downstairs door fast?”
“Double-locked and chained,” replied Crackit, who, with the
other two men, still remained quite helpless and bewildered.
“The panels—are they strong?”
“Lined with sheet-iron.”
“And the windows too?”
“Yes, and the windows.”
“Damn you!” cried the desperate ruffian, throwing up the sash
and menacing the crowd. “Do your worst! I’ll cheat you yet!”
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!”
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.
“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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 546
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.”
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.
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.
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.
The water was out, and the ditch a bed of mud.
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.
On pressed the people from the front—on, on, on, in a strong,
struggling current of angry faces, with here and there a glaring
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 547
torch to light 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.
“They have him now,” cried a man on the nearest bridge.
“Hurrah!”
The crowd grew light with uncovered heads; and again the
shout uprose.
“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
comes to ask for it.”
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
neighbour, 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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 548
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 murder, although the universal eagerness for his capture
was, if possible, increased.
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.
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.
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.
“The eyes again!” he cried, in an unearthly screech.
Staggering as if struck by lightning, he lost his balance and
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 549
tumbled over the parapet. The noose was on his neck. It ran up
with his weight, tight as a bowstring, 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.
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.
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.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 550
Chapter 51
Affording an explanation of more mysteries than
one, and comprehending a proposal of marriage
with no word of settlement or pin-money.
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.
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.
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
had so recently taken place. “It was quite true,” he said, “that they
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 551
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.
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 awakened 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.
“See there, there!” cried Oliver, eagerly clasping the hand of
Rose, and pointing out of 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!”
“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.”
“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?”
Rose nodded yes, for the boy was smiling through such happy
tears that she could not speak.
“You will be kind and good to him, for you are to every one,”
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 552
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!”
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 shrank 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 a happy dream.
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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 553
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.
Notwithstanding all this, when the hurry of the first half-hour
was over, the same silence and constraint prevailed that had
marred 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.
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.
“This is a painful task,” said he, “but these declarations, which
have been signed in London before many gentlemen, must be in
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 554
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.”
“Go on,” said the person addressed, turning away his face.
“Quick. I have almost done enough, I think. Don’t keep me here.”
“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.”
“Yes,” said Monks, scowling at the trembling boy, the beating of
whose heart he might have heard. “That is their bastard child.”
“The term you use,” said Mr. Brownlow sternly, “is a reproach
to those who have 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.”
“In the workhouse of this town,” was the sullen reply. “You
have the story there.” He pointed impatiently to the papers as he
spoke.
“I must have it here, too,” said Mr. Brownlow, looking round
upon the listeners.
“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 inclosed in a few short lines to you,
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 555
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.”
“What of the letter?” asked Mr. Brownlow.
“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 in 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
