Chapter: 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 so recently taken place.
'It was quite true,' he said, 'that they must know them before long,
but it might be at a better time than the present, and it could not be
at a worse.'  So, they travelled on in silence:  each busied with
reflections on the object which had brought them together:  and no one
disposed to give utterance to the thoughts which crowded upon all.

But if Oliver, under these influences, had remained silent while they
journeyed towards his birth-place by a road he had never seen, how the
whole current of his recollections ran back to old times, and what a
crowd of emotions were wakened up in his breast, when they turned into
that which he had traversed on foot:  a poor houseless, wandering boy,
without a friend to help him, or a roof to shelter his head.

'See there, there!' cried Oliver, eagerly clasping the hand of Rose,
and pointing out at the carriage window; 'that's the stile I came over;
there are the hedges I crept behind, for fear any one should overtake
me and force me back!  Yonder is the path across the fields, leading to
the old house where I was a little child!  Oh Dick, Dick, my dear old
friend, if I could only see you now!'

'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,' 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 shrunk back, and then laughed at himself for being so
foolish, then cried, then laughed again--there were scores of faces at
the doors and windows that he knew quite well--there was nearly
everything as if he had left it but yesterday, and all his recent life
had been but a happy dream.

But it was pure, earnest, joyful reality.  They drove straight to the
door of the chief hotel (which Oliver used to stare up at, with awe,
and think a mighty palace, but which had somehow fallen off in grandeur
and size); and here was Mr. Grimwig all ready to receive them, kissing
the young lady, and the old one too, when they got out of the coach, as
if he were the grandfather of the whole party, all smiles and kindness,
and not offering to eat his head--no, not once; not even when he
contradicted a very old postboy about the nearest road to London, and
maintained he knew it best, though he had only come that way once, and
that time fast asleep.  There was dinner prepared, and there were
bedrooms ready, and everything was arranged as if by magic.

Notwithstanding all this, when the hurry of the first half-hour was
over, the same silence and constraint prevailed that had marked their
journey down.  Mr. Brownlow did not join them at dinner, but remained
in a separate room.  The two other gentlemen hurried in and out with
anxious faces, and, during the short intervals when they were present,
conversed apart.  Once, Mrs. Maylie was called away, and after being
absent for nearly an hour, returned with eyes swollen with weeping.
All these things made Rose and Oliver, who were not in any new secrets,
nervous and uncomfortable.  They sat wondering, in silence; or, if they
exchanged a few words, spoke in whispers, as if they were afraid to
hear the sound of their own voices.

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 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 the bastard child.'

'The term you use,' said Mr. Brownlow, sternly, 'is a reproach to those
long since passed beyond the feeble censure of the world. It reflects
disgrace on no one living, except you who use it. Let that pass.  He
was born in this town.'

'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 enclosed in a
few short lines to you, with an intimation on the cover of the package
that it was not to be forwarded till after he was dead.  One of these
papers was a letter to this girl Agnes; the other a will.'

'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 to him, until she trusted too far, and lost what
none could ever give her back.  She was, at that time, within a few
months of her confinement.  He told her all he had meant to do, to hide
her shame, if he had lived, and prayed her, if he died, not to curse
his memory, or think the consequences of their sin would be visited on
her or their young child; for all the guilt was his.  He reminded her
of the day he had given her the little locket and the ring with her
christian name engraved upon it, and a blank left for that which he
hoped one day to have bestowed upon her--prayed her yet to keep it, and
wear it next her heart, as she had done before--and then ran on,
wildly, in the same words, over and over again, as if he had gone
distracted.  I believe he had.'

'The will,' said Mr. Brownlow, as Oliver's tears fell fast.

Monks was silent.

'The will,' said Mr. Brownlow, speaking for him, 'was in the same
spirit as the letter.  He talked of miseries which his wife had brought
upon him; of the rebellious disposition, vice, malice, and premature
bad passions of you his only son, who had been trained to hate him; and
left you, and your mother, each an annuity of eight hundred pounds.
The bulk of his property he divided into two equal portions--one for
Agnes Fleming, and the other for their child, if it should be born
alive, and ever come of age.  If it were a girl, it was to inherit the
money unconditionally; but if a boy, only on the stipulation that in
his minority he should never have stained his name with any public act
of dishonour, meanness, cowardice, or wrong.  He did this, he said, to
mark his confidence in the other, and his conviction--only strengthened
by approaching death--that the child would share her gentle heart, and
noble nature.  If he were disappointed in this expectation, then the
money was to come to you:  for then, and not till then, when both
children were equal, would he recognise your prior claim upon his
purse, who had none upon his heart, but had, from an infant, repulsed
him with coldness and aversion.'

