherweight in his favour; and when the points against
      him were stated with terrible distinctness, looked towards his counsel, in
      mute appeal that he would, even then, urge something in his behalf. Beyond
      these manifestations of anxiety, he stirred not hand or foot. He had
      scarcely moved since the trial began; and now that the judge ceased to
      speak, he still remained in the same strained attitude of close attention,
      with his gaze bent on him, as though he listened still.
    </p>
<p>
      A slight bustle in the court, recalled him to himself. Looking round, he
      saw that the juryman had turned together, to consider their verdict. As
      his eyes wandered to the gallery, he could see the people rising above
      each other to see his face: some hastily applying their glasses to their
      eyes: and others whispering their neighbours with looks expressive of
      abhorrence. A few there were, who seemed unmindful of him, and looked only
      to the jury, in impatient wonder how they could delay. But in no one face—not
      even among the women, of whom there were many there—could he read
      the faintest sympathy with himself, or any feeling but one of
      all-absorbing interest that he should be condemned.
    </p>
<p>
      As he saw all this in one bewildered glance, the deathlike stillness came
      again, and looking back he saw that the jurymen had turned towards the
      judge. Hush!
    </p>
<p>
      They only sought permission to retire.
    </p>
<p>
      He looked, wistfully, into their faces, one by one when they passed out,
      as though to see which way the greater number leant; but that was
      fruitless. The jailer touched him on the shoulder. He followed
      mechanically to the end of the dock, and sat down on a chair. The man
      pointed it out, or he would not have seen it.
    </p>
<p>
      He looked up into the gallery again. Some of the people were eating, and
      some fanning themselves with handkerchiefs; for the crowded place was very
      hot. There was one young man sketching his face in a little note-book. He
      wondered whether it was like, and looked on when the artist broke his
      pencil-point, and made another with his knife, as any idle spectator might
      have done.
    </p>
<p>
      In the same way, when he turned his eyes towards the judge, his mind began
      to busy itself with the fashion of his dress, and what it cost, and how he
      put it on. There was an old fat gentleman on the bench, too, who had gone
      out, some half an hour before, and now come back. He wondered within
      himself whether this man had been to get his dinner, what he had had, and
      where he had had it; and pursued this train of careless thought until some
      new object caught his eye and roused another.
    </p>
<p>
      Not that, all this time, his mind was, for an instant, free from one
      oppressive overwhelming sense of the grave that opened at his feet; it was
      ever present to him, but in a vague and general way, and he could not fix
      his thoughts upon it. Thus, even while he trembled, and turned burning hot
      at the idea of speedy death, he fell to counting the iron spikes before
      him, and wondering how the head of one had been broken off, and whether
      they would mend it, or leave it as it was. Then, he thought of all the
      horrors of the gallows and the scaffold—and stopped to watch a man
      sprinkling the floor to cool it—and then went on to think again.
    </p>
<p>
      At length there was a cry of silence, and a breathless look from all
      towards the door. The jury returned, and passed him close. He could glean
      nothing from their faces; they might as well have been of stone. Perfect
      stillness ensued—not a rustle—not a breath—Guilty.
    </p>
<p>
      The building rang with a tremendous shout, and another, and another, and
      then it echoed loud groans, that gathered strength as they swelled out,
      like angry thunder. It was a peal of joy from the populace outside,
      greeting the news that he would die on Monday.
    </p>
<p>
      The noise subsided, and he was asked if he had anything to say why
      sentence of death should not be passed upon him. He had resumed his
      listening attitude, and looked intently at his questioner while the demand
      was made; but it was twice repeated before he seemed to hear it, and then
      he only muttered that he was an old man—an old man—and so,
      dropping into a whisper, was silent again.
    </p>
<p>
      The judge assumed the black cap, and the prisoner still stood with the
      same air and gesture. A woman in the gallery, uttered some exclamation,
      called forth by this dread solemnity; he looked hastily up as if angry at
      the interruption, and bent forward yet more attentively. The address was
      solemn and impressive; the sentence fearful to hear. But he stood, like a
      marble figure, without the motion of a nerve. His haggard face was still
      thrust forward, his under-jaw hanging down, and his eyes staring out
      before him, when the jailer put his hand upon his arm, and beckoned him
      away. He gazed stupidly about him for an instant, and obeyed.
