Oliver Twist (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (56 page)

Thus, they had toiled along the dusty road, taking little heed of any object within sight, save when they stepped aside to allow a wider passage for the mail-coaches which were whirling out of town, until they passed through Highgate archway; when the foremost traveller stopped and called impatiently to his companion.

“Come on, can’t yer? What a lazybones yer are, Charlotte.”

“It’s a heavy load, I can tell you,” said the female, coming up, almost breathless with fatigue.

“Heavy! What are yer talking about? What are yer made for?” rejoined the male traveller, changing his own little bundle as he spoke, to the other shoulder. “Oh, there yer are, resting again! Well, if yer ain’t enough to tire any body’s patience out, I don’t know what is!”

“Is it much farther?” asked the woman, resting herself against a bank, and looking up with the perspiration streaming from her face.

“Much farther! Yer as good as there,” said the long-legged tram-per, pointing out before him. “Look there! Those are the lights of London.”

“They’re a good two mile off, at least,” said the woman despondingly.

“Never mind whether they’re two mile off, or twenty,” said Noah Claypole; for he it was; “but get up and come on, or I’ll kick yer, and so I give yer notice.”

As Noah’s red nose grew redder with anger, and as he crossed the road while speaking, as if fully prepared to put his threat into execution, the woman rose without any further remark, and trudged onward by his side.

“Where do you mean to stop for the night, Noah?” she asked, after they had walked a few hundred yards.

“How should I know?” replied Noah, whose temper had been considerably impaired by walking.

“Near, I hope,” said Charlotte.

“No, not near,” replied Mr. Claypole. “There! Not near; so don’t think it.”

“Why not?”

“When I tell yer that I don’t mean to do a thing, that’s enough, without any why or because either,” replied Mr. Claypole with dignity

“Well, you needn’t be so cross,” said his companion.

“A pretty thing it would be, wouldn’t it, to go and stop at the very first public-house outside the town, so that Sowerberry, if he come up after us, might poke in his old nose, and have us taken back in a cart with handcuffs on,” said Mr. Claypole in a jeering tone. “No! I shall go and lose myself among the narrowest streets I can find, and not stop till we come to the very out-of-the-wayest house I can set eyes on. ’Cod, yer may thank yer stars I’ve got a head; for if we hadn’t gone, at first, the wrong road a purpose, and come back across country, yer’d have been locked up hard and fast a week ago, my lady. And serve yer right for being a fool.”

“I know I ain’t as cunning as you are,” replied Charlotte; “but don’t put all the blame on me, and say I should have been locked up. You would have been if I had been, any way.”

“Yer took the money from the till, yer know yer did,” said Mr. Claypole.

“I took it for you, Noah, dear,” rejoined Charlotte.

“Did I keep it?” asked Mr. Claypole.

“No; you trusted in me, and let me carry it like a dear, and so you are,” said the lady, chucking him under the chin, and drawing her arm through his.

This was indeed the case; but as it was not Mr. Claypole’s habit to repose a blind and foolish confidence in anybody, it should be observed, in justice to that gentleman, that he had trusted Charlotte to this extent, in order that, if they were pursued, the money might be found on her: which would leave him an opportunity of asserting his innocence of any theft, and would greatly facilitate his chances of escape. Of course, he entered at this juncture into no explanation of his motives, and they walked on very lovingly together.

In pursuance of this cautious plan, Mr. Claypole went on, without halting, until he arrived at the Angel at Islington, where he wisely judged, from the crowd of passengers and number of vehicles, that London began in earnest. Just pausing to observe which appeared the most crowded streets, and consequently the most to be avoided, he crossed into Saint John’s Road, and was soon deep in the obscurity of the intricate and dirty ways, which, lying between Gray’s Inn Lane and Smithfield, render that part of the town one of the lowest and worst that improvement has left in the midst of London.

Through these streets, Noah Claypole walked, dragging Charlotte after him; now stepping into the kennel to embrace at a glance the whole eternal character of some small public-house; now jogging on again, as some fancied appearance induced him to believe it too public for his purpose. At length, he stopped in front of one, more humble in appearance and more dirty than any he had yet seen; and, having crossed over and surveyed it from the opposite pavement, graciously announced his intention of putting up there, for the night.

“So give us the bundle,” said Noah, unstrapping it from the woman’s shoulders, and slinging it over his own; “and don’t yer speak, except when yer spoke to. What’s the name of the house-t-h-r—three what?”

“Cripples,” said Charlotte.

“Three Cripples,” repeated Noah, “and a very good sign too. Now, then! Keep close at my heels, and come along.” With these injunctions, he pushed the rattling door with his shoulder, and entered the house, followed by his companion.

There was nobody in the bar but a young Jew, who, with his two elbows on the counter, was reading a dirty newspaper. He stared very hard at Noah, and Noah stared very hard at him.

If Noah had been attired in his charity-boy’s dress, there might have been some reason for the Jew opening his eyes so wide; but as he had discarded the coat and badge, and wore a short smock-frock over his leathers, there seemed no particular reason for his appearance exciting so much attention in a public-house.

“Is this the Three Cripples?” asked Noah.

“That is the dabe of this ouse,” replied the Jew.

“A gentleman we met on the road, coming up from the country, recommended us here,” said Noah, nudging Charlotte, perhaps to call her attention to this most ingenious device for attracting respect, and perhaps to warn her to betray no surprise. “We want to sleep here to-night.”

“I’b dot certaid you cad,” said Barney, who was the attendant sprite: “but I’ll idquire.”

“Show us the tap, and give us a bit of cold meat and a drop of beer while yer inquiring, will yer?” said Noah.

Barney complied by ushering them into a small back-room, and setting the required viands before them; having done which, he informed the travellers that they could be lodged that night, and left the amiable couple to their refreshment.