'My mother,' said Monks, in a louder tone, 'did what a woman should
have done.  She burnt this will.  The letter never reached its
destination; but that, and other proofs, she kept, in case they ever
tried to lie away the blot.  The girl's father had the truth from her
with every aggravation that her violent hate--I love her for it
now--could add.  Goaded by shame and dishonour he fled with his
children into a remote corner of Wales, changing his very name that his
friends might never know of his retreat; and here, no great while
afterwards, he was found dead in his bed.  The girl had left her home,
in secret, some weeks before; he had searched for her, on foot, in
every town and village near; it was on the night when he returned home,
assured that she had destroyed herself, to hide her shame and his, that
his old heart broke.'

There was a short silence here, until Mr. Brownlow took up the thread
of the narrative.

'Years after this,' he said, 'this man's--Edward Leeford's--mother came
to me.  He had left her, when only eighteen; robbed her of jewels and
money; gambled, squandered, forged, and fled to London:  where for two
years he had associated with the lowest outcasts.  She was sinking
under a painful and incurable disease, and wished to recover him before
she died.  Inquiries were set on foot, and strict searches made. They
were unavailing for a long time, but ultimately successful; and he went
back with her to France.'

'There she died,' said Monks, 'after a lingering illness; and, on her
death-bed, she bequeathed these secrets to me, together with her
unquenchable and deadly hatred of all whom they involved--though she
need not have left me that, for I had inherited it long before.  She
would not believe that the girl had destroyed herself, and the child
too, but was filled with the impression that a male child had been
born, and was alive.  I swore to her, if ever it crossed my path, to
hunt it down; never to let it rest; to pursue it with the bitterest and
most unrelenting animosity; to vent upon it the hatred that I deeply
felt, and to spit upon the empty vaunt of that insulting will by
draggin it, if I could, to the very gallows-foot.  She was right. He
came in my way at last.  I began well; and, but for babbling drabs, I
would have finished as I began!'

As the villain folded his arms tight together, and muttered curses on
himself in the impotence of baffled malice, Mr. Brownlow turned to the
terrified group beside him, and explained that the Jew, who had been
his old accomplice and confidant, had a large reward for keeping Oliver
ensnared:  of which some part was to be given up, in the event of his
being rescued:  and that a dispute on this head had led to their visit
to the country house for the purpose of identifying him.

'The locket and ring?' said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Monks.

'I bought them from the man and woman I told you of, who stole them
from the nurse, who stole them from the corpse,' answered Monks without
raising his eyes.  'You know what became of them.'

Mr. Brownlow merely nodded to Mr. Grimwig, who disappearing with great
alacrity, shortly returned, pushing in Mrs. Bumble, and dragging her
unwilling consort after him.

'Do my hi's deceive me!' cried Mr. Bumble, with ill-feigned enthusiasm,
'or is that little Oliver?  Oh O-li-ver, if you know'd how I've been
a-grieving for you--'

'Hold your tongue, fool,' murmured Mrs. Bumble.

'Isn't natur, natur, Mrs. Bumble?' remonstrated the workhouse master.
'Can't I be supposed to feel--_I_ as brought him up porochially--when I
see him a-setting here among ladies and gentlemen of the very affablest
description!  I always loved that boy as if he'd been my--my--my own
grandfather,' said Mr. Bumble, halting for an appropriate comparison.
'Master Oliver, my dear, you remember the blessed gentleman in the
white waistcoat?  Ah! he went to heaven last week, in a oak coffin with
plated handles, Oliver.'

'Come, sir,' said Mr. Grimwig, tartly; 'suppress your feelings.'

'I will do my endeavours, sir,' replied Mr. Bumble.  'How do you do,
sir?  I hope you are very well.'

This salutation was addressed to Mr. Brownlow, who had stepped up to
within a short distance of the respectable couple.  He inquired, as he
pointed to Monks,

'Do you know that person?'

'No,' replied Mrs. Bumble flatly.

'Perhaps _you_ don't?' said Mr. Brownlow, addressing her spouse.

'I never saw him in all my life,' said Mr. Bumble.

'Nor sold him anything, perhaps?'

