Oliver in Police Office

Chapter-4

After a hot chase, Oliver was caught. The offence had been committed within the district, and indeed in the immediate neighbourhood of a very notorious metropolitan police office. The crown had only the satisfaction of accompanying Oliver through two or three streets and down a place called Mutton Hill, when he was led beneath a low archway and up a dirty court, into this dispensary of summary justice, by the backway. It was a small paved yard into which they turned, and here they encountered a stout man with a bunch of whiskers on his face and a bunch of keys in his hand.
‘What’s the matter now?’ said the man carelessly.
‘A young fogle-hunter,’ replied the man who had Oliver in charge.
‘Are you the party that’s been robbed, sir?’ inquired the man with the keys.
‘Yes, I am,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘but I am not sure that this boy actually took the handkerchief. I would rather not press the case.’
‘Must go before the magistrate, now, sir,’ replied the man, ‘His worship will be disengaged in half a minute. Now, young gallows!’
This was an invitation for Oliver to enter through a door which he unlocked as he spoke, and which led into a stone cell. Here he was searched, and nothing being found upon him, locked up.
The old gentleman looked almost as rueful as Oliver when the key grated in the lock.
‘There is something in that boy’s face,’ he said to himself as he walked slowly away, tapping his chin with the cover of the book in a thoughtful manner, ‘something that touches and interests me. Can he be innocent? He looked like an innocent boy.
By the by,’ exclaimed the old gentleman, halting abruptly and staring up into the sky, ‘Bless my soul! Where have I seen something like that look before?’
But the old gentleman could recall no one countenance of which Oliver’s features bore a trace. He was roused by a touch on the shoulder and a request by the man with the keys to follow him into the office, and was at once ushered into the imposing presence of the renowned Mr Fang.
The office was a front parlour with a panelled wall. Mr Fang sat behind a bar at the upper end; and on one side of the door was a sort of wooden pen in which poor little Oliver was already deposited, trembling very much at the awfulness of the scene.
Mr Fang was a lean, long-backed, stiff-necked, middle-sized man, with no great quantity of hair, and what he had, growing on the back and sides of his head. His face was stern and much flushed.
The old gentleman bowed respectfully and, advancing to the magistrate’s desk, said, suiting the action to the word, ‘That is my name and address, sir.’ He then withdrew a pace or two and, with another polite and gentlemanly inclination of the head, waited to be questioned.
Now it so happened that Mr Fang was out of temper, and he looked up with an angry scowl.
‘Who are you?’ said Mr Fang.
The old gentleman pointed, with some surprise, to his card.
‘Officer!’ said Mr Fang, tossing the card contemptuously away with the newspaper, ‘Who is this fellow?’
‘My name, sir,’ said the old gentleman, speaking like a gentleman, ‘my name, sir, is Brownlow.’
‘Appears against the boy, does he?’ said Fang, surveying Mr Brownlow from head to foot, ‘Swear him!’
Mr Brownlow submitted to be sworn.
‘Now,’ said Fang, ‘what’s the charge against this boy?’
‘I was standing at a bookstall,’ Mr Brownlow began.
‘Hold your tongue, sir!’ said Mr Fang, ‘Policeman! Where’s the policeman? Here, swear this policeman. Now, policeman, what is this?’
The policeman, with becoming humility, related how he had taken the charge, how he had searched Oliver and found nothing on his person, and how that was all he knew about it.
‘Are there any witnesses?’ inquired Mr Fang.
‘None, your worship,’ replied the policeman.
Mr Fang sat silent for some minutes, and then, turning round to the prosecutor said in a towering passion, ‘Do you mean to state what your complaint against this boy is, or do you not?’
With many interruptions and repeated insults, Mr Brownlow contrived to state his case, observing that, in the surprise of the moment, he had run after the boy because he had seen him running away, and expressing his hope that the magistrate would deal as leniently with the boy as justice would allow. ‘And I really fear he is ill,’ concluded the old gentleman.
‘Oh yes, I dare say,’ said Mr Fang, with a sneer. ‘Come, none of your tricks here, you young vagabond; they won’t do. What’s your name?’
