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<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens</title>

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<p>
      ‘Do you hear me call? Come here!’ cried Sikes.
    </p>
<p>
      The animal came up from the very force of habit; but as Sikes stooped to
      attach the handkerchief to his throat, he uttered a low growl and started
      back.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Come back!’ said the robber.
    </p>
<p>
      The dog wagged his tail, but moved not. Sikes made a running noose and
      called him again.
    </p>
<p>
      The dog advanced, retreated, paused an instant, and scoured away at his
      hardest speed.
    </p>
<p>
      The man whistled again and again, and sat down and waited in the
      expectation that he would return. But no dog appeared, and at length he
      resumed his journey.
    </p>
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<h2 id="pgepubid00056">
      CHAPTER XLIX — MONKS AND MR. BROWNLOW AT LENGTH MEET. THEIR
      CONVERSATION, AND THE INTELLIGENCE THAT INTERRUPTS IT
    </h2>
<p>
      The twilight was beginning to close in, when Mr. Brownlow alighted from a
      hackney-coach at his own door, and knocked softly. The door being opened,
      a sturdy man got out of the coach and stationed himself on one side of the
      steps, while another man, who had been seated on the box, dismounted too,
      and stood upon the other side. At a sign from Mr. Brownlow, they helped
      out a third man, and taking him between them, hurried him into the house.
      This man was Monks.
    </p>
<p>
      They walked in the same manner up the stairs without speaking, and Mr.
      Brownlow, preceding them, led the way into a back-room. At the door of
      this apartment, Monks, who had ascended with evident reluctance, stopped.
      The two men looked at the old gentleman as if for instructions.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘He knows the alternative,’ said Mr. Browlow. ‘If he hesitates or moves a
      finger but as you bid him, drag him into the street, call for the aid of
      the police, and impeach him as a felon in my name.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘How dare you say this of me?’ asked Monks.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘How dare you urge me to it, young man?’ replied Mr. Brownlow, confronting
      him with a steady look. ‘Are you mad enough to leave this house? Unhand
      him. There, sir. You are free to go, and we to follow. But I warn you, by
      all I hold most solemn and most sacred, that instant will have you
      apprehended on a charge of fraud and robbery. I am resolute and
      immoveable. If you are determined to be the same, your blood be upon your
      own head!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘By what authority am I kidnapped in the street, and brought here by these
      dogs?’ asked Monks, looking from one to the other of the men who stood
      beside him.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘By mine,’ replied Mr. Brownlow. ‘Those persons are indemnified by me. If
      you complain of being deprived of your liberty—you had power and
      opportunity to retrieve it as you came along, but you deemed it advisable
      to remain quiet—I say again, throw yourself for protection on the
      law. I will appeal to the law too; but when you have gone too far to
      recede, do not sue to me for leniency, when the power will have passed
      into other hands; and do not say I plunged you down the gulf into which
      you rushed, yourself.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Monks was plainly disconcerted, and alarmed besides. He hesitated.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You will decide quickly,’ said Mr. Brownlow, with perfect firmness and
      composure. ‘If you wish me to prefer my charges publicly, and consign you
      to a punishment the extent of which, although I can, with a shudder,
      foresee, I cannot control, once more, I say, for you know the way. If not,
      and you appeal to my forbearance, and the mercy of those you have deeply
      injured, seat yourself, without a word, in that chair. It has waited for
      you two whole days.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Monks muttered some unintelligible words, but wavered still.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You will be prompt,’ said Mr. Brownlow. ‘A word from me, and the
      alternative has gone for ever.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Still the man hesitated.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I have not the inclination to parley,’ said Mr. Brownlow, ‘and, as I
      advocate the dearest interests of others, I have not the right.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Is there—’ demanded Monks with a faltering tongue,—‘is there—no
      middle course?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘None.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Monks looked at the old gentleman, with an anxious eye; but, reading in
      his countenance nothing but severity and determination, walked into the
      room, and, shrugging his shoulders, sat down.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Lock the door on the outside,’ said Mr. Brownlow to the attendants, ‘and
      come when I ring.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      The men obeyed, and the two were left alone together.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘This is pretty treatment, sir,’ said Monks, throwing down his hat and
      cloak, ‘from my father’s oldest friend.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘It is because I was your father’s oldest friend, young man,’ returned Mr.
