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what they wanted there.
“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.”
‘‘You have some papers,” said Mr. Brownlow, advancing,
“which were placed in your hands, for better security, by a man
called Monks.”
“It’s all a lie together,” replied Fagin. “I haven’t one—not one.”
“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?”
“Oliver,” cried Fagin, beckoning to him. “Here, here! Let me
whisper to you.”
“I am not afraid,” said Oliver, in a low voice, as he relinquished
Mr. Brownlow’s hand.
“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.”
“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.”
“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!”
“Oh! God forgive this wretched man!” cried the boy, with a
burst of tears.
“That’s right, that’s right,” said Fagin. “That’ll help us on. This
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door first. If I shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows, don’t you
mind, but hurry on. Now, now, now!”
“Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?” inquired the turnkey.
“No other question,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “If I hoped we
could recall him to a sense of his position”—
“Nothing will do that, sir,” replied the man, shaking his head.
“You had better leave him.”
The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.
“Press on, press on,” cried Fagin. “Softly, but not so slow.
Faster, faster!”
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.
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.
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.
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Chapter 53
And Last.
The fortunes of those who have figured in this tale are
nearly closed. The little that remains to their historian to
relate, is told in few and simple words.
Before three months had passed, Rose Fleming and Harry
Maylie were married in the village church which was henceforth
to be the scene of the young clergyman’s labours; on the same day
they entered into possession of their new and happy home.
Mrs. Maylie took up her abode with her son and daughter-inlaw, to enjoy, during the tranquil remainder of her days, the
greatest felicity that age and worth can know—the contemplation
of the happiness of those on whom the warmest affections and
tenderest cares of a well-spent life have been unceasingly
bestowed.
It appeared, on full and careful investigation, that if the wreck
of property remaining in the custody of Monks (which had never
prospered either in his hands or in those of his mother) were
equally divided between himself and Oliver, it would yield, to
each, little more than three thousand pounds. By the provisions of
his father’s will, Oliver would have been entitled to the whole; but
Mr. Brownlow, unwilling to deprive the elder son of the
opportunity of retrieving his former vices and pursuing an honest
career, proposed this mode of distribution, to which his young
charge joyfully acceded.
Monks, still bearing that assumed name, retired with his
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portion to a distant part of the New World; where, having quickly
squandered it, he once more fell into his old courses, and, after
undergoing a long confinement for some fresh act of fraud and
knavery, at length sank under an attack of his old disorder, and
died in prison. As far from home, died the chief remaining
members of his friend Fagin’s gang.
Mr. Brownlow adopted Oliver as his son. Removing with him
and the old housekeeper to within a mile of the parsonage house,
where his dear friends resided, he gratified the only remaining
wish of Oliver’s warm and earnest heart, and thus linked together
a little society, whose condition approached as nearly to one of
perfect happiness as can ever be known in this changing world.
Soon after the marriage of the young people, the worthy doctor
returned to Chertsey, where, bereft of the presence of his old
friends, he would have been discontented if his temperament had
admitted of such a feeling; and would have turned quite peevish if
he had known how. For two or three months, he contented himself
with hinting that he feared the air began to disagree with him;
then, finding that the place really no longer was, to him, what it
had been, he settled his business on his assistant, took a bachelor’s
cottage outside the village of which his young friend was pastor,
and instantaneously recovered. Here, he took to gardening,
planting, fishing, carpentering, and various other pursuits of a
similar kind, all undertaken with his characteristic impetuosity,
and in each and all, he has since become famous throughout the
neighbourhood, as a most profound authority.
Before his removal, he had managed to contract a strong
friendship for Mr. Grimwig, which that eccentric gentleman
cordially reciprocated. He is accordingly visited by Mr. Grimwig a
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great many times in the course of the year. On all such occasions,
Mr. Grimwig plants, fishes, and carpenters, with great ardour;
doing everything in a very singular and unprecedented manner,
but always maintaining with his favourite asseveration, that his
mode is the right one On Sundays, he never fails to criticise the
sermon to the young clergyman’s face; always informing Mr.