'No,' replied Mrs. Bumble.

'You never had, perhaps, a certain gold locket and ring?' said Mr.
Brownlow.

'Certainly not,' replied the matron.  'Why are we brought here to
answer to such nonsense as this?'

Again Mr. Brownlow nodded to Mr. Grimwig; and again that gentleman
limped away with extraordinary readiness.  But not again did he return
with a stout man and wife; for this time, he led in two palsied women,
who shook and tottered as they walked.

'You shut the door the night old Sally died,' said the foremost one,
raising her shrivelled hand, 'but you couldn't shut out the sound, nor
stop the chinks.'

'No, no,' said the other, looking round her and wagging her toothless
jaws.  'No, no, no.'

'We heard her try to tell you what she'd done, and saw you take a paper
from her hand, and watched you too, next day, to the pawnbroker's
shop,' said the first.

'Yes,' added the second, 'and it was a "locket and gold ring." We found
out that, and saw it given you.  We were by.  Oh! we were by.'

'And we know more than that,' resumed the first, 'for she told us
often, long ago, that the young mother had told her that, feeling she
should never get over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was
taken ill, to die near the grave of the father of the child.'

'Would you like to see the pawnbroker himself?' asked Mr. Grimwig with
a motion towards the door.

'No,' replied the woman; 'if he'--she pointed to Monks--'has been coward
enough to confess, as I see he has, and you have sounded all these hags
till you have found the right ones, I have nothing more to say.  I
_did_ sell them, and they're where you'll never get them.  What then?'

'Nothing,' replied Mr. Brownlow, 'except that it remains for us to take
care that neither of you is employed in a situation of trust again.
You may leave the room.'

'I hope,' said Mr. Bumble, looking about him with great ruefulness, as
Mr. Grimwig disappeared with the two old women: 'I hope that this
unfortunate little circumstance will not deprive me of my porochial
office?'

'Indeed it will,' replied Mr. Brownlow.  'You may make up your mind to
that, and think yourself well off besides.'

'It was all Mrs. Bumble.  She _would_ do it,' urged Mr. Bumble; first
looking round to ascertain that his partner had left the room.

'That is no excuse,' replied Mr. Brownlow.  'You were present on the
occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more
guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that
your wife acts under your direction.'

'If the law supposes that,' said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat
emphatically in both hands, 'the law is a ass--a idiot.  If that's the
eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is,
that his eye may be opened by experience--by experience.'

Laying great stress on the repetition of these two words, Mr. Bumble
fixed his hat on very tight, and putting his hands in his pockets,
followed his helpmate downstairs.

'Young lady,' said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Rose, 'give me your hand.
Do not tremble.  You need not fear to hear the few remaining words we
have to say.'

'If they have--I do not know how they can, but if they have--any
reference to me,' said Rose, 'pray let me hear them at some other time.
I have not strength or spirits now.'

'Nay,' returned the old gentlman, drawing her arm through his; 'you
have more fortitude than this, I am sure.  Do you know this young lady,
sir?'

'Yes,' replied Monks.

'I never saw you before,' said Rose faintly.

'I have seen you often,' returned Monks.

'The father of the unhappy Agnes had _two_ daughters,' said Mr.
Brownlow.  'What was the fate of the other--the child?'

'The child,' replied Monks, 'when her father died in a strange place,
in a strange name, without a letter, book, or scrap of paper that
yielded the faintest clue by which his friends or relatives could be
traced--the child was taken by some wretched cottagers, who reared it
as their own.'

'Go on,' said Mr. Brownlow, signing to Mrs. Maylie to approach. 'Go on!'

'You couldn't find the spot to which these people had repaired,' said
Monks, 'but where friendship fails, hatred will often force a way.  My
mother found it, after a year of cunning search--ay, and found the
child.'

'She took it, did she?'

'No.  The people were poor and began to sicken--at least the man
did--of their fine humanity; so she left it with them, giving them a
small present of money which would not last long, and promised more,
which she never meant to send.  She didn't quite rely, however, on
their discontent and poverty for the child's unhappiness, but told the
history of the sister's shame, with such alterations as suited her;
bade them take good heed of the child, for she came of bad blood; and
told them she was illegitimate, and sure to go wrong at one time or
other.  The circumstances countenanced all this; the people believed
it; and there the child dragged on an existence, miserable enough even
to satisfy us, until a widow lady, residing, then, at Chester, saw the
girl by chance, pitied her, and took her home.  There was some cursed
spell, I think, against us; for in spite of all our efforts she
remained there and was happy.  I lost sight of her, two or three years
ago, and saw her no more until a few months back.'

