FullReads

It grew so dark that the figures on the dial-plate were scarcely discernible. The gas lamps were lighted; Mrs. Bedwin was waiting anxiously at the open door; the servant had run up the street twenty times to see if there were any traces of Oliver; and still the two old gentlemen sat, perseveringly, in the dark parlour, with the watch between them, waiting–but Oliver did not come.

He meanwhile, had walked along, on his way to the bookstall, thinking how happy and contented he ought to feel, when he was startled by a young woman screaming out very loud, “Oh, my dear brother!”–and then he was stopped by having a pair of arms thrown tight round his neck.

“Don’t!” cried Oliver, struggling. “Let go of Who is it? What are you stopping me for?”

“Oh my gracious!” said the young woman, “I’ve found him! Oh you naughty boy, to make me suffer sich distress on your account! Come home, dear, come!” With these and more incoherent exclamations, the young woman burst out crying, and told the onlookers that Oliver was her brother, who had run away from his respectable parents a month ago, joined a gang of thieves and almost broke his mother’s heart,–to which Oliver, greatly alarmed, replied that he was an orphan, had no sister, and lived at Pentonville. Then, catching sight of the woman’s face for the first time, he cried,–“Why, it’s Nancy!”

“You see he knows me!” cried Nancy. “Make him come home, there’s good people, or he’ll kill his dear mother and father, and break my heart!” With this a man who was Nancy’s accomplice, Bill Sikes by name, came to the rescue, tore the volumes from Oliver’s grasp, and struck him on the head. Weak still, and stupified by the suddenness of the attack, overpowered and helpless, what could one poor child do? Darkness had set in; it was a low neighbourhood; no help was near–resistance was useless. In another moment he was dragged into a labyrinth of dark narrow courts: and was forced along them, at a pace which rendered the few cries he dared to give utterance to, unintelligible.

At length they turned into a very filthy street, and stopped at an apparently untenanted house into which Bill Sikes and Nancy led Oliver, and there, were his old friends, Charley Bates, the Dodger, and Fagin.

They greeted Oliver with cheers, and at once rifled his pockets of the five-pound note, and relieved him of the books,–although Oliver pleaded that the books and money be sent back to Mr. Brownlow. When he found that all pleading and resistance were useless, he jumped suddenly to his feet and tore wildly from the room, uttering shrieks for help which made the bare old house echo to the roof, and then attempted to dart through the door, opened for a moment, but he was instantly caught, while Sikes’ dog would have sprung upon him, except for Nancy’s intervention. She was struck with Oliver’s pallor and great grief and tried to shield him from violence. But it was of little avail. He was beaten by the Jew, and then led off by Master Bates into an adjacent kitchen to go to bed. His new clothes were taken from him and he was given the identical old suit which he had so congratulated himself upon leaving off at Mr. Brownlow’s, and the accidental display of which to Fagin, by the Jew who purchased them, had been the first clue to Oliver’s whereabouts.

For a week or so the boy was kept locked up, but after that the Jew left him at liberty to wander about the house; which was a weird, ghostlike place, with the mouldering shutters fast closed, and no evidence from outside that it sheltered human creatures. Oliver was constantly with Charley Bates and the Dodger, who played the old game with the Jew every day. At times Fagin entertained the boys with stories of robberies he had committed in his younger days, which made Oliver laugh heartily, and show that he was amused in spite of his better feelings. In short, the wily old Jew had the boy in his toils, and hoped gradually to instil into his soul the poison which would blacken it and change its hue forever.