Stranica 79 [79]
49
The mandate was obeyed, and the in¬
dignant Mr. Brownlow was conveyed out,
with the book in one hand, and the bam¬
boo cane in the other, in a perfect phrenzy
of and defiance.
He reached the , and it vanished in
a moment. Little Oliver Twist lay on
his back on the pavement, with his shirt
unbuttoned, and his temples bathed with
water: his face a deadly white, and a cold
tremble convulsmg his whole frame.
6 Poor boy, poor boy!" said Mr. Brown¬
low, bending over him. “Call a coach,
somebody, pray, directly !”
A coach was obtained, and Oliver, hav¬
ng been carefully laid on one seat, the
old gentleman got in and sat himself on
the a
cc May I accom ou?” said the book¬
stall keeper, Woking Hi A
“ Bless me, yes, my dear friend,” said
Mr. Brownlow, quickly. “1 forgot you.
Dear, dear! I’ve got this unhappy book
still. Jumpin. Poor fellow! there’s no
time to lose.”
The book-stall keeper got into the coach,
and away they drove.
Te —
CHAPTER THE TWELFTII.
In which Oliver is taken better care of than he ever
was before, with some particulars concerning a
certain picture,
THE coach rattled away down Mount
Pleasant and up Exmouth-street, — over
nearly the same ground as that which
Oliver had traversed when he first enter¬
ed London in company with the Dodger,
—and, turning a difierent way when it
reached the Angel at Islington, stopped
at length before a neat house in a quiet
shady street near Pentonville. Here a
bed was procured without loss of time, in
which Mr. Brownlow saw his young
charge carefully and comfortably deposit¬
ed; and here he was attended with a
kindness and solicitude which knew no
bounds.
But for many days Oliver remained in¬
sensible to all the goodness of his new
friends ; the sun rose and sunk, and rose
and sunk again, and many times after that,
and still the boy lay stretched upon his
uneasy bed, dwindling away beneath the
dry and wasting heat of fever,—that heat
which, like the subtle acid that gnaws
into the very heart of hardest iron, burns
only to corrode and to Cee The worm
does % his work more surely on the dead
G
body, than does this slow, creeping fire
upon the living frame.
Weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke
at last from what seemed to have been a
long and troubled dream. TF ecbly raising
himself in the bed, with his head resting
on his trembling arm, he looked anxiously
round,
“What room is this'—where have I
been brought to?” said Oliver. “This is
not the place [ went to sleep in.”
He uttered these words in a feeble voice,
being very faint and weak ; but they were
overheard at once, for the curtain at the
bed’s head was hastily drawn back, and a
motherly old lady, very neatly and pre¬
cisely dressed, rose as she undrew it, from
an arm-chair close by, in which she had
been sitting at needle-work.
‘Hush, my dear,” said the old lady
softly. ‘ You must be very quiet, or you
will be ill again, and you have been very
bad,—as bad as bad could be, pretty nigh.
Lie down again, there’s a dear.” With
these words the old lady very gently
placed Oliver’s head upon the pillow, and,
smoothing back his hair from his forehead,
looked so kindly and lovingly in his face,
that he could not help placing his little
withered hand upon hers, and drawing it
round his neck.
“Save us!” said the old lady, with tears
in her eyes, “ what a grateful little dear
it is. Pretty creetur, what would his
mother feel if she had sat by him as I
have, and could see him now!”
‘Perhaps she does see me,” whispered
Oliver, folding his hands together; “ per¬
haps she has sat by me,ma’am. I almost
feel as if she had.”
“That was the fever, my dear,” said
the old lady mildly.
“IT suppose it was,” replied Oliver
thoughtfully, “because Heaven is a long
way off, and they are too happy there, to
come down to the bedside of a poor boy.
But if she knew I was ill, she must have
pitied me even there, for she was very ill
herself before she died. She ean’t know
anything about me though,” added Oliver
afteramoment’s silence, “ for ifshe had seen
me heat, it would have made her sorrow¬
ful; and her face has always looked sweet
and happy when I have dreamt of her.”
The old lady made no reply to this, but
wiping her eyes first, and her spectacles,
which lay on the counterpane, afterwards,
as if they were part and parcel of those
features, brought some cool stuff for Oli
ver to drink, and then, patting him on the
cheek, told him he must lie very quiet, or
he would be ill again.