'Do you see her now?'

'Yes.  Leaning on your arm.'

'But not the less my niece,' cried Mrs. Maylie, folding the fainting
girl in her arms; 'not the less my dearest child.  I would not lose her
now, for all the treasures of the world.  My sweet companion, my own
dear girl!'

'The only friend I ever had,' cried Rose, clinging to her. 'The
kindest, best of friends.  My heart will burst.  I cannot bear all
this.'

'You have borne more, and have been, through all, the best and gentlest
creature that ever shed happiness on every one she knew,' said Mrs.
Maylie, embracing her tenderly. 'Come, come, my love, remember who this
is who waits to clasp you in his arms, poor child!  See here--look,
look, my dear!'

'Not aunt,' cried Oliver, throwing his arms about her neck; 'I'll never
call her aunt--sister, my own dear sister, that something taught my
heart to love so dearly from the first!  Rose, dear, darling Rose!'

Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in
the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred.  A father,
sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment.  Joy and
grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears:  for
even grief itself arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and
tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all
character of pain.

They were a long, long time alone.  A soft tap at the door, at length
announced that some one was without.  Oliver opened it, glided away,
and gave place to Harry Maylie.

'I know it all,' he said, taking a seat beside the lovely girl. 'Dear
Rose, I know it all.'

'I am not here by accident,' he added after a lengthened silence; 'nor
have I heard all this to-night, for I knew it yesterday--only
yesterday.  Do you guess that I have come to remind you of a promise?'

'Stay,' said Rose.  'You _do_ know all.'

'All.  You gave me leave, at any time within a year, to renew the
subject of our last discourse.'

'I did.'

'Not to press you to alter your determination,' pursued the young man,
'but to hear you repeat it, if you would. I was to lay whatever of
station or fortune I might possess at your feet, and if you still
adhered to your former determination, I pledged myself, by no word or
act, to seek to change it.'

'The same reasons which influenced me then, will influence me now,'
said Rose firmly.  'If I ever owed a strict and rigid duty to her,
whose goodness saved me from a life of indigence and suffering, when
should I ever feel it, as I should to-night?  It is a struggle,' said
Rose, 'but one I am proud to make; it is a pang, but one my heart shall
bear.'

'The disclosure of to-night,'--Harry began.

'The disclosure of to-night,' replied Rose softly, 'leaves me in the
same position, with reference to you, as that in which I stood before.'

'You harden your heart against me, Rose,' urged her lover.

'Oh Harry, Harry,' said the young lady, bursting into tears; 'I wish I
could, and spare myself this pain.'

'Then why inflict it on yourself?' said Harry, taking her hand. 'Think,
dear Rose, think what you have heard to-night.'

'And what have I heard!  What have I heard!' cried Rose. 'That a sense
of his deep disgrace so worked upon my own father that he shunned
all--there, we have said enough, Harry, we have said enough.'

'Not yet, not yet,' said the young man, detaining her as she rose.  'My
hopes, my wishes, prospects, feeling:  every thought in life except my
love for you:  have undergone a change.  I offer you, now, no
distinction among a bustling crowd; no mingling with a world of malice
and detraction, where the blood is called into honest cheeks by aught
but real disgrace and shame; but a home--a heart and home--yes, dearest
Rose, and those, and those alone, are all I have to offer.'

'What do you mean!' she faltered.

'I mean but this--that when I left you last, I left you with a firm
determination to level all fancied barriers between yourself and me;
resolved that if my world could not be yours, I would make yours mine;
that no pride of birth should curl the lip at you, for I would turn
from it.  This I have done.  Those who have shrunk from me because of
this, have shrunk from you, and proved you so far right.  Such power
and patronage:  such relatives of influence and rank:  as smiled upon
me then, look coldly now; but there are smiling fields and waving trees
in England's richest county; and by one village church--mine, Rose, my
own!--there stands a rustic dwelling which you can make me prouder of,
than all the hopes I have renounced, measured a thousandfold.  This is
my rank and station now, and here I lay it down!'

      *      *      *      *      *

'It's a trying thing waiting supper for lovers,' said Mr. Grimwig,
waking up, and pulling his pocket-handkerchief from over his head.

