Messrs. Blathers and Duff looked at Mr. Giles, as he was thus recommended to their notice. The bewildered butler gazed from them towards Oliver, and from Oliver towards Mr. Losberne, with a most ludicrous mixture of fear and perplexity.
“You don’t mean to deny that, I suppose?” said the doctor, laying Oliver gently down again.
“It was all done for the—for the best, sir,” answered Giles. “I am sure I thought it was the boy, or I wouldn’t have meddled with him. I am not of an inhuman disposition, sir.”
“Thought it was what boy?” inquired the senior officer.
“The housebreaker’s boy, sir!” replied Giles. “They—they certainly had a boy.”
“Well? Do you think so now?” inquired Blathers.
“Think what, now?” replied Giles, looking vacantly at his questioner.
“Think it’s the same boy, Stupid-head?” rejoined Blathers, impatiently.
“I don’t know; I really don’t know,” said Giles, with a rueful countenance. “I couldn’t swear to him.”
“What do you think?” asked Mr. Blathers.
“I don’t know what to think,” replied poor Giles. “I don’t think it is the boy; indeed, I’m almost certain that it isn’t. You know it can’t be.”
“Has this man been
a-drinking,
sir?” inquired Blathers, turning to the doctor.
“What a precious muddle-headed chap you are!” said Duff, addressing Mr. Giles, with supreme contempt.
Mr. Losberne had been feeling the patient’s pulse during this short dialogue; but he now rose from the chair by the bedside and remarked that if the officers had any doubts upon the subject, they would perhaps like to step into the next room and have Brittles before them.
Acting upon this suggestion, they adjourned to a neighbour-in
g
apartment, where Mr. Brittles, being called in, involved himself and his respected superior in such a wonderful maze of fresh contradictions and impossibilities as tended to throw no particular light on anything but the fact of his own strong mystification, except, indeed, his declarations that he shouldn’t know the real boy if he were put before him that instant, that he had only taken Oliver to be he, because Mr. Giles had said he was, and that Mr. Giles had, five minutes previously, admitted in the kitchen that he began to be very much afraid he had been a little too hasty.
Among other ingenious surmises, the question was then raised whether Mr. Giles had really hit anybody; and upon examination of the fellow pistol to that which he had fired, it turned out to have no more destructive loading than gunpowder and brown paper—a discovery which made a considerable impression on everybody but the doctor, who had drawn the ball about ten minutes before. Upon no one, however, did it make a greater impression than on Mr. Giles himself, who, after labouring, for some hours under the fear of having mortally wounded a fellow-creature, eagerly caught at this new idea and favoured it to the utmost. Finally, the officers, without troubling themselves very much about Oliver, left the Chertsey constable in the house and took up their rest for that night in the town, promising to return next morning.
With the next morning there came a rumour that two men and a boy were in the cage at Kingston, who had been apprehended over night under suspicious circumstances; and to Kingston Messrs. Blathers and Duff journeyed accordingly. The suspicious circumstances, however, resolving themselves, on investigation, into the one fact that they had been discovered sleeping under a haystack—which, although a great crime, is only punishable by imprisonment, and is, in the merciful eye of the English law and its comprehensive love of all the king’s subjects, held to be no satisfactory proof, in the absence of all other evidence, that the sleeper, or sleepers, have committed burglary accompanied with violence, and have therefore rendered themselves liable to the punishment of death—Messrs. Blathers and Duff came back again as wise as they went.
In short, after some more examination, and a great deal more conversation, a neighbouring magistrate was readily induced to take the joint bail of Mrs. Maylie and Mr. Losbeme for Oliver’s appearance if he should ever be called upon; and Blathers and Duff, being rewarded with a couple of guineas, returned to town with divided opinions on the subject of their expedition, the latter gentleman, on a mature consideration of all the circumstances, inclining to the belief that the burglari ous attempt had originated with the Family Pet, and the former being equally disposed to concede the full merit of it to the great Mr. Conkey Chickweed.
