CHAPTER VIII

OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE SORT

OF YOUNG GENTLEMAN

Oliver reached the stile at which the by-path terminated; and

once more gained the high-road. It was eight o'clock now. Though

he was nearly five miles away from the town, he ran, and hid

behind the hedges, by turns, till noon: fearing that he might be

pursued and overtaken. Then he sat down to rest by the side of

the milestone, and began to think, for the first time, where he

had better go and try to live.

The stone by which he was seated, bore, in large characters, an

intimation that it was just seventy miles from that spot to

London. The name awakened a new train of ideas in the boy's mind.

London!--that great place!--nobody--not even Mr. Bumble--could

ever find him there! He had often heard the old men in the

workhouse, too, say that no lad of spirit need want in London;

and that there were ways of living in that vast city, which those

who had been bred up in country parts had no idea of. It was the

very place for a homeless boy, who must die in the streets unless

some one helped him. As these things passed through his thoughts,

he jumped upon his feet, and again walked forward.

He had diminished the distance between himself and London by full

four miles more, before he recollected how much he must undergo

ere he could hope to reach his place of destination. As this

consideration forced itself upon him, he slackened his pace a

little, and meditated upon his means of getting there. He had a

crust of bread, a coarse shirt, and two pairs of stockings, in

his bundle. He had a penny too--a gift of Sowerberry's after

some funeral in which he had acquitted himself more than

ordinarily well--in his pocket. 'A clean shirt,' thought Oliver,

'is a very comfortable thing; and so are two pairs of darned

stockings; and so is a penny; but they small helps to a

sixty-five miles' walk in winter time.' But Oliver's thoughts,

like those of most other people, although they were extremely

ready and active to point out his difficulties, were wholly at a

loss to suggest any feasible mode of surmounting them; so, after

a good deal of thinking to no particular purpose, he changed his

little bundle over to the other shoulder, and trudged on.

Oliver walked twenty miles that day; and all that time tasted

nothing but the crust of dry bread, and a few draughts of water,

which he begged at the cottage-doors by the road-side. When the

night came, he turned into a meadow; and, creeping close under a

hay-rick, determined to lie there, till morning. He felt

frightened at first, for the wind moaned dismally over the empty

fields: and he was cold and hungry, and more alone than he had

ever felt before. Being very tired with his walk, however, he

soon fell asleep and forgot his troubles.

He felt cold and stiff, when he got up next morning, and so

hungry that he was obliged to exchange the penny for a small

loaf, in the very first village through which he passed. He had

walked no more than twelve miles, when night closed in again.

His feet were sore, and his legs so weak that they trembled

beneath him. Another night passed in the bleak damp air, made

him worse; when he set forward on his journey next morning he

could hardly crawl along.

He waited at the bottom of a steep hill till a stage-coach came

up, and then begged of the outside passengers; but there were

very few who took any notice of him: and even those told him to

wait till they got to the top of the hill, and then let them see

how far he could run for a halfpenny. Poor Oliver tried to keep

up with the coach a little way, but was unable to do it, by

reason of his fatigue and sore feet. When the outsides saw this,

they put their halfpence back into their pockets again, declaring

that he was an idle young dog, and didn't deserve anything; and

the coach rattled away and left only a cloud of dust behind.

In some villages, large painted boards were fixed up: warning all

persons who begged within the district, that they would be sent

to jail. This frightened Oliver very much, and made him glad to

get out of those villages with all possible expedition. In

others, he would stand about the inn-yards, and look mournfully

at every one who passed: a proceeding which generally terminated

in the landlady's ordering one of the post-boys who were lounging

about, to drive that strange boy out of the place, for she was

sure he had come to steal something. If he begged at a farmer's

house, ten to one but they threatened to set the dog on him; and

when he showed his nose in a shop, they talked about the

beadle--which brought Oliver's heart into his mouth,--very often

the only thing he had there, for many hours together.

In fact, if it had not been for a good-hearted turnpike-man, and

a benevolent old lady, Oliver's troubles would have been

shortened by the very same process which had put an end to his

mother's; in other words, he would most assuredly have fallen

dead upon the king's highway. But the turnpike-man gave him a

meal of bread and cheese; and the old lady, who had a shipwrecked

grandson wandering barefoot in some distant part of the earth,

took pity upon the poor orphan, and gave him what little she

could afford--and more--with such kind and gently words, and such

tears of sympathy and compassion, that they sank deeper into

Oliver's soul, than all the sufferings he had ever undergone.

Early on the seventh morning after he had left his native place,

Oliver limped slowly into the little town of Barnet. The

window-shutters were closed; the street was empty; not a soul had

awakened to the business of the day. The sun was rising in all

its splendid beauty; but the light only served to show the boy

his own lonesomeness and desolation, as he sat, with bleeding

feet and covered with dust, upon a door-step.

By degrees, the shutters were opened; the window-blinds were

drawn up; and people began passing to and fro. Some few stopped

to gaze at Oliver for a moment or two, or turned round to stare

at him as they hurried by; but none relieved him, or troubled

themselves to inquire how he came there. He had no heart to beg.