Truth to tell, the supper had been waiting a most unreasonable time.
Neither Mrs. Maylie, nor Harry, nor Rose (who all came in together),
could offer a word in extenuation.

'I had serious thoughts of eating my head to-night,' said Mr. Grimwig,
'for I began to think I should get nothing else.  I'll take the
liberty, if you'll allow me, of saluting the bride that is to be.'

Mr. Grimwig lost no time in carrying this notice into effect upon the
blushing girl; and the example, being contagious, was followed both by
the doctor and Mr. Brownlow:  some people affirm that Harry Maylie had
been observed to set it, originally, in a dark room adjoining; but the
best authorities consider this downright scandal:  he being young and a
clergyman.

'Oliver, my child,' said Mrs. Maylie, 'where have you been, and why do
you look so sad?  There are tears stealing down your face at this
moment.  What is the matter?'

It is a world of disappointment:  often to the hopes we most cherish,
and hopes that do our nature the greatest honour.

Poor Dick was dead!



The court was paved, from floor to roof, with human faces. Inquisitive
and eager eyes peered from every inch of space. From the rail before
the dock, away into the sharpest angle of the smallest corner in the
galleries, all looks were fixed upon one man--Fagin.  Before him and
behind:  above, below, on the right and on the left:  he seemed to
stand surrounded by a firmament, all bright with gleaming eyes.

He stood there, in all this glare of living light, with one hand
resting on the wooden slab before him, the other held to his ear, and
his head thrust forward to enable him to catch with greater
distinctness every word that fell from the presiding judge, who was
delivering his charge to the jury.  At times, he turned his eyes
sharply upon them to observe the effect of the slightest featherweight
in his favour; and when the points against him were stated with
terrible distinctness, looked towards his counsel, in mute appeal that
he would, even then, urge something in his behalf.  Beyond these
manifestations of anxiety, he stirred not hand or foot.  He had
scarcely moved since the trial began; and now that the judge ceased to
speak, he still remained in the same strained attitude of close
attention, with his gaze bent on him, as though he listened still.

A slight bustle in the court, recalled him to himself.  Looking round,
he saw that the juryman had turned together, to consider their verdict.
As his eyes wandered to the gallery, he could see the people rising
above each other to see his face:  some hastily applying their glasses
to their eyes:  and others whispering their neighbours with looks
expressive of abhorrence.  A few there were, who seemed unmindful of
him, and looked only to the jury, in impatient wonder how they could
delay.  But in no one face--not even among the women, of whom there
were many there--could he read the faintest sympathy with himself, or
any feeling but one of all-absorbing interest that he should be
condemned.

As he saw all this in one bewildered glance, the deathlike stillness
came again, and looking back he saw that the jurymen had turned towards
the judge.  Hush!

They only sought permission to retire.

He looked, wistfully, into their faces, one by one when they passed
out, as though to see which way the greater number leant; but that was
fruitless.  The jailer touched him on the shoulder. He followed
mechanically to the end of the dock, and sat down on a chair.  The man
pointed it out, or he would not have seen it.

He looked up into the gallery again.  Some of the people were eating,
and some fanning themselves with handkerchiefs; for the crowded place
was very hot.  There was one young man sketching his face in a little
note-book.  He wondered whether it was like, and looked on when the
artist broke his pencil-point, and made another with his knife, as any
idle spectator might have done.

In the same way, when he turned his eyes towards the judge, his mind
began to busy itself with the fashion of his dress, and what it cost,
and how he put it on.  There was an old fat gentleman on the bench,
too, who had gone out, some half an hour before, and now come back.  He
wondered within himself whether this man had been to get his dinner,
what he had had, and where he had had it; and pursued this train of
careless thought until some new object caught his eye and roused
another.

Not that, all this time, his mind was, for an instant, free from one
oppressive overwhelming sense of the grave that opened at his feet; it
was ever present to him, but in a vague and general way, and he could
not fix his thoughts upon it.  Thus, even while he trembled, and turned
burning hot at the idea of speedy death, he fell to counting the iron
spikes before him, and wondering how the head of one had been broken
off, and whether they would mend it, or leave it as it was.  Then, he
thought of all the horrors of the gallows and the scaffold--and stopped
to watch a man sprinkling the floor to cool it--and then went on to
think again.

At length there was a cry of silence, and a breathless look from all
towards the door.  The jury returned, and passed him close. He could
glean nothing from their faces; they might as well have been of stone.
Perfect stillness ensued--not a rustle--not a breath--Guilty.