      Brownlow; ‘it is because the hopes and wishes of young and happy years
      were bound up with him, and that fair creature of his blood and kindred
      who rejoined her God in youth, and left me here a solitary, lonely man: it
      is because he knelt with me beside his only sisters’ death-bed when he was
      yet a boy, on the morning that would—but Heaven willed otherwise—have
      made her my young wife; it is because my seared heart clung to him, from
      that time forth, through all his trials and errors, till he died; it is
      because old recollections and associations filled my heart, and even the
      sight of you brings with it old thoughts of him; it is because of all
      these things that I am moved to treat you gently now—yes, Edward
      Leeford, even now—and blush for your unworthiness who bear the
      name.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘What has the name to do with it?’ asked the other, after contemplating,
      half in silence, and half in dogged wonder, the agitation of his
      companion. ‘What is the name to me?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Nothing,’ replied Mr. Brownlow, ‘nothing to you. But it was <i>hers</i>,
      and even at this distance of time brings back to me, an old man, the glow
      and thrill which I once felt, only to hear it repeated by a stranger. I am
      very glad you have changed it—very—very.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘This is all mighty fine,’ said Monks (to retain his assumed designation)
      after a long silence, during which he had jerked himself in sullen
      defiance to and fro, and Mr. Brownlow had sat, shading his face with his
      hand. ‘But what do you want with me?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You have a brother,’ said Mr. Brownlow, rousing himself: ‘a brother, the
      whisper of whose name in your ear when I came behind you in the street,
      was, in itself, almost enough to make you accompany me hither, in wonder
      and alarm.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I have no brother,’ replied Monks. ‘You know I was an only child. Why do
      you talk to me of brothers? You know that, as well as I.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Attend to what I do know, and you may not,’ said Mr. Brownlow. ‘I shall
      interest you by and by. I know that of the wretched marriage, into which
      family pride, and the most sordid and narrowest of all ambition, forced
      your unhappy father when a mere boy, you were the sole and most unnatural
      issue.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I don’t care for hard names,’ interrupted Monks with a jeering laugh.
      ‘You know the fact, and that’s enough for me.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘But I also know,’ pursued the old gentleman, ‘the misery, the slow
      torture, the protracted anguish of that ill-assorted union. I know how
      listlessly and wearily each of that wretched pair dragged on their heavy
      chain through a world that was poisoned to them both. I know how cold
      formalities were succeeded by open taunts; how indifference gave place to
      dislike, dislike to hate, and hate to loathing, until at last they
      wrenched the clanking bond asunder, and retiring a wide space apart,
      carried each a galling fragment, of which nothing but death could break
      the rivets, to hide it in new society beneath the gayest looks they could
      assume. Your mother succeeded; she forgot it soon. But it rusted and
      cankered at your father’s heart for years.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Well, they were separated,’ said Monks, ‘and what of that?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘When they had been separated for some time,’ returned Mr. Brownlow, ‘and
      your mother, wholly given up to continental frivolities, had utterly
      forgotten the young husband ten good years her junior, who, with prospects
      blighted, lingered on at home, he fell among new friends. This
      circumstance, at least, you know already.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Not I,’ said Monks, turning away his eyes and beating his foot upon the
      ground, as a man who is determined to deny everything. ‘Not I.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Your manner, no less than your actions, assures me that you have never
      forgotten it, or ceased to think of it with bitterness,’ returned Mr.
      Brownlow. ‘I speak of fifteen years ago, when you were not more than
      eleven years old, and your father but one-and-thirty—for he was, I
      repeat, a boy, when <i>his</i> father ordered him to marry. Must I go back
      to events which cast a shade upon the memory of your parent, or will you
      spare it, and disclose to me the truth?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I have nothing to disclose,’ rejoined Monks. ‘You must talk on if you
      will.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘These new friends, then,’ said Mr. Brownlow, ‘were a naval officer
      retired from active service, whose wife had died some half-a-year before,
      and left him with two children—there had been more, but, of all
      their family, happily but two survived. They were both daughters; one a
      beautiful creature of nineteen, and the other a mere child of two or three
      years old.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘What’s this to me?’ asked Monks.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘They resided,’ said Mr. Brownlow, without seeming to hear the
      interruption, ‘in a part of the country to which your father in his
      wandering had repaired, and where he had taken up his abode. Acquaintance,
      intimacy, friendship, fast followed on each other. Your father was gifted
      as few men are. He had his sister’s soul and person. As the old officer
      knew him more and more, he grew to love him. I would that it had ended
      there. His daughter did the same.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      The old gentleman paused; Monks was biting his lips, with his eyes fixed
      upon the floor; seeing this, he immediately resumed:
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The end of a year found him contracted, solemnly contracted, to that
      daughter; the object of the first, true, ardent, only passion of a
      guileless girl.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Your tale is of the longest,’ observed Monks, moving restlessly in his
      chair.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘It is a true tale of grief and trial, and sorrow, young man,’ returned
      Mr. Brownlow, ‘and such tales usually are; if it were one of unmixed joy
      and happiness, it would be very brief. At length one of those rich
      relations to strengthen whose interest and importance your father had been