Oliver tried to reply, but his tongue failed him. He was deadly pale and the whole place seemed turning round and round. Raising his head he murmured a feeble prayou for a draught of water.
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Mr Fang, ‘Don’t try to make a fool of me.’
‘Take care of him, officer,’ said the old gentleman, raising his hands instinctively, ‘He’ll fall down.’
‘Let him, if he likes,’ cried Fang.
Oliver availed himself of the kind permission and fell to the floor in a fainting fit.
‘I knew he was shamming,’ said Fang, as if this were incontestable proof of the fact, ‘Let him lie there; he’ll soon be tired of that. He stands committed for three months—hard labour, of course. Clear the office.’
A couple of men were preparing to carry the insensible boy to his cell when an elderly man of decent but poor appearance, clad in an old suit of black, rushed hastily into the office and advanced towards the bench.
‘Stop, stop! Don’t take him away. For heaven’s sake stop a moment!’ cried the newcomer, breathless with haste.
‘What is this? Who is this?’ stormed Mr Fang, ‘Turn this man out. Clear the office!’
‘I will speak!’ cried the man, ‘I will not be turned out.
I saw it all; I keep the bookstall. I demand to be sworn. I will not be put down, Mr Fang. You must hear me. You must not refuse, sir. I saw three boys, two others and the prisoner here, loitering on the opposite side of the way when this gentleman was reading. The robbery was committed by another boy; I saw it done. And I saw this boy was perfectly amazed and stupefied by it.’ Having by this time recovered a little breath, the worthy bookstall keeper proceeded to relate, in a more coherent manner, the exact circumstances of the robbery.
‘Why didn’t you come here before?’ said Fang after a pause.
‘I hadn’t a soul to mind the shop,’ replied the man, ‘Everybody who could have helped me had joined in the pursuit.’ He added that the book that Mr Brownlow was reading had not yet been paid for.
‘A nice person to prefer a charge against a poor boy!’ said Fang, with a comical effort to look humane, ‘I consider, sir, that you have obtained possession of that book under very suspicious and disreputable circumstances, and you may think yourself very fortunate that the owner of the property declines to prosecute. Let this be a lesson to you, my man, or the law will overtake you yet. The boy is discharged. Clear the office.’
‘Doubt me!’ cried the old gentleman, bursting out with the rage he had kept down so long.
The indignant Mr Brownlow was conveyed out in a perfect frenzy of rage and defiance. He reached the yard and his passion vanished in a moment. Little Oliver Twist lay on his back on the pavement with his shirt unbuttoned and his temples bathed with water, his face a deadly white and a cold tremble convulsing his whole frame.
‘Poor boy, poor boy,’ said Mr Brownlow, bending over him, ‘Call a coach, somebody, pray. Directly!’
A coach was obtained, and Oliver, having been carefully laid on one seat, the old gentleman got in and sat himself on the other and away they drove.
The coach rattled away, over nearly the same ground as that which Oliver had traversed when he first entered London in company with the Dodger, and, turning a different way when it reached the Angel at Islington, stopped at length before a neat house in a quiet shady street near Pentonville. Here a bed was prepared without loss of time, in which Mr Brownlow saw his young charge carefully and comfortably deposited; and here he was tended with a kindness and solicitude that knew no bounds.
But for many days, Oliver remained insensible to the goodness of his new friends. Weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke at last.
‘What room is this? Where have I been brought to?’ said Oliver, ‘This is not the place I went to sleep in.’
The curtain at the bed head was hastily drawn back, and a motherly old lady appeared.
‘Hush, my dear,’ said the old lady softly. ‘You must be very quiet or you will be ill again, and you have been very bad—as bad as bad could be, pretty nigh. Lie down again, there’s a dear!’
Oliver soon fell into a gentle doze, from which he was awakened by the light of a candle, which, being brought near the bed, showed him a gentleman with a very large and loud-ticking gold watch in his hand, who felt his pulse and said he was a great deal better.
‘Just as I expected, Mrs Bedwin,’ said the doctor, ‘You may give him a little tea, ma’am, and some dry toast without butter. Don’t keep him too warm, ma’am, but be careful that you don’t let him be too cold.’