    </p>
<p>
      They led him through a paved room under the court, where some prisoners
      were waiting till their turns came, and others were talking to their
      friends, who crowded round a grate which looked into the open yard. There
      was nobody there to speak to <i>him</i>; but, as he passed, the prisoners
      fell back to render him more visible to the people who were clinging to
      the bars: and they assailed him with opprobrious names, and screeched and
      hissed. He shook his fist, and would have spat upon them; but his
      conductors hurried him on, through a gloomy passage lighted by a few dim
      lamps, into the interior of the prison.
    </p>
<p>
      Here, he was searched, that he might not have about him the means of
      anticipating the law; this ceremony performed, they led him to one of the
      condemned cells, and left him there—alone.
    </p>
<p>
      He sat down on a stone bench opposite the door, which served for seat and
      bedstead; and casting his blood-shot eyes upon the ground, tried to
      collect his thoughts. After awhile, he began to remember a few disjointed
      fragments of what the judge had said: though it had seemed to him, at the
      time, that he could not hear a word. These gradually fell into their
      proper places, and by degrees suggested more: so that in a little time he
      had the whole, almost as it was delivered. To be hanged by the neck, till
      he was dead—that was the end. To be hanged by the neck till he was
      dead.
    </p>
<p>
      As it came on very dark, he began to think of all the men he had known who
      had died upon the scaffold; some of them through his means. They rose up,
      in such quick succession, that he could hardly count them. He had seen
      some of them die,—and had joked too, because they died with prayers
      upon their lips. With what a rattling noise the drop went down; and how
      suddenly they changed, from strong and vigorous men to dangling heaps of
      clothes!
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img alt="0202m " src="1646223070011777107_0273m.jpg" style="width:100%;" id="id-2000136641563206312"/><br/>
</div>
<h5>
<a href="1646223070011777107_0273.jpg.id-7753122238442131195.wrap-0.html.html" style="width:100%;" id="id-7753122238442131195" title="linked image"><i>Original</i></a>
</h5>
<p>
      Some of them might have inhabited that very cell—sat upon that very
      spot. It was very dark; why didn’t they bring a light? The cell had been
      built for many years. Scores of men must have passed their last hours
      there. It was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead bodies—the
      cap, the noose, the pinioned arms, the faces that he knew, even beneath
      that hideous veil.—Light, light!
    </p>
<p>
      At length, when his hands were raw with beating against the heavy door and
      walls, two men appeared: one bearing a candle, which he thrust into an
      iron candlestick fixed against the wall: the other dragging in a mattress
      on which to pass the night; for the prisoner was to be left alone no more.
    </p>
<p>
      Then came the night—dark, dismal, silent night. Other watchers are
      glad to hear this church-clock strike, for they tell of life and coming
      day. To him they brought despair. The boom of every iron bell came laden
      with the one, deep, hollow sound—Death. What availed the noise and
      bustle of cheerful morning, which penetrated even there, to him? It was
      another form of knell, with mockery added to the warning.
    </p>
<p>
      The day passed off. Day? There was no day; it was gone as soon as come—and
      night came on again; night so long, and yet so short; long in its dreadful
      silence, and short in its fleeting hours. At one time he raved and
      blasphemed; and at another howled and tore his hair. Venerable men of his
      own persuasion had come to pray beside him, but he had driven them away
      with curses. They renewed their charitable efforts, and he beat them off.
    </p>
<p>
      Saturday night. He had only one night more to live. And as he thought of
      this, the day broke—Sunday.