      sacrificed, as others are often—it is no uncommon case—died,
      and to repair the misery he had been instrumental in occasioning, left him
      his panacea for all griefs—Money. It was necessary that he should
      immediately repair to Rome, whither this man had sped for health, and
      where he had died, leaving his affairs in great confusion. He went; was
      seized with mortal illness there; was followed, the moment the
      intelligence reached Paris, by your mother who carried you with her; he
      died the day after her arrival, leaving no will—<i>no will</i>—so
      that the whole property fell to her and you.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      At this part of the recital Monks held his breath, and listened with a
      face of intense eagerness, though his eyes were not directed towards the
      speaker. As Mr. Brownlow paused, he changed his position with the air of
      one who has experienced a sudden relief, and wiped his hot face and hands.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Before he went abroad, and as he passed through London on his way,’ said
      Mr. Brownlow, slowly, and fixing his eyes upon the other’s face, ‘he came
      to me.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I never heard of that,’ interrupted Monks in a tone intended to appear
      incredulous, but savouring more of disagreeable surprise.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘He came to me, and left with me, among some other things, a picture—a
      portrait painted by himself—a likeness of this poor girl—which
      he did not wish to leave behind, and could not carry forward on his hasty
      journey. He was worn by anxiety and remorse almost to a shadow; talked in
      a wild, distracted way, of ruin and dishonour worked by himself; confided
      to me his intention to convert his whole property, at any loss, into
      money, and, having settled on his wife and you a portion of his recent
      acquisition, to fly the country—I guessed too well he would not fly
      alone—and never see it more. Even from me, his old and early friend,
      whose strong attachment had taken root in the earth that covered one most
      dear to both—even from me he withheld any more particular
      confession, promising to write and tell me all, and after that to see me
      once again, for the last time on earth. Alas! <i>That</i> was the last
      time. I had no letter, and I never saw him more.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I went,’ said Mr. Brownlow, after a short pause, ‘I went, when all was
      over, to the scene of his—I will use the term the world would freely
      use, for worldly harshness or favour are now alike to him—of his
      guilty love, resolved that if my fears were realised that erring child
      should find one heart and home to shelter and compassionate her. The
      family had left that part a week before; they had called in such trifling
      debts as were outstanding, discharged them, and left the place by night.
      Why, or whither, none can tell.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Monks drew his breath yet more freely, and looked round with a smile of
      triumph.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘When your brother,’ said Mr. Brownlow, drawing nearer to the other’s
      chair, ‘When your brother: a feeble, ragged, neglected child: was cast in
      my way by a stronger hand than chance, and rescued by me from a life of
      vice and infamy—’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘What?’ cried Monks.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘By me,’ said Mr. Brownlow. ‘I told you I should interest you before long.
      I say by me—I see that your cunning associate suppressed my name,
      although for ought he knew, it would be quite strange to your ears. When
      he was rescued by me, then, and lay recovering from sickness in my house,
      his strong resemblance to this picture I have spoken of, struck me with
      astonishment. Even when I first saw him in all his dirt and misery, there
      was a lingering expression in his face that came upon me like a glimpse of
      some old friend flashing on one in a vivid dream. I need not tell you he
      was snared away before I knew his history—’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Why not?’ asked Monks hastily.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Because you know it well.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Denial to me is vain,’ replied Mr. Brownlow. ‘I shall show you that I
      know more than that.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You—you—can’t prove anything against me,’ stammered Monks. ‘I
      defy you to do it!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘We shall see,’ returned the old gentleman with a searching glance. ‘I
      lost the boy, and no efforts of mine could recover him. Your mother being
      dead, I knew that you alone could solve the mystery if anybody could, and
      as when I had last heard of you you were on your own estate in the West
      Indies—whither, as you well know, you retired upon your mother’s
      death to escape the consequences of vicious courses here—I made the
      voyage. You had left it, months before, and were supposed to be in London,
      but no one could tell where. I returned. Your agents had no clue to your
      residence. You came and went, they said, as strangely as you had ever
      done: sometimes for days together and sometimes not for months: keeping to
      all appearance the same low haunts and mingling with the same infamous
      herd who had been your associates when a fierce ungovernable boy. I
      wearied them with new applications. I paced the streets by night and day,
      but until two hours ago, all my efforts were fruitless, and I never saw
      you for an instant.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘And now you do see me,’ said Monks, rising boldly, ‘what then? Fraud and
      robbery are high-sounding words—justified, you think, by a fancied
      resemblance in some young imp to an idle daub of a dead man’s Brother! You
      don’t even know that a child was born of this maudlin pair; you don’t even
      know that.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I <i>did not</i>,’ replied Mr. Brownlow, rising too; ‘but within the last
      fortnight I have learnt it all. You have a brother; you know it, and him.
      There was a will, which your mother destroyed, leaving the secret and the
      gain to you at her own death. It contained a reference to some child
      likely to be the result of this sad connection, which child was born, and
      accidentally encountered by you, when your suspicions were first awakened
      by his resemblance to your father. You repaired to the place of his birth.
