Page 200 [200]
148 OLIVER
TWIST.
sc You had better bid,” interrupted Mrs.
Bumble. “I have heard enough already
to assure me that you are the man I ought
to talk to.” ¬
Mr. Bumble, who had not yet been ad¬
mitted by his better half into any greater
share of the secret than he had originally
possessed, listened to this dialogue with
outstretched neck and distended eyes,
which he directed towards his wife and
Monks by turns in undisguised astonish¬
ment; increased, if possible, when the
latter sternly demanded what sum was
required for the disclosure.
6 What’s it worth to you?” asked the
woman, as collectedly as before.
“Jt may be nothing; it may be twenty
unds,” replied Monks; " speak out, and
et me know which.”
** Add five pounds to the sum you have
named; give me five-and-twenty pounds
you all I know—not before.”
Monks, drawing back.
“T spoke as plainly as I could,” replied
Mrs. Bumble, “and it’s not a large sum
either.” |
“ Not a large sum for a paltry secret,
that may be nothing when it’s told!”
cried Monks impatiently, “and which has
been lying dead for twelve years past, or
more !"
“Such matters keep well, and, like
good wine, often double their value in
course of time,” answered the matron,
still preserving the resolute indifference
she had assumed. ‘As to lying dead,
there are those who will lie dead for twelve
thousand years to come, or twelve mil¬
lion, for anything you or I know, who will
tell strange tales at last.”
“What if [ pay it for nothing?” asked
Monks, hesitating.
“You can easily take it away again,”
replied the matron. “I am but a woman,
alone here, and unprotected.”
c Not alone, my dear, nor unprotected
neither,” submitted Mr. Bumble, in a
voice tremulous with fear; “ ZI am here,
my dear.
ble, his teeth chattering as he spoke,
‘*Mr. Monks is too much of a gentleman
to attempt any violence on porochial per¬
sons. Mr. Monks is aware that I am not
a young man, my dear, and also that I
am a little run to seed, as I may say ; but
he has heerd—I say I have no doubt Mr.
Monks has heerd, my dear—that I am a
very determined officer, with very uncom¬
mon strength, if I’m once roused. I only
want a little rousing, that’s all.”
As Mr. Bumble spoke, he made a me¬
lancholy feint of grasping his lantern with
fierce determination, and plainly showed,
by the alarmed expression of every fea¬
ture, that he did want a little rousing,
and not a little, prior to making any war¬
like demonstration, unless, indeed, against
paupers, or other person or persons trained
down for the purpose.
c You are a fool,” said Mrs. Bumble in
reply, “and had better hold your tongue.”
“He had better have cut it out before
he came, if he can’t speak in a lower
tone,” said Monks grimly. “So he’s
your husband, eh?"
“He my husband!” tittered the ma¬
tron, parrying the question.
“T thought as much when you came
in,” rejoined Monks, marking the angry
glance which the lady darted at her spouse
as she spoke. ‘So much the better; I
have less hesitation in dealing with two
‘people, when I find that there "s only one
a between them. I’m in earnest—see
ere."
He thrust his hand into a side-pocket,
and producing a canvas bag, told out
twenty-five sovereigns on the table, and
pushed them over to the woman.
“ Now,” he said, “ gather them up; and
when this cursed peal of thunder, that I
feel is coming up to break over the house¬
top, is gone, let’s hear your story.”
The roar of thunder, which seemed in
fact much nearer, and to shiver and break
almost over their heads, having subsided,
Monks, raising his face from the table,
bent forward to listen to what the woman
should say. The faces of the three nearly
touched as the two men leant over the
small table in their eagerness to hear, and
the woman also leant forward to render
her whisper audible. The sickly rays of
the suspended lantern falling directly
upon them, aggravated the bag a and
anxiety of their countenances, which, en¬
circled by the deepest gloom and dark¬
ness, looked ghastly in the extreme.
| When this woman, that we call old
Sally, died,” the matron began, " she and
I were alone.”
“ Was there no one by?” asked Monks
in the same hollow whisper, “no sick
| wretch or idiot in some other bed *—no
one who could hear, and might by possi¬
bility understand ?”’
“ Not a soul,” replied the woman; “ we
were alone: J stood alone beside the body
| when death came over it.”
“Good,” said Monks, regarding her at¬
| tentively: “ go on.”
“She spoke of a young creature,” re¬