CHAPTER XIV

Mr. Giles Catches a Thief!

"Wolves tear your throats!" muttered Sikes, grinding his teeth and resting the body of the wounded boy in a dry ditch. "I wish I was among some of you; you'd howl the hoarser for it."

At this moment the noise grew louder. The pursuers were already climbing the gate of the field in which he stood, and a couple of dogs were paces in advance of them.

"It's all up, Bill!" cried Toby; "leave the boy and show them your heels." With this parting advice, Mr. Crackit turned and ran at full speed. Sikes took one look around, threw a shawl over Oliver, and running along the hedge for some distance, he was over it at one jump and was gone.

The three pursuers called back their dogs and stopped to take counsel together.

"My advice is," said the fattest man of the party, "that we immediately go home again."

"I agree with you, Mr. Giles," said a shorter man called Mr. Brittles, who was very pale and frightened. In fact all three men were afraid, although they were ashamed to admit it at first.

Mr. Giles was head servant to the old lady of the house where the robbery had been attempted. Brittles was a lad of all work who, having entered her service as a mere child, was treated as a young boy still, though he was something past thirty. The third man was a travelling tinker who had joined in the pursuit together with his two dogs.

Encouraging each other with conversation and keeping very close together, the three men made the best of their way home at a good pace.

The air grew colder, as day came slowly on; and the mist rolled along the ground like a thick cloud of smoke. Still, Oliver lay motionless and insensible in the place where Sikes had left him.

Morning drew on fast. The air became more sharp and piercing. The rain came down, thick and fast, but Oliver felt it not, as it beat against him; for he still lay stretched, helpless and unconscious, on his bed of clay.

At length the boy awoke, uttering a low cry of pain. His left arm, bandaged in a shawl, hung heavy and useless at his side. He was so weak that he could scarcely raise himself into a sitting position, but he managed at last to get up and walk unsteadily, he knew not where. He staggered on until he reached a road and, looking about, he saw a house at no great distance, towards which he directed his steps, hoping to get some assistance there. He walked across the lawn, climbed the steps, knocked faintly at the door, and then, his whole strength failing him, he sank down on the door-step.

It happened about this time that Mr. Giles, Brittles and the tinker were having tea in the kitchen. Mr. Giles was giving his hearers (including the cook and housemaid) a detailed account of the robbery, to which they listened with breathless interest.

"It was about half-past two," said Mr. Giles, "when I woke up and, turning round, I fancied I heard a noise."

At this point of the story, the cook turned pale and asked the housemaid to shut the door; the housemaid asked Brittles, and Brittles asked the tinker, who pretended not to hear.

" ... heard a noise," continued Mr. Giles. "I said to myself, at first, This is only your fancy, Giles, and was preparing to fall asleep again when I heard the noise distinctly, once more."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed the cook and housemaid at the same time, and drew their chairs closer together.

"I heard it now, quite distinctly," resumed Mr. Giles. "Somebody, I said to myself, is forcing a door or a window; what's to be done? I'll call up that poor lad, Brittles, and save him from being murdered in his bed, or having his throat cut."

Here all eyes were turned upon Brittles, who stared at the speaker, with his mouth wide open, and his face a perfect expression of horror.

"I tossed off the bed-clothes," said Giles, "got softly out of bed, seized a loaded pistol and walked on tiptoe to his room. 'Brittles,' I said, when I had woke him, 'don't be frightened!'"

"So you did," observed Brittles, in a low voice.

"'We're dead men, I think, Brittles,' I said," continued Giles; "'but don't be frightened.'"

"Was he frightened?" asked the cook.

"Not a bit of it," replied Mr. Giles. "He was as firm—ah! pretty near as firm as I was."

"I should have died at once, I'm sure, if it had been me," observed the housemaid.

"You're a woman," said Brittles.

"Brittles is right," said Mr. Giles, nodding his head approvingly; "from a woman, nothing else was to be expected. We, being men, took a dark lantern and groped our way downstairs in the pitch dark—as it might be so."

Mr. Giles had risen from his seat, and taken two steps with his eyes shut, to accompany his description with action, when he started violently, together with the rest of the company, and hurried back to his chair. The cook and housemaid screamed.

"It was a knock," said Mr. Giles, pretending to be perfectly calm. "Open the door, somebody."

Nobody moved.

"It seems a strange sort of thing, a knock coming at such a time in the morning," said Mr. Giles, looking at the pale faces round him, and looking pale himself; "but the door must be opened. Do you hear, somebody?"

Mr. Giles, as he spoke, looked at Brittles, but that young man, being naturally modest, probably considered himself nobody, and so he gave no reply. Mr. Giles looked appealingly at the tinker, but he had suddenly fallen asleep. The women were out of the question.