      There existed proofs—proofs long suppressed—of his birth and
      parentage. Those proofs were destroyed by you, and now, in your own words
      to your accomplice the Jew, “<i>the only proofs of the boy’s identity lie
      at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that received them from the
      mother is rotting in her coffin</i>.” Unworthy son, coward, liar,—you,
      who hold your councils with thieves and murderers in dark rooms at night,—you,
      whose plots and wiles have brought a violent death upon the head of one
      worth millions such as you,—you, who from your cradle were gall and
      bitterness to your own father’s heart, and in whom all evil passions,
      vice, and profligacy, festered, till they found a vent in a hideous
      disease which had made your face an index even to your mind—you,
      Edward Leeford, do you still brave me!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘No, no, no!’ returned the coward, overwhelmed by these accumulated
      charges.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Every word!’ cried the gentleman, ‘every word that has passed between you
      and this detested villain, is known to me. Shadows on the wall have caught
      your whispers, and brought them to my ear; the sight of the persecuted
      child has turned vice itself, and given it the courage and almost the
      attributes of virtue. Murder has been done, to which you were morally if
      not really a party.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘No, no,’ interposed Monks. ‘I—I knew nothing of that; I was going
      to inquire the truth of the story when you overtook me. I didn’t know the
      cause. I thought it was a common quarrel.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘It was the partial disclosure of your secrets,’ replied Mr. Brownlow.
      ‘Will you disclose the whole?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Yes, I will.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Set your hand to a statement of truth and facts, and repeat it before
      witnesses?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘That I promise too.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Remain quietly here, until such a document is drawn up, and proceed with
      me to such a place as I may deem most advisable, for the purpose of
      attesting it?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘If you insist upon that, I’ll do that also,’ replied Monks.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You must do more than that,’ said Mr. Brownlow. ‘Make restitution to an
      innocent and unoffending child, for such he is, although the offspring of
      a guilty and most miserable love. You have not forgotten the provisions of
      the will. Carry them into execution so far as your brother is concerned,
      and then go where you please. In this world you need meet no more.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      While Monks was pacing up and down, meditating with dark and evil looks on
      this proposal and the possibilities of evading it: torn by his fears on
      the one hand and his hatred on the other: the door was hurriedly unlocked,
      and a gentleman (Mr. Losberne) entered the room in violent agitation.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The man will be taken,’ he cried. ‘He will be taken to-night!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The murderer?’ asked Mr. Brownlow.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Yes, yes,’ replied the other. ‘His dog has been seen lurking about some
      old haunt, and there seems little doubt that his master either is, or will
      be, there, under cover of the darkness. Spies are hovering about in every
      direction. I have spoken to the men who are charged with his capture, and
      they tell me he cannot escape. A reward of a hundred pounds is proclaimed
      by Government to-night.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I will give fifty more,’ said Mr. Brownlow, ‘and proclaim it with my own
      lips upon the spot, if I can reach it. Where is Mr. Maylie?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Harry? As soon as he had seen your friend here, safe in a coach with you,
      he hurried off to where he heard this,’ replied the doctor, ‘and mounting
      his horse sallied forth to join the first party at some place in the
      outskirts agreed upon between them.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Fagin,’ said Mr. Brownlow; ‘what of him?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘When I last heard, he had not been taken, but he will be, or is, by this
      time. They’re sure of him.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Have you made up your mind?’ asked Mr. Brownlow, in a low voice, of
      Monks.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘You—you—will be secret with me?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I will. Remain here till I return. It is your only hope of safety.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      They left the room, and the door was again locked.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘What have you done?’ asked the doctor in a whisper.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘All that I could hope to do, and even more. Coupling the poor girl’s
      intelligence with my previous knowledge, and the result of our good
      friend’s inquiries on the spot, I left him no loophole of escape, and laid
      bare the whole villainy which by these lights became plain as day. Write
      and appoint the evening after to-morrow, at seven, for the meeting. We
      shall be down there, a few hours before, but shall require rest:
      especially the young lady, who <i>may</i> have greater need of firmness
      than either you or I can quite foresee just now. But my blood boils to
      avenge this poor murdered creature. Which way have they taken?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Drive straight to the office and you will be in time,’ replied Mr.
      Losberne. ‘I will remain here.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      The two gentlemen hastily separated; each in a fever of excitement wholly
      uncontrollable.
    </p>
<p>
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<h2 id="pgepubid00057">
      CHAPTER L — THE PURSUIT AND ESCAPE
    </h2>
<p>
      Near to that part of the Thames on which the church at Rotherhithe abuts,
      where the buildings on the banks are dirtiest and the vessels on the river
      blackest with the dust of colliers and the smoke of close-built low-roofed
      houses, there exists the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary
      of the many localities that are hidden in London, wholly unknown, even by
      name, to the great mass of its inhabitants.
    </p>
<p>
      To reach this place, the visitor has to penetrate through a maze of close,
      narrow, and muddy streets, thronged by the roughest and poorest of
      waterside people, and devoted to the traffic they may be supposed to
      occasion. The cheapest and least delicate provisions are heaped in the
      shops; the coarsest and commonest articles of wearing apparel dangle at
      the salesman’s door, and stream from the house-parapet and windows.
      Jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class, ballast-heavers,
      coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged children, and the raff and refuse of
      the river, he makes his way with difficulty along, assailed by offensive
      sights and smells from the narrow alleys which branch off on the right and
      left, and deafened by the clash of ponderous waggons that bear great piles
      of merchandise from the stacks of warehouses that rise from every corner.
      Arriving, at length, in streets remoter and less-frequented than those
      through which he has passed, he walks beneath tottering house-fronts
      projecting over the pavement, dismantled walls that seem to totter as he
      passes, chimneys half crushed half hesitating to fall, windows guarded by
      rusty iron bars that time and dirt have almost eaten away, every
      imaginable sign of desolation and neglect.
    </p>
<p>
      In such a neighborhood, beyond Dockhead in the Borough of Southwark,
      stands Jacob’s Island, surrounded by a muddy ditch, six or eight feet deep
      and fifteen or twenty wide when the tide is in, once called Mill Pond, but
      known in the days of this story as Folly Ditch. It is a creek or inlet
      from the Thames, and can always be filled at high water by opening the
      sluices at the Lead Mills from which it took its old name. At such times,
      a stranger, looking from one of the wooden bridges thrown across it at
      Mill Lane, will see the inhabitants of the houses on either side lowering
      from their back doors and windows, buckets, pails, domestic utensils of
      all kinds, in which to haul the water up; and when his eye is turned from
      these operations to the houses themselves, his utmost astonishment will be
      excited by the scene before him. Crazy wooden galleries common to the
      backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime
      beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to
      dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined,
      that the air would seem too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which
      they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud, and
      threatening to fall into it—as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls
      and decaying foundations; every repulsive lineament of poverty, every
      loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage; all these ornament the
      banks of Folly Ditch.
    </p>
<p>
      In Jacob’s Island, the warehouses are roofless and empty; the walls are
      crumbling down; the windows are windows no more; the doors are falling
      into the streets; the chimneys are blackened, but they yield no smoke.
      Thirty or forty years ago, before losses and chancery suits came upon it,
      it was a thriving place; but now it is a desolate island indeed. The
      houses have no owners; they are broken open, and entered upon by those who
      have the courage; and there they live, and there they die. They must have
      powerful motives for a secret residence, or be reduced to a destitute
      condition indeed, who seek a refuge in Jacob’s Island.
    </p>
<p>
      In an upper room of one of these houses—a detached house of fair
      size, ruinous in other respects, but strongly defended at door and window:
      of which house the back commanded the ditch in manner already described—there
      were assembled three men, who, regarding each other every now and then
      with looks expressive of perplexity and expectation, sat for some time in
      profound and gloomy silence. One of these was Toby Crackit, another Mr.
      Chitling, and the third a robber of fifty years, whose nose had been
      almost beaten in, in some old scuffle, and whose face bore a frightful
      scar which might probably be traced to the same occasion. This man was a
      returned transport, and his name was Kags.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I wish,’ said Toby turning to Mr. Chitling, ‘that you had picked out some
      other crib when the two old ones got too warm, and had not come here, my
      fine feller.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Why didn’t you, blunder-head!’ said Kags.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Well, I thought you’d have been a little more glad to see me than this,’ 
      replied Mr. Chitling, with a melancholy air.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Why, look’ee, young gentleman,’ said Toby, ‘when a man keeps himself so
      very exclusive as I have done, and by that means has a snug house over his
      head with nobody a prying and smelling about it, it’s rather a startling
      thing to have the honour of a wisit from a young gentleman (however
      respectable and pleasant a person he may be to play cards with at
      conweniency) circumstanced as you are.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Especially, when the exclusive young man has got a friend stopping with
      him, that’s arrived sooner than was expected from foreign parts, and is
      too modest to want to be presented to the Judges on his return,’ added Mr.
      Kags.