The building rang with a tremendous shout, and another, and another,
and then it echoed loud groans, that gathered strength as they swelled
out, like angry thunder.  It was a peal of joy from the populace
outside, greeting the news that he would die on Monday.

The noise subsided, and he was asked if he had anything to say why
sentence of death should not be passed upon him. He had resumed his
listening attitude, and looked intently at his questioner while the
demand was made; but it was twice repeated before he seemed to hear it,
and then he only muttered that he was an old man--an old man--and so,
dropping into a whisper, was silent again.

The judge assumed the black cap, and the prisoner still stood with the
same air and gesture.  A woman in the gallery, uttered some
exclamation, called forth by this dread solemnity; he looked hastily up
as if angry at the interruption, and bent forward yet more attentively.
The address was solemn and impressive; the sentence fearful to hear.
But he stood, like a marble figure, without the motion of a nerve.  His
haggard face was still thrust forward, his under-jaw hanging down, and
his eyes staring out before him, when the jailer put his hand upon his
arm, and beckoned him away.  He gazed stupidly about him for an
instant, and obeyed.

They led him through a paved room under the court, where some prisoners
were waiting till their turns came, and others were talking to their
friends, who crowded round a grate which looked into the open yard.
There was nobody there to speak to _him_; but, as he passed, the
prisoners fell back to render him more visible to the people who were
clinging to the bars:  and they assailed him with opprobrious names,
and screeched and hissed.  He shook his fist, and would have spat upon
them; but his conductors hurried him on, through a gloomy passage
lighted by a few dim lamps, into the interior of the prison.

Here, he was searched, that he might not have about him the means of
anticipating the law; this ceremony performed, they led him to one of
the condemned cells, and left him there--alone.

He sat down on a stone bench opposite the door, which served for seat
and bedstead; and casting his blood-shot eyes upon the ground, tried to
collect his thoughts. After awhile, he began to remember a few
disjointed fragments of what the judge had said: though it had seemed
to him, at the time, that he could not hear a word.  These gradually
fell into their proper places, and by degrees suggested more:  so that
in a little time he had the whole, almost as it was delivered.  To be
hanged by the neck, till he was dead--that was the end.  To be hanged
by the neck till he was dead.

As it came on very dark, he began to think of all the men he had known
who had died upon the scaffold; some of them through his means.  They
rose up, in such quick succession, that he could hardly count them.  He
had seen some of them die,--and had joked too, because they died with
prayers upon their lips.  With what a rattling noise the drop went
down; and how suddenly they changed, from strong and vigorous men to
dangling heaps of clothes!

Some of them might have inhabited that very cell--sat upon that very
spot.  It was very dark; why didn't they bring a light?  The cell had
been built for many years.  Scores of men must have passed their last
hours there.  It was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead
bodies--the cap, the noose, the pinioned arms, the faces that he knew,
even beneath that hideous veil.--Light, light!

At length, when his hands were raw with beating against the heavy door
and walls, two men appeared:  one bearing a candle, which he thrust
into an iron candlestick fixed against the wall:  the other dragging in
a mattress on which to pass the night; for the prisoner was to be left
alone no more.

Then came the night--dark, dismal, silent night.  Other watchers are
glad to hear this church-clock strike, for they tell of life and coming
day.  To him they brought despair.  The boom of every iron bell came
laden with the one, deep, hollow sound--Death. What availed the noise
and bustle of cheerful morning, which penetrated even there, to him?
It was another form of knell, with mockery added to the warning.

The day passed off.  Day?  There was no day; it was gone as soon as
come--and night came on again; night so long, and yet so short; long in
its dreadful silence, and short in its fleeting hours.  At one time he
raved and blasphemed; and at another howled and tore his hair.
Venerable men of his own persuasion had come to pray beside him, but he
had driven them away with curses.  They renewed their charitable
efforts, and he beat them off.

Saturday night.  He had only one night more to live.  And as he thought
of this, the day broke--Sunday.

It was not until the night of this last awful day, that a withering
sense of his helpless, desperate state came in its full intensity upon
his blighted soul; not that he had ever held any defined or positive
hope of mercy, but that he had never been able to consider more than
the dim probability of dying so soon. He had spoken little to either of
the two men, who relieved each other in their attendance upon him; and
they, for their parts, made no effort to rouse his attention.  He had
sat there, awake, but dreaming.  Now, he started up, every minute, and
with gasping mouth and burning skin, hurried to and fro, in such a
paroxysm of fear and wrath that even they--used to such
sights--recoiled from him with horror.  He grew so terrible, at last,
in all the tortures of his evil conscience, that one man could not bear
to sit there, eyeing him alone; and so the two kept watch together.

