“He!” exclaimed Sikes.
“Have him, Bill!” said Nancy. “I would, if I was in your place.
He mayn’t be so much up, as any of the others; but that’s not what
you ,want, if he’s only to open a door for you. Depend upon it, he’s
a safe one, Bill.”
“I know he is,” rejoined Fagin. “He’s been in good training
these last few weeks, and it’s time he began to work for his bread.
Besides, the others are all too big.”
“Well, he is just the size I want,” said Mr. Sikes, ruminating.
“And will do everything you want, Bill, my dear,” interposed
the Jew; “he can’t help himself. That is, if you frighten him
enough.”
“Frighten him!” echoed Sikes. “It’ll be no sham frightening,
mind you. If there’s anything queer about him when we once get
into the work, in for a penny, in for a pound. You won’t see him
alive again, Fagin. Think of that, before you send him. Mark my
words!” said the robber, poising a crowbar, which he had drawn
from under the bedstead.
“I’ve thought of it all,” said the Jew, with energy. “I’ve—I’ve
had my eye upon him, my dears, close—close. Once let him feel
that he is one of us; once fill his mind with the idea that he has
been a thief; and he’s ours! Ours for his life! Oho! It couldn’t have
come about better!” The old man crossed his arms upon his
breast; and, drawing his head and shoulders into a heap, literally
hugged himself for joy.
“Ours!” said Sikes. “Yours, you mean.”
“Perhaps I do, my dear,” said the Jew, with a shrill chuckle.
“Mine, if you like, Bill.”
“And wot,” said Sikes, scowling fiercely on his agreeable friend,
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“wot makes you take so much pains about one chalk-faced kid,
when you know there are fifty boys snoozing about Common
Garden every night, as you might pick and choose from?”
“Because they’re of no use to me, my dear,” replied the Jew,
with some confusion, a not worth the taking. Their looks convict
’em when they get into trouble, and I lose ’em all. With this boy,
properly managed, my dears, I could do what I couldn’t with
twenty of them. Besides,” said the Jew, recovering his self-
possession, “he has us now if he could only give us leg-bail again;
and he must be in the same boat with us. Never mind how he came
there; it’s quite enough for my power over him that he was in a
robbery; that’s all I want. Now, how much better this is, than being
obliged to put the poor leetle boy out of the way—which would be
dangerous, and we should lose by it besides.”
“When is it to be done?” asked Nancy, stopping some turbulent
exclamation on the part of Mr. Sikes, expressive of the disgust
with which he received Fagin’s affectation of humanity.
“Ah, to be sure,” said the Jew; “when is it to be done, Bill?”
“I planned with Toby, the night arter tomorrow,” rejoined
Sikes, in a surly voice, “if he heerd nothing from me to the
contrairy.”
“Good,” said the Jew; “there’s no moon.”
“No,” rejoined Sikes.
“It’s all arranged, about bringing off the swag, is it?” asked the
Jew.
Sikes nodded.
“And about—”
“Oh, ah, it’s all planned,” rejoined Sikes, interrupting him.
“Never mind particulars. You’d better bring the boy here
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tomorrow night. I shall get off the stones an hour arter daybreak.
Then you hold your tongue, and keep the melting-pot ready, and
that’s all you’ll have to do.”
After some discussion, in which all three took an active part, it
was decided that Nancy should repair to the Jew’s next evening
when the night had set in, and bring Oliver away with her; Fagin
craftily observing, that, if he evinced any disinclination to the task,
he would be more willing to accompany the girl who had so
recently interfered in his behalf, than anybody else. It was also
solemnly arranged that poor Oliver should, for the purposes (If the
contemplated expedition, be unreservedly consigned to the care
and custody of Mr. William Sikes; and further, that the said Sikes
should deal with him as he thought fit; and should not be held
responsible by the Jew for any mischance or evil that might befall
him, or any punishment with which it might be necessary to visit
him; it being understood that, to render the compact in this
respect binding, any representations made by Mr. Sikes on his
return should be required to be confirmed and corroborated, in all
important particulars, by the testimony of flash Toby Crackit.
These preliminaries adjusted, Mr. Sikes proceeded to drink
brandy at a furious rate, and to flourish the crowbar in an
alarming manner; yelling forth, at the same time, most unmusical
snatches of song, mingled with wild execrations. At length, in a fit
of professional enthusiasm, he insisted upon producing his box of
housebreaking tools; which he had no sooner stumbled in with,
and opened for the purpose of explaining the nature and
properties of the various implements it contained, and the peculiar
beauties of their construction, than he fell over the box upon the
floor, and went to sleep where he fell.