    </p>
<p>
      It was not until the night of this last awful day, that a withering sense
      of his helpless, desperate state came in its full intensity upon his
      blighted soul; not that he had ever held any defined or positive hope of
      mercy, but that he had never been able to consider more than the dim
      probability of dying so soon. He had spoken little to either of the two
      men, who relieved each other in their attendance upon him; and they, for
      their parts, made no effort to rouse his attention. He had sat there,
      awake, but dreaming. Now, he started up, every minute, and with gasping
      mouth and burning skin, hurried to and fro, in such a paroxysm of fear and
      wrath that even they—used to such sights—recoiled from him
      with horror. He grew so terrible, at last, in all the tortures of his evil
      conscience, that one man could not bear to sit there, eyeing him alone;
      and so the two kept watch together.
    </p>
<p>
      He cowered down upon his stone bed, and thought of the past. He had been
      wounded with some missiles from the crowd on the day of his capture, and
      his head was bandaged with a linen cloth. His red hair hung down upon his
      bloodless face; his beard was torn, and twisted into knots; his eyes shone
      with a terrible light; his unwashed flesh crackled with the fever that
      burnt him up. Eight—nine—then. If it was not a trick to
      frighten him, and those were the real hours treading on each other’s
      heels, where would he be, when they came round again! Eleven! Another
      struck, before the voice of the previous hour had ceased to vibrate. At
      eight, he would be the only mourner in his own funeral train; at eleven—
    </p>
<p>
      Those dreadful walls of Newgate, which have hidden so much misery and such
      unspeakable anguish, not only from the eyes, but, too often, and too long,
      from the thoughts, of men, never held so dread a spectacle as that. The
      few who lingered as they passed, and wondered what the man was doing who
      was to be hanged to-morrow, would have slept but ill that night, if they
      could have seen him.
    </p>
<p>
      From early in the evening until nearly midnight, little groups of two and
      three presented themselves at the lodge-gate, and inquired, with anxious
      faces, whether any reprieve had been received. These being answered in the
      negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to clusters in the street,
      who pointed out to one another the door from which he must come out, and
      showed where the scaffold would be built, and, walking with unwilling
      steps away, turned back to conjure up the scene. By degrees they fell off,
      one by one; and, for an hour, in the dead of night, the street was left to
      solitude and darkness.
    </p>
<p>
      The space before the prison was cleared, and a few strong barriers,
      painted black, had been already thrown across the road to break the
      pressure of the expected crowd, when Mr. Brownlow and Oliver appeared at
      the wicket, and presented an order of admission to the prisoner, signed by
      one of the sheriffs. They were immediately admitted into the lodge.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Is the young gentleman to come too, sir?’ said the man whose duty it was
      to conduct them. ‘It’s not a sight for children, sir.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘It is not indeed, my friend,’ rejoined Mr. Brownlow; ‘but my business
      with this man is intimately connected with him; and as this child has seen
      him in the full career of his success and villainy, I think it as well—even
      at the cost of some pain and fear—that he should see him now.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      These few words had been said apart, so as to be inaudible to Oliver. The
      man touched his hat; and glancing at Oliver with some curiousity, opened
      another gate, opposite to that by which they had entered, and led them on,
      through dark and winding ways, towards the cells.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘This,’ said the man, stopping in a gloomy passage where a couple of
      workmen were making some preparations in profound silence—‘this is
      the place he passes through. If you step this way, you can see the door he
      goes out at.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      He led them into a stone kitchen, fitted with coppers for dressing the
      prison food, and pointed to a door. There was an open grating above it,
      through which came the sound of men’s voices, mingled with the noise of
      hammering, and the throwing down of boards. There were putting up the
      scaffold.
    </p>
<p>
      From this place, they passed through several strong gates, opened by other
      turnkeys from the inner side; and, having entered an open yard, ascended a
      flight of narrow steps, and came into a passage with a row of strong doors
      on the left hand. Motioning them to remain where they were, the turnkey
      knocked at one of these with his bunch of keys. The two attendants, after
      a little whispering, came out into the passage, stretching themselves as
      if glad of the temporary relief, and motioned the visitors to follow the
      jailer into the cell. They did so.