Now, this back-room was immediately behind the bar, and some steps lower, so that any person connected with the house, un-drawing a small curtain which concealed a single pane of glass fixed in the wall of the last-named apartment, about five feet from its flooring, could not only look down upon any guests in the back-room without any great hazard of being observed (the glass being in a dark angle of the wall, between which and a large upright beam the observer had to thrust himself), but could, by applying his ear to the partition, ascertain with tolerable distinctness, their subject of conversation. The landlord of the house had not withdrawn his eye from this place of espial for five minutes, and Barney had only just returned from making the communication above related, when Fagin, in the course of his evening’s business, came into the bar to inquire after some of his young pupils.

“Hush!” said Barney: “stradegers id the next roob.”

“Strangers!” repeated the old man in a whisper.

“Ah! Ad rub uds too,” added Barney. “Frob the cuttry, but sobthig in your way, or I’b bistaked.”

Fagin appeared to receive this communication with great interest. Mounting a stool, he cautiously applied his eye to the pane of glass, from which secret post he could see Mr. Claypole taking cold beef from the dish, and porter from the pot, and administering homeopathic doses of both to Charlotte, who sat patiently by, eating and drinking at his pleasure.
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“Aha!” he whispered, looking round to Barney, “I like that fellow’s looks. He’d be of use to us; he knows how to train the girl already. Don’t make as much noise as a mouse, my dear, and let me hear ’em talk—let me hear em.”

 

He again applied his eye to the glass, and turning his ear to the partition, listened attentively: with a subtle and eager look upon his face, that might have appertained to some old goblin.

“So I mean to be a gentleman,” said Mr. Claypole, kicking out his legs, and continuing a conversation, the commencement of which Fagin had arrived too late to hear. “No more jolly old coffins, Charlotte, but a gentleman’s life for me: and, if yer like yer shall be a lady.”

“I should like that well enough, dear,” replied Charlotte; “but tills ain’t to be emptied every day, and people to get clear off after it.”

“Tills be blowed!” said Mr. Claypole; “there’s more things besides tills to be emptied.”

“What do you mean?” asked his companion.

“Pockets, women’s ridicules,
^ch
houses, mail-coaches, banks!” said Mr. Claypole, rising with the porter.

“But you can’t do all that, dear,” said Charlotte.

“I shall look out to get into company with them as can,” replied Noah. “They’ll be able to make us useful some way or another. Why, you yourself are worth fifty women; I never see such a precious sly and deceitful creetur as yer can be when I let yer.”

“Lor, how nice it is to hear you say so!” exclaimed Charlotte, imprinting a kiss upon his ugly face.

“There, that’ll do: don’t yer be too affectionate, in case I’m cross with yer,” said Noah, disengaging himself with great gravity. “I should like to be the captain of some band, and have the whopping of ‘em, and follering ’em about, unbeknown to themselves. That would suit me, if there was good profit; and if we could only get in with some gentlemen of this sort, I say it would be cheap at that twenty-pound note you’ve got,—especially as we don’t very well know how to get rid of it ourselves.”

After expressing this opinion, Mr. Claypole looked into the porter-pot with an aspect of deep wisdom; and having well shaken its contents, nodded condescendingly to Charlotte, and took a draught, wherewith he appeared greatly refreshed. He was meditating another, when the sudden opening of the door, and the appearance of a stranger, interrupted him.

The stranger was Mr. Fagin. And very amiable he looked, and a very low bow he made, as he advanced, and setting himself down at the nearest table, ordered something to drink of the grinning Barney.

“A pleasant night, sir, but cool for the time of year,” said Fagin, rubbing his hands. “From the country, I see, sir?”

“How do yer see that?” asked Noah Claypole.

“We have not so much dust as that in London,” replied Fagin, pointing from Noah’s shoes to those of his companion, and from them to the two bundles.

“Yer a sharp feller,” said Noah, “Ha! ha! only hear that, Charlotte!”

“Why, one need be sharp in this town, my dear,” replied the Jew, sinking his voice to a confidential whisper; “and that’s the truth.”

Fagin followed up this remark by striking the side of his nose with his right forefinger,—a gesture which Noah attempted to imitate, though not with complete success, in consequence of his own nose not being large enough for the purpose. However, Mr. Fagin seemed to interpret the endeavour as expressing a perfect coincidence with his opinion, and put about the liquor which Barney reappeared with, in a very friendly manner.

“Good stuff that,” observed Mr. Claypole, smacking his lips.

“Dear!” said Fagin. “A man need be always emptying a till, or a pocket, or a woman’s reticule, or a house, or a mailcoach, or a bank, if he drinks it regularly.”

Mr. Claypole no sooner heard this extract from his own remarks than he fell back in his chair, and looked from the Jew to Charlotte with a countenance of ashy paleness and excessive terror.

“Don’t mind me, my dear,” said Fagin, drawing his chair closer. “Ha! ha! it was lucky it was only me that heard you by chance. It was very lucky it was only me.”

“I didn’t take it,” stammered Noah, no longer stretching out his legs like an independent gentleman, but coiling them up as well as he could under his chair; “it was all her doing: yer’ve got it now, Charlotte, yer know yer have.”

“No matter who’s got it, or who did it, my dear!” replied Fagin, glancing, nevertheless, with a hawk’s eye at the girl and the two bundles. “I’m in that way myself, and I like you for it.”

“In what way?” asked Mr. Claypole, a little recovering.

“In that way of business,” rejoined Fagin; “and so are the people of the house. You’ve hit the right nail upon the head, and are as safe here as you could be. There is not a safer place in all this town than is the Cripples; that is, when I like to make it so. And I have taken a fancy to you and the young woman; so I’ve said the word, and you may make your minds easy.”