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“Good-night, Nancy,” said the Jew muffling himself up as
before.
“Good-night.”
Their eyes met, and the Jew scrutinised her narrowly. There
was no flinching about the girl. She was as true and earnest in the
matter as Toby Crackit himself could be.
The Jew again bade her good-night, and bestowing a sly kick
upon the prostrate form of Mr. Sikes while her back was turned,
groped downstairs.
“Always the way!” muttered the Jew to himself as he turned
homeward. “The worst of these women is, that a very little thing
serves to call up some long-forgotten feeling; and the best of them
is, that it never lasts. Ha! ha! The man against the child, for a bag
of gold!”
Beguiling the time with these pleasant reflections, Mr. Fagin
wended his way, through mud and mire, to his gloomy abode,
where the Dodger was sitting up, impatiently awaiting his return.
“Is Oliver a-bed? I want to speak to him,” was his first remark
as they descended the stairs.
“Hours ago,” replied the Dodger, throwing open a door. “Here
he is!”
The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so
pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison,
that he looked like death; not death as it shows in shroud and
coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a
young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to heaven, and the
gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the
changing dust it hallowed.
“Not now,” said the Jew, turning softly away. “Tomorrow.
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Tomorrow.”
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Chapter 20
Wherein Oliver Is Delivered Over To Mr. William
Sikes.
When Oliver awoke in the morning, he was a good deal
surprised to find that a new pair of shoes, with strong,
thick soles, had been placed at his bedside, and that his
old shoes had been removed. At first, he was pleased with the
discovery, hoping that it might be the forerunner of his release;
but such thoughts were quickly dispelled, on his sitting down to
breakfast along with the Jew, who told him, in a tone and manner
which increased his alarm, that he was to be taken to the
residence of Bill Sikes that night.
“To—to—stop there, sir?” asked Oliver anxiously.
“No, no, my dear. Not to stop there,” replied the Jew. “We
shouldn’t like to lose you. Don’t be afraid, Oliver, you shall come
back to us again. Ha! ha! ha! We won’t be so cruel as to send you
away, my dear. Oh, no no!”
The old man, who was stooping over the fire toasting a piece of
bread, looked round as he bantered Oliver thus; and chuckled as if
to show that he knew he would still be very glad to get away if he
could.
“I suppose,” said the Jew, fixing his eyes on Oliver, “you want
to know what you’re going to Bill’s for—eh, my dear?”
Oliver coloured, involuntarily, to find that the old thief had
been reading his thoughts; but boldly said, Yes, he did want to
know.
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“Why, do you think?” inquired Fagin, parrying the question.
“Indeed I don’t know, sir,” replied Oliver.
“Bah!” said the Jew, turning away with a disappointed
countenance from a close perusal of the boy’s face. “Wait till Bill
tells you, then.”
The Jew seemed much vexed by Oliver’s not expressing any
greater curiosity on the subject; but the truth is, that, although
Oliver felt very anxious, he was too much confused by the earnest
cunning of Fagin’s looks, and his own speculations, to make any
further inquiries just then. He had no other opportunity, for the
Jew remained very surly and silent till night, when he prepared to
go abroad.
“You may burn a candle,” said the Jew, putting one upon the
table. “And here’s a book for you to read, till they come to fetch
you. Good-night!”
“Good-night!” replied Oliver softly.
The Jew walked to the door, looking over his shoulder at the
boy as he went. Suddenly stopping, he called him by his name.
Oliver looked up; the Jew, pointing to the candle, motioned him
to light it. He did so; and, as he placed the candlestick upon the
table, saw that the Jew was gazing fixedly at him, with lowering
and contracted brows, from the dark end of the room.
“Take heed, Oliver! take heed!” said the old man, shaking his
right hand before him in a warning manner. “He’s a rough man,
and thinks nothing of blood when his Own is up. Whatever falls
out, say nothing; and do what he bids you. Mind!” Placing a strong
emphasis on the last word, he suffered his features gradually to
resolve themselves into a ghastly grin, and, nodding his head, left
the room.
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Oliver leaned his head upon his hand when the old man
disappeared, and pondered, with a trembling heart, on the words
he had just heard. The more he thought of the Jew’s admonition,
the more he was at a loss to divine its real purpose and meaning.