And there he sat.

He had been crouching on the step for some time: wondering at

the great number of public-houses (every other house in Barnet

was a tavern, large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches

as they passed through, and thinking how strange it seemed that

they could do, with ease, in a few hours, what it had taken him a

whole week of courage and determination beyond his years to

accomplish: when he was roused by observing that a boy, who had

passed him carelessly some minutes before, had returned, and was

now surveying him most earnestly from the opposite side of the

way. He took little heed of this at first; but the boy remained

in the same attitude of close observation so long, that Oliver

raised his head, and returned his steady look. Upon this, the

boy crossed over; and walking close up to Oliver, said

'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?'

The boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer, was

about his own age: but one of the queerest looking boys that

Oliver had even seen. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed,

common-faced boy enough; and as dirty a juvenile as one would

wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a

man. He was short of his age: with rather bow-legs, and little,

sharp, ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top of his head so

lightly, that it threatened to fall off every moment--and would

have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of

every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought

it back to its old place again. He wore a man's coat, which

reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back,

half-way up his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves:

apparently with the ultimated view of thrusting them into the

pockets of his corduroy trousers; for there he kept them. He

was, altogether, as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman

as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in the bluchers.

'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?' said this strange young

gentleman to Oliver.

'I am very hungry and tired,' replied Oliver: the tears standing

in his eyes as he spoke. 'I have walked a long way. I have been

walking these seven days.'

'Walking for sivin days!' said the young gentleman. 'Oh, I see.

Beak's order, eh? But,' he added, noticing Oliver's look of

surprise, 'I suppose you don't know what a beak is, my flash

com-pan-i-on.'

Oliver mildly replied, that he had always heard a bird's mouth

described by the term in question.

'My eyes, how green!' exclaimed the young gentleman. 'Why, a

beak's a madgst'rate; and when you walk by a beak's order, it's

not straight forerd, but always agoing up, and niver a coming

down agin. Was you never on the mill?'

'What mill?' inquired Oliver.

'What mill! Why, THE mill--the mill as takes up so little room

that it'll work inside a Stone Jug; and always goes better when

the wind's low with people, than when it's high; acos then they

can't get workmen. But come,' said the young gentleman; 'you

want grub, and you shall have it. I'm at low-water-mark

myself--only one bob and a magpie; but, as far as it goes, I'll

fork out and stump. Up with you on your pins. There! Now then!

Morrice!'

Assisting Oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to an

adjacent chandler's shop, where he purchased a sufficiency of

ready-dressed ham and a half-quartern loaf, or, as he himself

expressed it, 'a fourpenny bran!' the ham being kept clean and

preserved from dust, by the ingeniousexpedient of making a hole

in the loaf by pulling out a portion of the crumb, and stuffing

it therein. Taking the bread under his arm, the young gentlman

turned into a small public-house, and led the way to a tap-room

in the rear of the premises. Here, a pot of beer was brought in,

by direction of the mysterious youth; and Oliver, falling to, at

his new friend's bidding, made a long and hearty meal, during the

progress of which the strange boy eyed him from time to time with

great attention.

'Going to London?' said the strange boy, when Oliver had at

length concluded.

'Yes.'

'Got any lodgings?'

'No.'

'Money?'

'No.'

The strange boy whistled; and put his arms into his pockets, as

far as the big coat-sleeves would let them go.

'Do you live in London?' inquired Oliver.

'Yes. I do, when I'm at home,' replied the boy. 'I suppose you

want some place to sleep in to-night, don't you?'

'I do, indeed,' answered Oliver. 'I have not slept under a roof

since I left the country.'

'Don't fret your eyelids on that score.' said the young

gentleman. 'I've got to be in London to-night; and I know a

'spectable old gentleman as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings

for nothink, and never ask for the change--that is, if any

genelman he knows interduces you. And don't he know me? Oh, no!

Not in the least! By no means. Certainly not!'

The young gentelman smiled, as if to intimate that the latter

fragments of discourse were playfully ironical; and finished the

beer as he did so.

This unexpected offer of shelter was too tempting to be resisted;

especially as it was immediately followed up, by the assurance

that the old gentleman referred to, would doubtless provide

Oliver with a comfortable place, without loss of time. This led

to a more friendly and confidential dialogue; from which Oliver

discovered that his friend's name was Jack Dawkins, and that he

was a peculiar pet and protege of the elderly gentleman before

mentioned.

Mr. Dawkin's appearance did not say a vast deal in favour of the

comforts which his patron's interest obtained for those whom he

took under his protection; but, as he had a rather flightly and

dissolute mode of conversing, and furthermore avowed that among

his intimate friends he was better known by the sobriquet of 'The

Artful Dodger,' Oliver concluded that, being of a dissipated and

careless turn, the moral precepts of his benefactor had hitherto

been thrown away upon him. Under this impression, he secretly

resolved to cultivate the good opinion of the old gentleman as

quickly as possible; and, if he found the Dodger incorrigible, as

he more than half suspected he should, to decline the honour of

his farther acquaintance.