Oliver dozed off again soon after this; when he awoke it was nearly twelve o’clock. The old lady tenderly bade him good night shortly afterwards, and left him in charge of a fat old woman.

It had been a bright day for hours when Oliver opened his eyes; he felt cheerful and happy. The crisis of the disease was safely past. He belonged to the world again.
In three days’ time, he was able to sit in an easy chair, well propped up with pillows; and as he was still too weak to walk, Mrs Bedwin had him carried downstairs to the little housekeeper’s room which belonged to her.
‘You’re very, very kind to me, ma’am,’ said Oliver.
‘Well, never you mind that, my dear,’ said the old lady.
‘The doctor says Mr Brownlow may come to see you this morning, and we must get up our best looks, because the better we look, the more he’ll be pleased. Are you fond of pictures, dear?’ inquired the old lady, seeing that Oliver had fixed his eyes, most intently, on a portrait which hung against the wall, just opposite his chair.
‘I don’t quite know, ma’am,’ said Oliver, without taking his eyes from the canvas, ‘I have seen so few that I hardly know. What a beautiful, mild face that lady’s is! Is that a likeness, ma’am? Whose is it?’
‘Why, really, my dear, I don’t know,’ answered the old lady in a good-humoured manner, ‘It’s not a likeness of anybody that you or I know, I expect. It seems to strike your fancy, dear.’
‘It is so very pretty,’ replied Oliver.
‘Why, sure you’re not afraid of it?’ said the old lady, observing in great surprise, the look of awe with which the child regarded the painting.
‘Oh no, no,’ returned Oliver, quickly, ‘but the eyes look so sorrowful; and where I sit they seem fixed upon me. It makes my heart beat,’ added Oliver in a low voice, ‘as if it were alive, and wanted to speak to me, but couldn’t.’
‘Lord save us!’ said the old lady, starting, ‘don’t talk in that way, child. You’re weak and nervous after your illness. Let me wheel your chair round to the other side, and then you won’t see it. There!’ said the old lady, suiting the action to the word, ‘you don’t see it now, at all events.’
He was given some broth and had scarcely swallowed the last spoonful when there came a soft rap at the door. ‘Come in,’ said the old lady, and in walked Mr Brownlow.
‘Poor boy, poor boy!’ said Mr Brownlow, clearing his throat, ‘I’m rather hoarse this morning, Mrs Bedwin. I’m afraid I’ve caught cold, but never mind that.’ He turned to Oliver and said, ‘How do you feel, my dear?’
‘Very happy, sir,’ replied Oliver, ‘and very grateful indeed, sir, for your goodness to me.’
‘Good boy,’ said Mr Brownlow, ‘Now what are we to call you, eh?’
‘My name is Oliver, sir,’ replied the little invalid, ‘Oliver Twist.’
‘Queer name!’ said the old gentleman, looking steadily at Oliver, and the old idea of the resemblance between his features and some familiar face came upon him so strongly that he could not withdraw his gaze.
‘I hope you are not angry with me, sir,’ said Oliver, raising his eyes beseechingly.
‘No, no,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘Why! What’s this? Bedwin, look there!’
As he spoke he pointed hastily to the picture above Oliver’s head and then to the boy’s face. There was its living copy. The eyes, the head, the mouth—every feature was the same. The expression was, for the instant, so precisely alike, that the minutest line seemed copied with startling accuracy.
Oliver knew not the cause of this sudden exclamation, for, not being strong enough to bear the start it gave him, he fainted away.
When the Dodger and his accomplished friend Master Bates had joined in the hue-and-cry which was raised at Oliver’s heels, they quitted the pursuit when the general attention was fixed upon Oliver. Thereafter, making immediately for their home by the shortest possible cut through a most intricate maze of narrow streets, they slunk down their own court.
A few minutes later the noise of footsteps on the stairs roused the merry old gentleman as he sat over the fire. There was a rascally smile on his white face as he turned round, and looking sharply out from under his thick red eyebrows, bent his ear towards the door and listened.