    </p>
<p>
      There was a short silence, after which Toby Crackit, seeming to abandon as
      hopeless any further effort to maintain his usual devil-may-care swagger,
      turned to Chitling and said,
    </p>
<p>
      ‘When was Fagin took then?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Just at dinner-time—two o’clock this afternoon. Charley and I made
      our lucky up the wash-us chimney, and Bolter got into the empty
      water-butt, head downwards; but his legs were so precious long that they
      stuck out at the top, and so they took him too.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘And Bet?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Poor Bet! She went to see the Body, to speak to who it was,’ replied
      Chitling, his countenance falling more and more, ‘and went off mad,
      screaming and raving, and beating her head against the boards; so they put
      a strait-weskut on her and took her to the hospital—and there she
      is.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Wot’s come of young Bates?’ demanded Kags.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘He hung about, not to come over here afore dark, but he’ll be here soon,’ 
      replied Chitling. ‘There’s nowhere else to go to now, for the people at
      the Cripples are all in custody, and the bar of the ken—I went up
      there and see it with my own eyes—is filled with traps.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘This is a smash,’ observed Toby, biting his lips. ‘There’s more than one
      will go with this.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The sessions are on,’ said Kags: ‘if they get the inquest over, and
      Bolter turns King’s evidence: as of course he will, from what he’s said
      already: they can prove Fagin an accessory before the fact, and get the
      trial on on Friday, and he’ll swing in six days from this, by G—!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You should have heard the people groan,’ said Chitling; ‘the officers
      fought like devils, or they’d have torn him away. He was down once, but
      they made a ring round him, and fought their way along. You should have
      seen how he looked about him, all muddy and bleeding, and clung to them as
      if they were his dearest friends. I can see ‘em now, not able to stand
      upright with the pressing of the mob, and draggin him along amongst ‘em; I
      can see the people jumping up, one behind another, and snarling with their
      teeth and making at him; I can see the blood upon his hair and beard, and
      hear the cries with which the women worked themselves into the centre of
      the crowd at the street corner, and swore they’d tear his heart out!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      The horror-stricken witness of this scene pressed his hands upon his ears,
      and with his eyes closed got up and paced violently to and fro, like one
      distracted.
    </p>
<p>
      While he was thus engaged, and the two men sat by in silence with their
      eyes fixed upon the floor, a pattering noise was heard upon the stairs,
      and Sikes’s dog bounded into the room. They ran to the window, downstairs,
      and into the street. The dog had jumped in at an open window; he made no
      attempt to follow them, nor was his master to be seen.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ said Toby when they had returned. ‘He can’t
      be coming here. I—I—hope not.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘If he was coming here, he’d have come with the dog,’ said Kags, stooping
      down to examine the animal, who lay panting on the floor. ‘Here! Give us
      some water for him; he has run himself faint.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘He’s drunk it all up, every drop,’ said Chitling after watching the dog
      some time in silence. ‘Covered with mud—lame—half blind—he
      must have come a long way.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Where can he have come from!’ exclaimed Toby. ‘He’s been to the other
      kens of course, and finding them filled with strangers come on here, where
      he’s been many a time and often. But where can he have come from first,
      and how comes he here alone without the other!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘He’—(none of them called the murderer by his old name)—‘He
      can’t have made away with himself. What do you think?’ said Chitling.
    </p>
<p>
      Toby shook his head.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘If he had,’ said Kags, ‘the dog ‘ud want to lead us away to where he did
      it. No. I think he’s got out of the country, and left the dog behind. He
      must have given him the slip somehow, or he wouldn’t be so easy.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      This solution, appearing the most probable one, was adopted as the right;
      the dog, creeping under a chair, coiled himself up to sleep, without more
      notice from anybody.
    </p>
<p>
      It being now dark, the shutter was closed, and a candle lighted and placed
      upon the table. The terrible events of the last two days had made a deep
      impression on all three, increased by the danger and uncertainty of their
      own position. They drew their chairs closer together, starting at every
      sound. They spoke little, and that in whispers, and were as silent and
      awe-stricken as if the remains of the murdered woman lay in the next room.
    </p>
<p>
      They had sat thus, some time, when suddenly was heard a hurried knocking
      at the door below.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Young Bates,’ said Kags, looking angrily round, to check the fear he felt
      himself.
    </p>
<p>
      The knocking came again. No, it wasn’t he. He never knocked like that.
    </p>
<p>
      Crackit went to the window, and shaking all over, drew in his head. There
      was no need to tell them who it was; his pale face was enough. The dog too
      was on the alert in an instant, and ran whining to the door.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘We must let him in,’ he said, taking up the candle.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Isn’t there any help for it?’ asked the other man in a hoarse voice.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘None. He <i>must</i> come in.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Don’t leave us in the dark,’ said Kags, taking down a candle from the
      chimney-piece, and lighting it, with such a trembling hand that the
      knocking was twice repeated before he had finished.
    </p>
<p>
      Crackit went down to the door, and returned followed by a man with the
      lower part of his face buried in a handkerchief, and another tied over his
      head under his hat. He drew them slowly off. Blanched face, sunken eyes,
      hollow cheeks, beard of three days’ growth, wasted flesh, short thick
      breath; it was the very ghost of Sikes.
    </p>
<p>
      He laid his hand upon a chair which stood in the middle of the room, but
      shuddering as he was about to drop into it, and seeming to glance over his
      shoulder, dragged it back close to the wall—as close as it would go—and
      ground it against it—and sat down.
    </p>
<p>
      Not a word had been exchanged. He looked from one to another in silence.
      If an eye were furtively raised and met his, it was instantly averted.