"If Brittles would rather open the door in the presence of witnesses," said Mr. Giles, after a short silence, "I am ready to make one."

"So am I," said the tinker, waking up as suddenly as he had fallen asleep.

Brittles consented to open the door on these terms, and they took their way upstairs, with the dogs in front. The two women, who were afraid to stay below, brought up the rear. By the advice of Mr. Giles, they all talked very loud, to warn any one outside that they were strong in numbers. Mr. Giles also made them pinch the dogs' tails in the hall, to make them bark savagely.

These precautions having been taken, Mr. Giles gave the word of command to open the door. Brittles obeyed; the group, looking fearfully over each other's shoulders, saw no more formidable object than poor little Oliver Twist, speechless and fatigued, who raised his heavy eyes, and silently begged their pity.

"A boy!" exclaimed Mr. Giles, bravely pushing the tinker into the background, and dragging Oliver into the hall. Then he called aloud, in a state of great excitement: "Here he is! Here's one of the thieves, ma'am! Here's a thief, miss! Wounded, miss! I shot him, miss!"

The two women-servants ran upstairs to carry the news that Mr. Giles had captured a robber; and the tinker busied himself in trying to restore Oliver, lest he should die before he could be hanged. In the midst of all this noise there was heard a sweet female voice.

"Giles!" whispered the voice from the head of the stairs.

"I'm here, miss," replied Mr. Giles. "Don't be frightened, miss, I'm not much injured. He didn't struggle very hard, miss."

"Hush!" replied the young lady, "you frighten my aunt as much as the thieves did. Is the poor creature much hurt?"

"He's badly wounded, miss," replied Giles.

"He looks as if he was dying, miss," called out Brittles, loudly. "Wouldn't you like to come and look at him, miss, in case he dies?"

"Hush!" said the lady again. "Wait quietly only an instant, while I speak to aunt."

The speaker walked softly away and presently returned and ordered that the wounded person was to be carried carefully upstairs to Mr. Giles's room, and that Brittles was to go at once to Chertsey and fetch a policeman and a doctor.

"But won't you take one look at him, first, miss?" asked Mr. Giles, with as much pride as if Oliver were some rare bird he had shot down. "Not one little look, miss?"

"Not now, Giles," replied the young lady. "Poor fellow! Oh! treat him kindly, Giles, for my sake!"

The old servant looked up at the young lady, as she turned away, with a glance as proud and admiring as if she had been his own child. Then, bending over Oliver, he helped to carry him upstairs with the care and gentleness of a woman.

Fagin the Jew, Charlie Bates and the Dodger were playing cards when the Dodger cried: "Listen! I heard the bell!" and, catching up the light, he crept softly upstairs.

The bell was rung again, with some impatience, while the card party were in darkness. After a short pause, the Dodger reappeared, and whispered something to Fagin.

"What!" cried the Jew, "alone?"

The Dodger nodded in the affirmative and admitted Toby Crackit.

"How are you, Faguey?" said Toby and then, drawing a chair to the fire, he sat down. "Don't look at me in that way, man. All in good time; I can't talk about business till I've eaten and drunk, for I haven't had a good meal these three days."

The Jew motioned to the Dodger to place what food there was upon the table, and seating himself opposite the housebreaker, waited to listen to what he had to say.

Toby was in no hurry to open the conversation. At first the Jew watched his face patiently, as if to gain from its expression some clue to the information he brought, but in vain. Toby continued to eat with the utmost indifference until he could eat no more; then, ordering Charlie Bates and the Dodger out, he closed the door, mixed a glass of spirits and water and said:

"First of all, Faguey, how's Bill?"

"What!" screamed the Jew, starting from his seat.

"Why, you don't mean to say—" began Toby, turning pale.

"Mean?" cried the Jew, stamping furiously on the ground. "Where are they? Sikes and the boy! Where are they? Where have they been? Where are they hiding? Why have they not been here?"

"The attempt failed," said Toby faintly.

"I know it," replied the Jew, taking a newspaper out of his pocket and pointing to it. "What more?"

"They fired and hit the boy. We cut across the fields at the back, with him between us. They gave chase, damn them. The whole countryside was awake, and the dogs upon us."

"The boy!"

"Bill had him on his back, and fled like the wind. We stopped to take him between us; his head hung down, and he was cold. They were close upon our heels; every man for himself, and each from the gallows! We parted company, and left the boy lying in a ditch, alive or dead I don't know."

The Jew stopped to hear no more; but uttering a loud scream, and tearing his hair with his hands, he rushed from the room and from the house.