He cowered down upon his stone bed, and thought of the past. He had
been wounded with some missiles from the crowd on the day of his
capture, and his head was bandaged with a linen cloth.  His red hair
hung down upon his bloodless face; his beard was torn, and twisted into
knots; his eyes shone with a terrible light; his unwashed flesh
crackled with the fever that burnt him up. Eight--nine--then.  If it
was not a trick to frighten him, and those were the real hours treading
on each other's heels, where would he be, when they came round again!
Eleven!  Another struck, before the voice of the previous hour had
ceased to vibrate.  At eight, he would be the only mourner in his own
funeral train; at eleven--

Those dreadful walls of Newgate, which have hidden so much misery and
such unspeakable anguish, not only from the eyes, but, too often, and
too long, from the thoughts, of men, never held so dread a spectacle as
that.  The few who lingered as they passed, and wondered what the man
was doing who was to be hanged to-morrow, would have slept but ill that
night, if they could have seen him.

From early in the evening until nearly midnight, little groups of two
and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate, and inquired, with
anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received.  These being
answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to
clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from
which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built,
and, walking with unwilling steps away, turned back to conjure up the
scene.  By degrees they fell off, one by one; and, for an hour, in the
dead of night, the street was left to solitude and darkness.

The space before the prison was cleared, and a few strong barriers,
painted black, had been already thrown across the road to break the
pressure of the expected crowd, when Mr. Brownlow and Oliver appeared
at the wicket, and presented an order of admission to the prisoner,
signed by one of the sheriffs.  They were immediately admitted into the
lodge.

'Is the young gentleman to come too, sir?' said the man whose duty it
was to conduct them.  'It's not a sight for children, sir.'

'It is not indeed, my friend,' rejoined Mr. Brownlow; 'but my business
with this man is intimately connected with him; and as this child has
seen him in the full career of his success and villainy, I think it as
well--even at the cost of some pain and fear--that he should see him
now.'

These few words had been said apart, so as to be inaudible to Oliver.
The man touched his hat; and glancing at Oliver with some curiousity,
opened another gate, opposite to that by which they had entered, and
led them on, through dark and winding ways, towards the cells.

'This,' said the man, stopping in a gloomy passage where a couple of
workmen were making some preparations in profound silence--'this is the
place he passes through.  If you step this way, you can see the door he
goes out at.'

He led them into a stone kitchen, fitted with coppers for dressing the
prison food, and pointed to a door.  There was an open grating above
it, through which came the sound of men's voices, mingled with the
noise of hammering, and the throwing down of boards.  They were
putting up the scaffold.

From this place, they passed through several strong gates, opened by
other turnkeys from the inner side; and, having entered an open yard,
ascended a flight of narrow steps, and came into a passage with a row
of strong doors on the left hand.  Motioning them to remain where they
were, the turnkey knocked at one of these with his bunch of keys. The
two attendants, after a little whispering, came out into the passage,
stretching themselves as if glad of the temporary relief, and motioned
the visitors to follow the jailer into the cell.  They did so.

The condemned criminal was seated on his bed, rocking himself from side
to side, with a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the
face of a man.  His mind was evidently wandering to his old life, for
he continued to mutter, without appearing conscious of their presence
otherwise than as a part of his vision.

'Good boy, Charley--well done--' he mumbled.  'Oliver, too, ha! ha! ha!
Oliver too--quite the gentleman now--quite the--take that boy away to
bed!'

The jailer took the disengaged hand of Oliver; and, whispering him not
to be alarmed, looked on without speaking.

'Take him away to bed!' cried Fagin.  'Do you hear me, some of you?  He
has been the--the--somehow the cause of all this.  It's worth the money
to bring him up to it--Bolter's throat, Bill; never mind the
girl--Bolter's throat as deep as you can cut.  Saw his head off!'

'Fagin,' said the jailer.

'That's me!' cried the Jew, falling instantly, into the attitude of
listening he had assumed upon his trial.  'An old man, my Lord; a very
old, old man!'

