Stranica 249 [249]
OCR
OLIVER TWIST. 189 “That’s for your ple,” said the guard. “Now look alive in there, will yout Damn that ’ere bag, it warn’t ready night afore last; this won’t do, you know." “ Any thing new up in town, Ben!" asked the game-keeper, drawing back to the window-shutters, the better to admire the horses. * No, nothing that I know on,” replied the man, pulling on his gloves. “ Corn’s up a little. I heerd talk of a murder, too, down Spitalfields way, but I don’t reckon much upon it.” “ Ah, that’s quite true,” said a gentleman inside, who was looking out of the window ; " and a very dreadful murder it was," “Was it, sir?” rejoined the guard, touching his hat. “ Man or woman, pray sir?’ 66 A woman,” _it 1s supposed * Now, Ben,” cried the coachman, impatiently. replied the gentleman, 6 Are you gone to sleep in there?" 6 Coming,” cried the office-keeper, running out. u. a !” growled the guard. " Ah! and so’s the young ’ooman of property that’s going to take a fancy to me; but I don’t know when. Here, give hold. All ri-ight.” The horn sounded a few cheerful notes, and the coach was: gone. Sikes remained standing in the street, apparently unmoved by what he had just heard, and agitated by no stronger feeling than a doubt where to go. At length he went back again, and took the road which leads from Hatfield to Saint Alban’s. He went on doggedly, but as he left the town behind him, and plunged further and further into the solitude and darkness of the road, he felt a dread and awe creeping upon him which shook him to the core. Every object before him, substance or shadow, still or moving, took the semblance of some fearful thing; but these fears were nothing, compared to the sense that haunted him of that morning’s ghastly figure following at his heels. He could trace its shadow in the gloom, supply the smallest item of the outline, and note how stiff and solemn it seemed to stalk along. He could hear its garments rustling in the leaves, and every breath of wind came laden with that last low cry. If he stopped, it did the same; if he ran, it followed— not running too, that would have with the mere machinery of life, and borne upon one slow melancholy wind At times he turned with desperate de| termination, resolved to beat this phantom off, though it should look him dead ; but his hair rose from his head, and his blood stood still; for it had turned with him, and was behind him then. He had kept it before him that morning, but it was behind him now—always. He leant his back against a bank, and felt that it stood above him, visibly out against the cold night’s sky. He threw himself upon the road—on his back upon the road. At his head it stood, silent, erect, and still—a living grave-stone, with its epitaph in blood. Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that Providence must sleep. ‘There were twenty score of violent deaths in one long minute of that agony of fear. There was a shed in a field he passed that offered shelter for the night. Before the door were three tall poplar trees, which made it very dark within, and the wind moaned through them with a dismal wail. He could not walk on till daylight came again, and here he stretched himself close to the wall to undergo new torture. For now a vision came before him, as constant and more terrible than that from which he had escaped. ‘Those widelystaring eyes, so lustreless and so glassy, | that he had better borne to see than think | upon, appeared in the midst of the darkness; light in themselves, but giving light to nothing. There were but two, but they were everywhere. If he shut out the sight, then came the room with every well-known object, some indeed that he would have forgotten if he had gone over its contents from memory — each in its accustomed place. The body was in its place, and its eyes were as he , saw them when he stole away. He got up and rushed into the field without. The figure was behind him. He re-entered the shed, and shrunk down once more. The eyes were there before he had lain himself along. And here he remained in such terror as none but he can know, trembling in every limb, and the cold sweat starting from every pore, when suddenly there arose upon the night wind the noise of distant shouting, and the roar of voices mingled in alarm and wonder. Any sound of men in that lonely place, even though it conveyed a real cause of alarm.