Meanwhile, Oliver gradually throve and prospered under the united care of Mrs. Maylie, Rose, and the kind-hearted Mr. Losberne. If fervent prayers, gushing from hearts overcharged with gratitude, be heard in heaven—and if they be not, what prayers are!—the blessings which the orphan child called down upon them sunk into their souls, diffusing peace and happiness.
CHAPTER XXXII
Of the happy life Oliver began to lead with his kind friends.
OLIVER’S AILINGS WERE NEITHER SLIGHT NOR FEW IN ADDITION to the pain and delay attendant on a broken limb, his exposure to the wet and cold had brought on fever and ague, which hung about him for many weeks and reduced him sadly. But at length he began, by slow degrees, to get better, and to be able to say sometimes, in few tearful words, how deeply he felt the goodness of the two sweet ladies and how ardently he hoped that when he grew strong and well again he could do something to show his gratitude—only something which would let them see the love and duty with which his breast was full—something, however slight, which would prove to them that their gentle kindness had not been cast away, but that the poor boy whom their charity had rescued from misery, or death, was eager to serve them with his whole heart and soul.
“Poor fellow!” said Rose, when Oliver had been one day feebly endeavouring to utter the words of thankfulness that rose to his pale lips; “you shall have many opportunities of serving us, if you will. We are going into the country, and my aunt intends that you shall accompany us. The quiet place, the pure air, and all the pleasures and beauties of spring, will restore you in a few days. We will employ you in a hundred ways, when you can bear the trouble.”
“The trouble!” cried Oliver. “Oh! Dear lady, if I could but work for you; if I could only give you pleasure by watering your flowers, or watching your birds, or running up and down the whole day long, to make you happy; what would I give to do it!”
“You shall give nothing at all,” said Miss Maylie. smiling; “for, as I told you before, we shall employ you in a hundred ways; and if you only take half the trouble to please us that you promise now, you will make me very happy indeed.”
“Happy, ma‘am!” cried Oliver; “how kind of you to say so!”
“You will make me happier than I can tell you,” replied the young lady. “To think tnat my dear good aunt should have been the means of rescuing any one from such sad misery as you have described to us, would be an unspeakable pleasure to me; but to know that the object of her goodness and compassion was sincerely grateful and attached, in consequence, would delight me more than you can well imagine. Do you understand me?” she inquired, watching Oliver’s thoughtful face.
“Oh yes, ma‘am, yes!” replied Oliver, eagerly; “but I was thinking that I am ungrateful now.”
“To whom?” inquired the young lady.
“To the kind gentleman, and the dear old nurse, who took so much care of me before,” rejoined Oliver. “If they knew how happy I am, they would be pleased, I am sure.”
“I am sure they would,” rejoined Oliver’s benefactress; “and Mr. Losberne has already been kind enough to promise that when you are well enough to bear the journey, he will carry you to see them.”
“Has he, ma‘am?” cried Oliver, his face brightening with pleasure. “I don’t know what I shall do for joy when see their kind faces once again!”
In a short time Oliver was sufficiently recovered to undergo the fatigue of this expedition. One morning he and Mr. Losberne set out, accordingly, in a little carriage which belonged to Mrs. Maylie. When they came to Chertsey Bridge, Oliver turned very pale and uttered a loud exclamation.
“What’s the matter with the boy?” cried the doctor, as usual, all in a bustle. “Do you see anything—hear anything—feel anything—eh?”
“That, sir,” cried Oliver, pointing but of the carriage window. “That house!”
“Yes; well, what of it? Stop coachman. Pull up here,” cried the doctor. “What of the house, my man; eh?”
“The thieves—the house they took me to!” whispered Oliver.
“The devil it is!” cried the doctor. “Halloa, there! let me out!”
But, before the coachman could dismount from his box, he had tumbled out of the coach, by some means or other; and, running down to the deserted tenement, began kicking at the door like a madman.
“Halloa?” said the little ugly hump-backed man, opening the door so suddenly that the doctor, from the very impetus of his last kick, nearly fell forward into the passage. “What’s the matter here?”
“Matter!” exclaimed the other, collaring him, without a moment’s reflection. “A good deal. Robbery is the matter.”