'Here,' said the turnkey, laying his hand upon his breast to keep him
down.  'Here's somebody wants to see you, to ask you some questions, I
suppose.  Fagin, Fagin!  Are you a man?'

'I shan't be one long,' he replied, looking up with a face retaining no
human expression but rage and terror.  'Strike them all dead!  What
right have they to butcher me?'

As he spoke he caught sight of Oliver and Mr. Brownlow. Shrinking to
the furthest corner of the seat, he demanded to know what they wanted
there.

'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
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.



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-in-law, 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 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 sunk
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.  In each and all he has since become famous throughout the
neighborhood, 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 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
three-penny worth 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 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 thread 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 fire-side circle 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 to 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 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.

 Two days later, Oliver, Mrs. Maylie, Rose, Mrs. Bedwin, Mr. Losberne, and Mr. Brownlow travel toward the town where Oliver was born. As they go, Oliver wishes to see Dick again, and to be able to make him as happy as he is now. They arrive at the town's chief hotel, where Mr. Grimwig is waiting for them, and everything is ready for their arrival. Oliver and Rose, who do not know much of the information that has recently been discovered, wait anxiously. Mr. Losberne, Mr. Grimwig, Mr. Brownlow, and Leeford enter their room, and Oliver is told that Leeford is his half brother. Although they don't want Oliver to have to meet him, he must be present for Leeford's declaration of the truth of Oliver's birth. Leeford, under pressure from Mr. Brownlow, tells the whole story, and of how he learned the story from his mother on her deathbed, and swore to hunt down Oliver if he existed. Mr. Grimwig brings Mr. and Mrs. Bumble in, and Mr. Bumble immediately starts fawning over Oliver. Mr. Brownlow questions the Bumbles about selling the locket to Leeford, who deny it, but the two servants who listened when Old Sally told her story to Mrs. Bumble are brought in, and give their evidence. Mrs. Bumble admits her guilt. Mr. Brownlow tells the Bumbles that they will never hold any parochial office again. Leeford also explains that the naval officer's second daughter was Rose, who was orphaned when her father died of heartbreak from her sister's death. Rose is therefore legitimate; it was only believed she wasn't because Leeford's mother spread that lie around. Harry Maylie comes in, and renews his suit to Rose. She will not accept for the same reasons as before, but he tells her that he has renounced all ambition, and lowered himself to her station, so that they can live together happily. Rose accepts. At the celebration dinner, Oliver comes in crying, because he has learned that his old friend Dick is dead. The courtroom is completely packed for Fagin's trial, and everyone's eyes are on him. Fagin scans the faces of the crowd, and sees that not one face contains any sympathy for him. Fagin, terrified at the grave he feels opening at his feet, cannot think of it directly, and so his mind wanders through the mundane. The jury comes back, and pronounces him guilty. The judge sentences him to be hanged. Fagin is led out of the court and put alone into a condemned cell. On the last day before he is to die, he enters into a paroxysm of fear and wrath so extreme that he has to have two guards with him at all times. As the hour of his death approaches, Mr. Brownlow and Oliver come to the prison to see him. They find him rocking back and forth, apparently having lost his mind and unaware of the present. Mr. Brownlow asks Fagin where he has put the papers that Monks gave him for safekeeping. Fagin draws Oliver to him, and tells him where the papers are, and asks Oliver to help him escape. Mr. Brownlow and Oliver leave, and find that a crowd has already begun to gather outside to watch the execution. Within three months, Rose and Harry are married in the church where Harry will work as clergyman. Mrs. Maylie moves in with them, and lives joyfully for the remainder of her days. Mr. Brownlow, wanting to give Monks a chance, recommends that Oliver and he split the inheritance, which Oliver happily agrees to. Monks takes his share to the New World, where he falls into his old habits, ends up in jail and dies. Mr. Brownlow adopts Oliver as his son, and they and Mrs. Bedwin move to the neighborhood of the Maylies. Mr. Losberne too soon follows, and lives happily in their neighborhood. Mr. Grimwig often visits. Noah Claypole, who is pardoned for his crimes for his testimony against Fagin, and Charlotte take to a safer but still dishonest kind of conning to make a living. Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, without their jobs, end up as paupers in the very workhouse they used to run. Charley Bates, horrified by Nancy's murder, decides to turn to honest labor, and with hard work ends up as a happy grazier. The Maylies, Oliver, Mr. Brownlow, and Mr. Losberne are all truly happy, and live in as perfect a state as is possible in this world.