      When his hollow voice broke silence, they all three started. They seemed
      never to have heard its tones before.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘How came that dog here?’ he asked.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Alone. Three hours ago.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘To-night’s paper says that Fagin’s took. Is it true, or a lie?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘True.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      They were silent again.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Damn you all!’ said Sikes, passing his hand across his
      forehead. ‘Have you nothing to say to me?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      There was an uneasy movement among them, but nobody spoke.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You that keep this house,’ said Sikes, turning his face to Crackit, ‘do
      you mean to sell me, or to let me lie here till this hunt is over?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘You may stop here, if you think it safe,’ returned the person addressed,
      after some hesitation.
    </p>
<p>
      Sikes carried his eyes slowly up the wall behind him: rather trying to
      turn his head than actually doing it: and said, ‘Is—it—the
      body—is it buried?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      They shook their heads.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Why isn’t it!’ he retorted with the same glance behind him. ‘Wot do they
      keep such ugly things above the ground for?—Who’s that knocking?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Crackit intimated, by a motion of his hand as he left the room, that there
      was nothing to fear; and directly came back with Charley Bates behind him.
      Sikes sat opposite the door, so that the moment the boy entered the room
      he encountered his figure.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Toby,’ said the boy falling back, as Sikes turned his eyes towards him,
      ‘why didn’t you tell me this, downstairs?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      There had been something so tremendous in the shrinking off of the three,
      that the wretched man was willing to propitiate even this lad. Accordingly
      he nodded, and made as though he would shake hands with him.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Let me go into some other room,’ said the boy, retreating still farther.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Charley!’ said Sikes, stepping forward. ‘Don’t you—don’t you know
      me?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Don’t come nearer me,’ answered the boy, still retreating, and looking,
      with horror in his eyes, upon the murderer’s face. ‘You monster!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      The man stopped half-way, and they looked at each other; but Sikes’s eyes
      sunk gradually to the ground.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Witness you three,’ cried the boy shaking his clenched fist, and becoming
      more and more excited as he spoke. ‘Witness you three—I’m not afraid
      of him—if they come here after him, I’ll give him up; I will. I tell
      you out at once. He may kill me for it if he likes, or if he dares, but if
      I am here I’ll give him up. I’d give him up if he was to be boiled alive.
      Murder! Help! If there’s the pluck of a man among you three, you’ll help
      me. Murder! Help! Down with him!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Pouring out these cries, and accompanying them with violent gesticulation,
      the boy actually threw himself, single-handed, upon the strong man, and in
      the intensity of his energy and the suddenness of his surprise, brought
      him heavily to the ground.
    </p>
<p>
      The three spectators seemed quite stupefied. They offered no interference,
      and the boy and man rolled on the ground together; the former, heedless of
      the blows that showered upon him, wrenching his hands tighter and tighter
      in the garments about the murderer’s breast, and never ceasing to call for
      help with all his might.
    </p>
<p>
      The contest, however, was too unequal to last long. Sikes had him down,
      and his knee was on his throat, when Crackit pulled him back with a look
      of alarm, and pointed to the window. There were lights gleaming below,
      voices in loud and earnest conversation, the tramp of hurried footsteps—endless
      they seemed in number—crossing the nearest wooden bridge. One man on
      horseback seemed to be among the crowd; for there was the noise of hoofs
      rattling on the uneven pavement. The gleam of lights increased; the
      footsteps came more thickly and noisily on. Then, came a loud knocking at
      the door, and then a hoarse murmur from such a multitude of angry voices
      as would have made the boldest quail.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Help!’ shrieked the boy in a voice that rent the air.
      ‘He’s here! Break down the door!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘In the King’s name,’ cried the voices without; and the hoarse cry arose
      again, but louder.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Break down the door!’ screamed the boy. ‘I tell you they’ll never open
      it. Run straight to the room where the light is. Break down the door!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Strokes, thick and heavy, rattled upon the door and lower window-shutters
      as he ceased to speak, and a loud huzzah burst from the crowd; giving the
      listener, for the first time, some adequate idea of its immense extent.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Open the door of some place where I can lock this screeching Hell-babe,’ 
      cried Sikes fiercely; running to and fro, and dragging the boy, now, as
      easily as if he were an empty sack. ‘That door. Quick!’ He flung him in,
      bolted it, and turned the key. ‘Is the downstairs door fast?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Double-locked and chained,’ replied Crackit, who, with the other two men,
      still remained quite helpless and bewildered.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The panels—are they strong?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Lined with sheet-iron.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘And the windows too?’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Yes, and the windows.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      ‘Damn you!’ cried the desperate ruffian, throwing up the sash and menacing
      the crowd. ‘Do your worst! I’ll cheat you yet!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      Of all the terrific yells that ever fell on mortal ears, none could exceed
      the cry of the infuriated throng. Some shouted to those who were nearest
      to set the house on fire; others roared to the officers to shoot him dead.
