Stranica 76 [76]
46
c What’s the matter now?" said the
man carelessly.
“A young fogle-hunter,” replied the
man who had Oliver in charge.
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—I’d 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 en¬
ter through a door which he unlocked as
he spoke, and which led into a small stone
cell. Here he was searched, and nothing
been found upon him, locked up.
This cell was in shape and size some¬
thing like an area cellar, only not so light.
It was most intolerably dirty, for it was
Monday morning, and it had been tenanted
since Saturday night by six drunken peo¬
le. But this is nothing. In our station¬
ouses, men and women are every night
confined on the most trivial charges—the
word is worth noting—in dungeons, com¬
pared with which, those in Newgate, oc¬
found guilty, and under sentence of death,
are palaces! Let any man who doubts
this, compare the two.
The old gentleman looked almost as
rueful as Oliver, when the key grated in
the iock; and turned with a sigh to the
book which had been the innocent cause
of all this disturbance.
“There is something in that boy’s face,”
said the old gentleman to himself, as he
walked slowly away, tapping his chin with
the cover of the book in a thoughtful
manner, “something that touches and in¬
terests me. Can he be innocent? He
looked like— By the bye,” exclaimed
the old gentleman, halting very abruptly,
and staring up into the sky, “God bless
my soul! where have I seen something
like that look before ?”
After musing for some minutes, the old
gentleman walked with the same medi¬
tative face into a back ante-room opening
from the yard; and there, retiring into a
vast amphitheatre of faces over which a
dusky curtain had hung for many years.
“* No,” said the old gentleman shaking his
head; “it must be imagination.”
He wandered over them again. He
had called them into view, and it was not
easy to replace the shroud that had so
-—
faces of friends and foes, and of many that
had been almost strangers, peering intru¬
sively from the crowd; there were the
faces of young and blooming girls that
were now old women; there were others
that the grave had changed to ghastl
trophies of death, but which the mind,
superior to his power, still dressed in their
old freshness and beauty, calling back the
lustre of the eyes, the brightness of the
smile, the beaming of the soul through
its mask of clay, and whispering of beauty
beyond the tomb, changed but to be height¬
ened, and taken from earth only to be set
up as a light to shed a soft and gentle
glow upon the path to Heaven.
But the old gentleman could recall no
one countenance of which Oliver’s fea¬
tures bore a trace; so he heaved a sigh
over the recollections he had awakened ;
and being, happily for himself, an absent
old gentleman, buried them again in the
pages of the musty book. —
e was roused by a touch on the shoul¬
der, and a request from the man with the
keys to follow him into the office. He
closed his book hastily, and was at once
ushered into the 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 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 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. If he were really not in the
habit of drinking rather more than was ex¬
actly good for him, he might have brought
an action against his countenance for libel,
and have recovered heavy damages. _
The old gentleman bowed respectfully,
and, advancing to the magistrate’s Né
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 at that moment perusing a leading
article in a newspaper of the morning,
adverting to some recent decision of his,
and commending him, for the three hun¬
particular notice of the Secretary of State
for the Home Department. He was out
of temper, and he looked up with an angry
scowl,