“There’ll be Murder the matter, too,” replied the hump-backed man, coolly, “if you don’t take your hands off. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” said the doctor, giving his captive a hearty shake. “Where‘s—confound the fellow, what’s his rascally name—Sikes; that’s it. Where’s Sikes, you thief?”
The hump-backed man stared, as if in excess of amazement and indignation; then, twisting himself, dexterously, from the doctor’s grasp, growled forth a volley of horried oaths and retired into the house. Before he could shut the door, however, the doctor had passed into the parlour, without a word of parley. He looked anxiously round ; not an article of furniture, not a vestige of anything, animate or inanimate, not even the position of the cupboards, answered Oliver’s description!
“Now!” said the hump-backed man, who had watched him keenly, “what do you mean by coming into my house in this violent way? Do you want to rob me, or to murder me? Which is it?”
“Did you ever know a man come out to do either, in a chariot and pair, you ridiculous old vampire?” said the irritable doctor.
“What do you want, then?” demanded the hunch-back. “Will you take yourself off before I do you a mischief? Curse you!”
“As soon as I think proper,” said Mr. Losberne, looking into the other parlour, which, like the first, bore no resemblance whatever to Oliver’s account of it. “I shall find you out, some day, my friend.”
“Will you?” sneered the ill-favoured cripple. “If you ever want me, I’m here. I haven’t lived here mad and all alone, for five-and-twenty years, to be scared by you. You shall pay for this; you shall pay for this.” And so saying, the misshapen lit de demon set up a yell, and danced upon the ground as if wild with rage.
“Stupid enough, this,” muttered the doctor to himself; “the boy must have made a mistake. Here! Put that in your pocket, and shut yourself up again.” With these words he flung the hunchback a piece of money and returned to the carriage.
The man followed to the chariot door, uttering the wildest imprecations and curses all the way; but as Mr. Losberne turned to speak to the driver, he looked into the carriage and eyes Oliver for an instant with a glance so sharp and fierce and at the same time so furious and vindictive that, waking or sleeping, he could.not forget it for months afterwards. He continued to utter the most fearful imprecations until the driver had resumed his seat; and when they were once more on their way, they could see him some distance behind, beating his feet upon the ground, and tearing his hair, in transports of real or pretended rage.
“I am an ass!” said the doctor, after a long silence. “Did you know that before, Oliver?”
“No, sir.”
“Then don’t forget it another time.”
“An ass,” said the doctor again, after a further silence of some minutes. “Even if it had been the right place, and the right fellows had been there, what could I have done, single-handed ? And if I had had assistance, I see no good that I should have done, except leading to my own exposure, and an unavoidable statement of the manner in which I have hushed up this business. That would have served me right, though. I am always involving myself in some scrape or other, by acting on impulse. It might have done me good.”
Now, the fact was that the excellent doctor had never acted upon anything but impulse all through his life, and it was no bad compliment to the nature of the impulses which governed him that so far from being involved in any peculiar troubles or misfortunes, he had the warmest respect and esteem of all who knew him. If the truth must be told, he was a little out of temper, for a minute or two, at being disappointed in procuring corroborative evidence of Oliver’s story on the very first occasion on which he had a chance of obtaining any. He soon came round again, however; and finding that Oliver’s replies to his questions were still as straightforward and consistent, and still delivered with as much apparent sincerity and truth, as they had ever been, he made up his mind to attach full credence to them from that time forth.
As Oliver knew the name of the street in which Mr. Brownlow resided, they were enabled to drive straight thither. When the coach turned into it, his heart beat so violently that he could scarcely draw his breath.
“Now, my boy, which house is it?” inquired Mr. Losberne.
“That! That!” replied Oliver, pointing eagerly out of the window. “The white house. Oh! make haste! Pray make haste! I feel as if I should die, it makes me tremble so.”
“Come, come!” said the good doctor, patting him on the shoulder. “You will see them directly, and they will be overjoyed to find you safe and well.”
“Oh! I hope so!” cried Oliver. “They were so good to me, so very, very good to me.”
The coach rolled on. It stopped. No, that was the wrong house; the next door. It went on a few paces, and stopped again. Oliver looked up at the windows, with tears of happy expectation coursing down his face.