As John Dawkins objected to their entering London before

nightfall, it was nearly eleven o'clock when they reached the

turnpike at Islington. They crossed from the Angel into St.

John's Road; struck down the small street which terminates at

Sadler's Wells Theatre; through Exmouth Street and Coppice Row;

down the little court by the side of the workhouse; across the

classic ground which once bore the name of Hockley-in-the-Hole;

thence into Little Saffron Hill; and so into Saffron Hill the

Great: along which the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace, directing

Oliver to follow close at his heels.

Although Oliver had enough to occupy his attention in keeping

sight of his leader, he could not help bestowing a few hasty

glances on either side of the way, as he passed along. A dirtier

or more wretched place he had never seen. The street was very

narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours.

There were a good many small shops; but the only stock in trade

appeared to be heaps of children, who, even at that time of

night, were crawling in and out at the doors, or screaming from

the inside. The sole places that seemed to prosper amid the

general blight of the place, were the public-houses; and in them,

the lowest orders of Irish were wrangling with might and main.

Covered ways and yards, which here and there diverged from the

main street, disclosed little knots of houses, where drunken men

and women were positively wallowing in filth; and from several of

the door-ways, great ill-looking fellows were cautiously

emerging, bound, to all appearance, on no very well-disposed or

harmless errands.

Oliver was just considering whether he hadn't better run away,

when they reached the bottom of the hill. His conductor,

catching him by the arm, pushed open the door of a house near

Field Lane; and drawing him into the passage, closed it behind

them.

'Now, then!' cried a voice from below, in reply to a whistle from

the Dodger.

'Plummy and slam!' was the reply.

This seemed to be some watchword or signal that all was right;

for the light of a feeble candle gleamed on the wall at the

remote end of the passage; and a man's face peeped out, from

where a balustrade of the old kitchen staircase had been broken

away.

'There's two on you,' said the man, thrusting the candle farther

out, and shielding his eyes with his hand. 'Who's the t'other

one?'

'A new pal,' replied Jack Dawkins, pulling Oliver forward.

'Where did he come from?'

'Greenland. Is Fagin upstairs?'

'Yes, he's a sortin' the wipes. Up with you!' The candle was

drawn back, and the face disappeared.

Oliver, groping his way with one hand, and having the other

firmly grasped by his companion, ascended with much difficulty

the dark and broken stairs: which his conductor mounted with an

ease and expedition that showed he was well acquainted with them.

He threw open the door of a back-room, and drew Oliver in after

him.

The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age

and dirt. There was a deal table before the fire: upon which

were a candle, stuck in a ginger-beer bottle, two or three pewter

pots, a loaf and butter, and a plate. In a frying-pan, which was

on the fire, and which was secured to the mantelshelf by a

string, some sausages were cooking; and standing over them, with

a toasting-fork in his hand, was a very old shrivelled Jew, whose

villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity

of matted red hair. He was dressed in a greasyflannel gown, with

his throat bare; and seemed to be dividing his attention between

the frying-pan and the clothes-horse, over which a great number

of silk handkerchiefsl were hanging. Several rough beds made of

old sacks, were huddled side by side on the floor. Seated round

the table were four or five boys, none older than the Dodger,

smoking long clay pipes, and drinking spirits with the air of

middle-aged men. These all crowded about their associate as he

whispered a few words to the Jew; and then turned round and

grinned at Oliver. So did the Jew himself, toasting-fork in

hand.

'This is him, Fagin,' said Jack Dawkins; 'my friend Oliver

Twist.'

The Jew grinned; and, making a low obeisance to Oliver, took him

by the hand, and hoped he should have the honour of his intimate

acquaintance. Upon this, the young gentleman with the pipes came

round him, and shook both his hands very hard--especially the one

in which he held his little bundle. One young gentleman was very

anxious to hang up his cap for him; and another was so obliging

as to put his hands in his pockets, in order that, as he was very

tired, he might not have the trouble of emptying them, himself,

when he went to bed. These civilities would probably be extended

much farther, but for a liberal exercise of the Jew's

toasting-fork on the heads and shoulders of the affectionate

youths who offered them.

'We are very glad to see you, Oliver, very,' said the Jew.

'Dodger, take off the sausages; and draw a tub near the fire for

Oliver. Ah, you're a-staring at the pocket-handkerchiefs! eh, my

dear. There are a good many of 'em, ain't there? We've just

looked 'em out, ready for the wash; that's all, Oliver; that's

all. Ha! ha! ha!'

The latter part of this speech, was hailed by a boisterous shout

from all the hopeful pupils of the merry old gentleman. In the

midst of which they went to supper.

Oliver ate his share, and the Jew then mixed him a glass of hot

gin-and-water: telling him he must drink it off directly,

because another gentleman wanted the tumbler. Oliver did as he

was desired. Immediately afterwards he felt himself gently

lifted on to one of the sacks; and then he sunk into a deep

sleep.
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