‘Why, how’s this?’ muttered the Jew, changing countenance, ‘only two of them? Where’s the third? They can’t have got into trouble. Hark!’

The footsteps approached nearer; they reached the landing. The door was slowly opened; and the Dodger and Charley Bates entered, closing it behind them.
‘Where’s Oliver?’ said the Jew, seizing the Dodger tightly by the collar and threatening him with horrid imprecations.
‘Speak out, or I’ll throttle you!’
‘Why the traps have got him, and that’s all about it,’ said the Dodger sullenly, ‘Come, let go of me, will you?’ And he swung himself at one jerk, clean out of the big coat, which he left in the Jew’s hands.
‘Why, what the blazes is in the wind now?’ growled a deep voice.
The man who growled out these words was a stoutly built fellow of about five and thirty, in a black velvet coat, very soiled drab breeches, lace-up half boots, and grey cotton stockings, which enclosed a pair of legs with large swelling calves. He had a broad heavy countenance with a beard of three days’ growth, and two scowling eyes, one of which displayed various parti-coloured symptoms of having been recently damaged by a blow.
A white shaggy dog, with his face scratched and torn in twenty different places, skulked into the room after him.
The man seated himself deliberately and addressed Fagin. ‘What are you up to? Ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious, insatiable ole fence. I wonder they don’t murder you! I would if I were them. If I’d been your apprentice I’d have done it long ago.’
‘Hush! Flush! Mr Sikes,’ said the Jew, trembling and pointing towards the boys.
After swallowing two or three glasses of spirits, Mr Sikes condescended to take some notice of the young gentlemen, which gracious act led to a conversation in which the cause and manner of Oliver’s capture were circumstantially detailed.
‘I’m afraid,’ said the Jew, ‘he may say something that will get us into trouble.’
‘That’s very likely,’ returned Sikes with a malicious grin, ‘If he hasn’t peached and is committed, there’s no fear till he comes out again, and then he must be taken care of. You must get hold of him somehow.’
The prudence of this line of action, indeed, was obvious, but unfortunately, there was one very strong objection to its being adopted. This was that the Dodger, and Charley Bates, and Fagin and Mr William Sikes, happened, one and all, to entertain a violent and deeply rooted antipathy to going near a police office on any ground or pretext whatever. But the sudden entrance of two young ladies whom Oliver had seen on a former occasion caused the conversation to flow afresh.
‘The very thing!’ said the Jew. ‘Bet will go, won’t you, my dear?’
‘Go where?’ inquired the young lady.
‘Only just up to the office,’ said the Jew coaxingly.
The young lady expressed an emphatic and earnest desire to be ‘blessed’ if she would, but by dint of alternate threats, promises and bribes Nancy, the other female, was ultimately prevailed upon to undertake the commission.
Accordingly, with a clean, white apron tied over her gown, and her curl-papers tucked up under a straw bonnet—both articles being provided from the Jew’s inexhaustible stock—Miss Nancy prepared to issue forth on her errand. She made the best of her way to the police office, whither, not withstanding a little natural timidity consequent upon walking through the streets alone and unprotected, she arrived in perfect safety shortly afterwards.
Entering by the back door, she tapped softly with the key at one of the cell-doors, and listened.
‘Nolly, dear?’ murmured Nancy in a gentle voice, ‘Nolly?’ But, as neither of the criminals in the cells answered to the name of Oliver, or knew anything about him, Nancy made straight up to the bluff officer in the striped waistcoat; and with the most piteous wailings and lamentations demanded her own dear brother.
‘I haven’t got him, my dear,’ said the old man.
‘Where is he?’ screamed Nancy in a distracted manner.
‘Why, the gentleman’s got him,’ replied the officer.
‘What gentleman? Oh, gracious heaven! What gentleman?’ exclaimed Nancy.
In reply to this incoherent questioning, the old man informed the deeply affected sister that Oliver had been taken ill in the office, and discharged in consequence of a witness having proved the robbery to have been committed by another boy, not in custody; and that the prosecutor had carried him away, in an insensible condition, to his own residence, of and concerning which, all the informant knew was that it was somewhere in Pentonville, he having heard that word mentioned in the directions to the coachman.

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