He could think of no bad object to be attained by sending him to
Sikes, which would not be equally well answered by his remaining
with Fagin; and after meditating for a long time, concluded that he
had been selected to perform some ordinary menial offices for the
housebreaker, until another boy, better suited for his purpose,
could be engaged. He was too well accustomed to suffering, and
had suffered too much where he was, to bewail the prospect of
change very severely. He remained lost in thought for some
minutes; and then, with a heavy sigh, snuffed the candle, and,
taking up the book which the Jew had left with him, began to read.
He turned over the leaves carelessly at first; but, lighting on a
passage which attracted his attention he soon became intent upon
the volume. It was a history of the lives and trials of great
criminals; and the pages were soiled and thumbed with use. Here,
he read of dreadful crimes that made the blood run cold; of secret
murders that had been committed by the lonely wayside; of bodies
hidden from the eye of man in deep pits and wells: which would
not keep them down, deep as they were, but had yielded them up
at last, after many years, and so maddened the murderers with the
sight, that in their horror they had confessed their guilt, and yelled
for the gibbet to end their agony. Here, too, he read of men who,
lying in their beds at dead of night, had been tempted (as they
said) and led on, by their own bad thoughts, to such dreadful
bloodshed as it made the flesh creep, and the limbs quail, to think
of. The terrible descriptions were so real and vivid, that the sallow
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pages seemed to turn red with gore; and the words upon them, to
be sounded in his ears, as if they were whispered, in hollow
murmurs, by the spirits of the dead.
In a paroxysm of fear, the boy closed the book, and thrust it
from him. Then, falling upon his knees, he prayed Heaven to spare
him from such deeds; and rather to will that he should die at once,
than be reserved for crimes so fearful and appalling. By degrees,
he grew more calm, and besought in a low and broken voice, that
he might be rescued from his present dangers; and that if any aid
were to’ be raised up for a poor, outcast boy, who had never
known the love of friends or kindred, it might come to him now,
when, desolate and deserted, he stood alone in the midst of
wickedness and guilt.
He had concluded his prayer, but still remained with his head
buried in his hands, when a rustling noise aroused him.
“What’s that?” he cried, starting up, and catching sight of a
figure standing by the door. “Who’s there?”
“Me. Only me,” replied a tremulous voice.
Oliver raised the candle above his head, and looked towards the
door. It was Nancy.
“Put down the light,” said the girl, turning away her head; “it
hurts my eyes.”
Oliver saw that she was very pale, and gently inquired if she
were ill. The girl threw herself into a chair, with her back towards
him, and wrung her hands; but made no reply.
“God forgive me!” she cried, after a while; “I never thought of
this.”
“Has anything happened?” asked Oliver. “Can I help you? I will
if I can. I will, indeed.
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She rocked herself to and fro; caught her throat; and, uttering a
gurgling sound, gasped for breath.
“Nancy!” cried Oliver, “what is it?”
The girl beat her hands upon her knees, and her feet upon the
ground; and, suddenly stopping, drew her shawl close round her,
and shivered with cold.
Oliver stirred the fire. Drawing her chair close to it, she sat
there, for a little time, without speaking; but at length she raised
her head, and looked round.
“I don’t know what comes over me sometimes,” said she,
affecting to busy herself in arranging her dress; “it’s this damp,
dirty room, I think. Now, Nolly, dear, are you ready?”
“Am I to go with you?” asked Oliver.
“Yes; I have come from Bill,” replied the girl. “You are to go
with me.”
“What for?” asked Oliver, recoiling.
“What for?” echoed the girl, raising her eyes, and averting them
again, the moment they encountered the boy’s face. “Oh! For no
harm.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Oliver, who had watched her closely.
“Have it your own way,” rejoined the girl, affecting to laugh.
“For no good, then.”
Oliver could see that he had some power over the girl’s better
feelings, and, for an instant, thought of appealing to her
compassion for his helpless state. But, then, the thought darted
across his mind that it was barely eleven o’clock; and that many
people were still in the streets, of whom surely some might be
found to give credence to his tale. As the reflection occurred to
him, he stepped forward; and said, somewhat hastily, that he was
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ready.
Neither his brief consideration, nor its purport, was lost on his
companion. She eyed him narrowly, while he spoke and cast upon
him a look of intelligence which sufficiently showed that she
guessed what had been passing in his thoughts.
“Hush!” said the girl, stooping over him, and pointing to the
door as she looked cautiously round. “You can’t help yourself. I
have tried hard for you, but all to no purpose. You are hedged
round and round. If ever you are to get loose from here, this is not
the time.”
Struck by the energy of her manner, Oliver looked up in her