Losberne, in strict confidence afterwards, that he considers it an
excellent performance, but deems it as well not to say so. It is a
standing and very favourite joke for Mr. Brownlow to rally him on
his old prophecy concerning Oliver, and to remind him of the
night on which they sat with the watch between them, waiting his
return; but Mr. Grimwig contends that he was right in the main,
and, in proof thereof, remarks that Oliver did not come back, after
all; which always calls forth a laugh on his side, and increases his
good-humour.
Mr. Noah Claypole, receiving a free pardon from the Crown in
consequence of being admitted approver against Fagin, and
considering his profession not altogether as safe a one as he could
wish, was, for some little time, at a loss for the means of a
livelihood, not burdened with too much work. After some
consideration, he went into business as an informer, in which
calling he realises a genteel subsistence. His plan is to walk out
once a week during church time attended by Charlotte in
respectable attire. The lady faints away at the doors of charitable
publicans, and the gentleman being accommodated with
threepennyworth of brandy to restore her, lays an information
next day, and pockets half the penalty. Sometimes, Mr. Claypole
faints himself, but the result is the same.
Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, deprived of their situations, were
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gradually reduced to great indigence and misery, and finally
became paupers in that very same workhouse in which they had
once lorded it over others. Mr. Bumble has been heard to say, that
in this reverse and degradation, he has not even spirits to be
thankful for being separated from his wife.
As to Mr. Giles and Brittles, they still remain in their old posts,
although the former is bald, and the last-named boy quite grey.
They sleep at the parsonage, but divide their attentions so equally
among its inmates, and Oliver, and Mr. Brownlow, and Mr.
Losberne, that to this day the villagers have never been able to
discover to which establishment they properly belong.
Master Charles Bates, appalled by Sikes’s crime, fell into a train
of reflection whether an honest life was not, after all, the best.
Arriving at the conclusion that it certainly was, he turned his back
upon the scenes of the past, resolved to amend it in some new
sphere of action. He struggled hard, and suffered much, for some
time; but, having a contented disposition, and a good purpose,
succeeded in the end; and, from being a farmer’s drudge, and a
carrier’s lad, he is now the merriest young grazier in all
Northamptonshire.
And now, the hand that traces these words, falters, as it
approaches the conclusion of its task; and would weave, for a little
longer space, the threads of these adventures.
I would fain linger yet with a few of those among whom I have
so long moved, and share their happiness by endeavouring to
depict it. I would show Rose Maylie in all the bloom and grace of
early womanhood, shedding on her secluded path in life soft and
gentle light, that fell on all who trod it with her, and shone into
their hearts. I would paint her the life and joy of the fireside circle
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and the lively summer group; I would follow her through the
sultry fields at noon, and hear the low tones of her sweet voice in
the moonlit evening walk; I would watch her in all her goodness
and charity abroad, and the smiling, untiring discharge of
domestic duties at home; I would paint her and her dead sister’s
child happy in their love for one another, and passing whole hours
together in picturing the friends whom they had so sadly lost; I
would summon before me, once again, those joyous little faces that
clustered round her knee, and listen to their merry prattle; I would
recall the tones of that clear laugh, and conjure up the
sympathising tear that glistened in the soft blue eye. These, and a
thousand looks and smiles, and turns of thought and speech—I
would fain recall them every one.
How Mr. Brownlow went on, from day to day, filling the mind of
his adopted child with stores of knowledge, and becoming
attached to him, more and more, as his nature developed itself,
and showed the thriving seeds of all he wished him to become—
how he traced in him new traits of his early friend, that awakened
in his own bosom old remembrances, melancholy and yet sweet
and soothing—how the two orphans, tried by adversity,
remembered its lessons in mercy to others, and mutual love, and
fervent thanks to Him who had protected and preserved them—
these are all matters which need not be told. I have said that they
were truly happy; and without strong affection and humanity of
heart, and gratitude to that Being whose code is Mercy, and whose
great attribute is Benevolence to all things that breathe, happiness
can never be attained.
Within the altar of the old village church there stands a white
marble tablet, which bears as yet but one word: “AGNES.” There
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is no coffin in that tomb; and may it be many, many years, before
another name is placed above it! But, if the spirits of the Dead ever
come back to earth, to visit spots hallowed by the love—the love
beyond the grave—of those whom they knew in life, I believe that
the shade of Agnes sometimes hovers round that solemn nook. I
believe it none the less because that nook is in a church, and she
was weak and erring.
The End
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