      Among them all, none showed such fury as the man on horseback, who,
      throwing himself out of the saddle, and bursting through the crowd as if
      he were parting water, cried, beneath the window, in a voice that rose
      above all others, ‘Twenty guineas to the man who brings a ladder!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      The nearest voices took up the cry, and hundreds echoed it. Some called
      for ladders, some for sledge-hammers; some ran with torches to and fro as
      if to seek them, and still came back and roared again; some spent their
      breath in impotent curses and execrations; some pressed forward with the
      ecstasy of madmen, and thus impeded the progress of those below; some
      among the boldest attempted to climb up by the water-spout and crevices in
      the wall; and all waved to and fro, in the darkness beneath, like a field
      of corn moved by an angry wind: and joined from time to time in one loud
      furious roar.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘The tide,’ cried the murderer, as he staggered back into the room, and
      shut the faces out, ‘the tide was in as I came up. Give me a rope, a long
      rope. They’re all in front. I may drop into the Folly Ditch, and clear off
      that way. Give me a rope, or I shall do three more murders and kill
      myself.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      The panic-stricken men pointed to where such articles were kept; the
      murderer, hastily selecting the longest and strongest cord, hurried up to
      the house-top.
    </p>
<p>
      All the windows in the rear of the house had been long ago bricked up,
      except one small trap in the room where the boy was locked, and that was
      too small even for the passage of his body. But, from this aperture, he
      had never ceased to call on those without, to guard the back; and thus,
      when the murderer emerged at last on the house-top by the door in the
      roof, a loud shout proclaimed the fact to those in front, who immediately
      began to pour round, pressing upon each other in an unbroken stream.
    </p>
<p>
      He planted a board, which he had carried up with him for the purpose, so
      firmly against the door that it must be matter of great difficulty to open
      it from the inside; and creeping over the tiles, looked over the low
      parapet.
    </p>
<p>
      The water was out, and the ditch a bed of mud.
    </p>
<p>
      The crowd had been hushed during these few moments, watching his motions
      and doubtful of his purpose, but the instant they perceived it and knew it
      was defeated, they raised a cry of triumphant execration to which all
      their previous shouting had been whispers. Again and again it rose. Those
      who were at too great a distance to know its meaning, took up the sound;
      it echoed and re-echoed; it seemed as though the whole city had poured its
      population out to curse him.
    </p>
<p>
      On pressed the people from the front—on, on, on, in a strong
      struggling current of angry faces, with here and there a glaring torch to
      lighten them up, and show them out in all their wrath and passion. The
      houses on the opposite side of the ditch had been entered by the mob;
      sashes were thrown up, or torn bodily out; there were tiers and tiers of
      faces in every window; cluster upon cluster of people clinging to every
      house-top. Each little bridge (and there were three in sight) bent beneath
      the weight of the crowd upon it. Still the current poured on to find some
      nook or hole from which to vent their shouts, and only for an instant see
      the wretch.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘They have him now,’ cried a man on the nearest bridge. ‘Hurrah!’ 
    </p>
<p>
      The crowd grew light with uncovered heads; and again the shout uprose.
    </p>
<p>
      ‘I will give fifty pounds,’ cried an old gentleman from the same quarter,
      ‘to the man who takes him alive. I will remain here, till he come to ask
      me for it.’ 
    </p>
<p>
      There was another roar. At this moment the word was passed among the crowd
      that the door was forced at last, and that he who had first called for the
      ladder had mounted into the room. The stream abruptly turned, as this
      intelligence ran from mouth to mouth; and the people at the windows,
      seeing those upon the bridges pouring back, quitted their stations, and
      running into the street, joined the concourse that now thronged pell-mell
      to the spot they had left: each man crushing and striving with his
      neighbor, and all panting with impatience to get near the door, and look
      upon the criminal as the officers brought him out. The cries and shrieks
      of those who were pressed almost to suffocation, or trampled down and
      trodden under foot in the confusion, were dreadful; the narrow ways were
      completely blocked up; and at this time, between the rush of some to
      regain the space in front of the house, and the unavailing struggles of
      others to extricate themselves from the mass, the immediate attention was
      distracted from the murderer, although the universal eagerness for his
      capture was, if possible, increased.
    </p>
<p>
      The man had shrunk down, thoroughly quelled by the ferocity of the crowd,
      and the impossibility of escape; but seeing this sudden change with no
      less rapidity than it had occurred, he sprang upon his feet, determined to
      make one last effort for his life by dropping into the ditch, and, at the
      risk of being stifled, endeavouring to creep away in the darkness and
      confusion.
    </p>
<p>
      Roused into new strength and energy, and stimulated by the noise within
      the house which announced that an entrance had really been effected, he
      set his foot against the stack of chimneys, fastened one end of the rope
      tightly and firmly round it, and with the other made a strong running
      noose by the aid of his hands and teeth almost in a second. He could let
      himself down by the cord to within a less distance of the ground than his
      own height, and had his knife ready in his hand to cut it then and drop.
    </p>
</body></html>