    </p>
<p>
      The condemned criminal was seated on his bed, rocking himself from side to
      side, with a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the face of
      a man. His mind was evidently wandering to his old life, for he continued
      to mutter, without appearing conscious of their presence otherwise than as
      a part of his vision.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Good boy, Charley—well done—’ he mumbled. ‘Oliver, too, ha!
      ha! ha! Oliver too—quite the gentleman now—quite the—take
      that boy away to bed!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      The jailer took the disengaged hand of Oliver; and, whispering him not to
      be alarmed, looked on without speaking.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Take him away to bed!’ cried Fagin. ‘Do you hear me, some of you? He has
      been the—the—somehow the cause of all this. It’s worth the
      money to bring him up to it—Bolter’s throat, Bill; never mind the
      girl—Bolter’s throat as deep as you can cut. Saw his head off!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Fagin,’ said the jailer.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘That’s me!’ cried the Jew, falling instantly, into the attitude of
      listening he had assumed upon his trial. ‘An old man, my Lord; a very old,
      old man!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Here,’ said the turnkey, laying his hand upon his breast to keep him
      down. ‘Here’s somebody wants to see you, to ask you some questions, I
      suppose. Fagin, Fagin! Are you a man?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I shan’t be one long,’ he replied, looking up with a face retaining no
      human expression but rage and terror. ‘Strike them all dead! What right
      have they to butcher me?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      As he spoke he caught sight of Oliver and Mr. Brownlow. Shrinking to the
      furthest corner of the seat, he demanded to know what they wanted there.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Steady,’ said the turnkey, still holding him down. ‘Now, sir, tell him
      what you want. Quick, if you please, for he grows worse as the time gets
      on.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You have some papers,’ said Mr. Brownlow advancing, ‘which were placed in
      your hands, for better security, by a man called Monks.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘It’s all a lie together,’ replied Fagin. ‘I haven’t one—not one.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘For the love of God,’ said Mr. Brownlow solemnly, ‘do not say that now,
      upon the very verge of death; but tell me where they are. You know that
      Sikes is dead; that Monks has confessed; that there is no hope of any
      further gain. Where are those papers?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Oliver,’ cried Fagin, beckoning to him. ‘Here, here! Let me whisper to
      you.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I am not afraid,’ said Oliver in a low voice, as he relinquished Mr.
      Brownlow’s hand.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The papers,’ said Fagin, drawing Oliver towards him, ‘are in a canvas
      bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front-room. I want
      to talk to you, my dear. I want to talk to you.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Yes, yes,’ returned Oliver. ‘Let me say a prayer. Do! Let me say one
      prayer. Say only one, upon your knees, with me, and we will talk till
      morning.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Outside, outside,’ replied Fagin, pushing the boy before him towards the
      door, and looking vacantly over his head. ‘Say I’ve gone to sleep—they’ll
      believe you. You can get me out, if you take me so. Now then, now then!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Oh! God forgive this wretched man!’ cried the boy with a burst of tears.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘That’s right, that’s right,’ said Fagin. ‘That’ll help us on. This door
      first. If I shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows, don’t you mind, but
      hurry on. Now, now, now!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?’ inquired the turnkey.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘No other question,’ replied Mr. Brownlow. ‘If I hoped we could recall him
      to a sense of his position—’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Nothing will do that, sir,’ replied the man, shaking his head. ‘You had
      better leave him.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Press on, press on,’ cried Fagin. ‘Softly, but not so slow. Faster,
      faster!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      The men laid hands upon him, and disengaging Oliver from his grasp, held
      him back. He struggled with the power of desperation, for an instant; and
      then sent up cry upon cry that penetrated even those massive walls, and
      rang in their ears until they reached the open yard.
    </p>
<p>
      It was some time before they left the prison. Oliver nearly swooned after
      this frightful scene, and was so weak that for an hour or more, he had not
      the strength to walk.
    </p>
<p>
      Day was dawning when they again emerged. A great multitude had already
      assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing cards
      to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, joking.
      Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in
      the centre of all—the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all
      the hideous apparatus of death.
    </p>
<p>
<br/><br/>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
<a id="link2HCH0053"> </a>
</p>
</body></html>
