Charles Dickens

“ Mortification at the overthrow of his notable scheme, hatred of the girl who had dared to palter with strangers, an utter distrust of the sincerity of her refusal to yield him up, bitter disappointment at the loss of his revenge on Sikes, the fear of detection and ruin and death, and a fierce and deadly rage kindled by all,—these were the passionate considerations that following close upon each other with rapid and ceaseless whirl shot through the brain of Fagin, as every evil [183] thought and blackest purpose lay working at his heart. ”

“ The church clocks chimed three quarters past eleven as two figures emerged on London Bridge. One, which advanced with a swift and rapid step, was that of a woman, who looked eagerly about her as though in quest of some expected object; the other figure was that of a man, who slunk along in the deepest shadow he could find, and at some distance accommodated his pace to hers, stopping when she stopped, and, as she moved again, creeping stealthily on, but never allowing himself, in the ardour of his pursuit, to gain upon her footsteps. ”

“ It was nearly two hours before daybreak—that time which in the autumn of the year may be truly called the dead of night, when the streets are silent and deserted, when even sound appears to slumber, and profligacy and riot have staggered home to dream—it was at this still and silent hour that the Jew sat watching in his old lair, with face so distorted and pale, and eyes so red and bloodshot, that he looked less like a man than like some hideous phantom, moist from the grave, and worried by an evil spirit. ”

“ But struggling with these better feelings was pride,—the vice of the lowest and most debased creatures no less than of the high and self-assured. The miserable companion of thieves and ruffians, the fallen outcast of low haunts, the associate of the scourings of the jails and hulks, living within the shadow of the gallows itself,—even this degraded being felt too proud to betray one feeble gleam of the womanly feeling which she thought a weakness, but [57] which alone connected her with that humanity, of which her wasting life had obliterated all outward traces when a very child. ”

“ The murderer swung lifeless against the wall, and the boy, thrusting aside the dangling body which obscured his view, called to the people to come and take him out for God’s sake.
A dog, which had lain concealed till now, ran backwards and forwards on the parapet with a dismal howl, and collecting himself for a spring jumped for the dead man’s shoulders. Missing his aim, he fell into the ditch, turning completely over as he went, and striking his head against a stone, dashed out his brains. ”

“ Each little bridge (and there were three in sight) bent beneath the weight of the crowd upon it; and still the current poured on to find some nook or hole from which to vent their shouts, and only for an instant see the wretch.
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“They have him now,” cried a man on the nearest bridge. “Hurrah!”
The crowd grew light with uncovered heads, and again the shout uprose.
“I promise fifty pounds,” cried an old gentleman from the same quarter, “fifty pounds to the man who takes him alive. I will remain here till he comes to ask me for it.” ”

“ Brownlow solemnly, “do not say that now, upon the very verge of death; but tell me where they are. You know that Sikes is dead; that Monks has confessed; that there is no hope of any further gain. Where are these papers?”
“Oliver,” cried the Jew, beckoning to him. “Here, here. Let me whisper to you.”
“I am not afraid,” said Oliver in a low voice, as he relinquished Mr. Brownlow’s hand.
“The papers,” said the Jew, drawing him towards him, “are in a canvass bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front-room. I want to talk to you, my dear—I want to talk to you.” ”

“ I would show Rose Maylie in all the bloom and grace of early womanhood, shedding upon her secluded path in life such soft and gentle light, as fell on all who trod it with her, and shone into their hearts,—I would paint her the life and joy of the fireside circle and the lively summer group ”

“ WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE.
“And so it was you that was your own friend, was it?” asked Mr. Claypole, otherwise Bolter, when, by virtue of the compact entered into between them, he had removed next day to the Jew’s house. “’Cod, I thought as much last night!”
“Every man’s his own friend, my dear,” replied Fagin, with his most insinuating grin. “He hasn’t as good a one as himself anywhere.”
“Except sometimes,” replied Morris Bolter, assuming the air of a man of the world. “Some people are nobody’s enemies but their own, yer know.” ”

“ You have a friend in me, Nance; a staunch friend. I have the means at hand, quiet and close. If you want revenge on those that treat you like a dog—like a dog! worse than his dog, for he humours him sometimes—come to me. I say; come to me. He is the mere hound of a day, but you know me of old, Nance—of old.”
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“I know you well,” replied the girl, without manifesting the least emotion. “Good night.”
She shrunk back as Fagin offered to lay his hand on hers, but said good night again in a steady voice, and, answering his parting look with a nod of intelligence, closed the door between them. ”

“ Near to that part of the Thames on which the church at Rotherhithe abuts, where the buildings on the banks are dirtiest and the vessels on the river blackest with the dust of colliers and the smoke of close-built low-roofed houses, there exists, at the present day, the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London, wholly unknown, even by name, to the great mass of its inhabitants. ”

“ A jailer stood reclining against the dock-rail, tapping his nose listlessly with a large key, except when he repressed an undue tendency to conversation among the idlers, by proclaiming silence; or looked sternly up to bid some woman “Take that baby out,” when the gravity of justice was disturbed by feeble cries, half-smothered in the mother’s shawl, from some meagre infant. The room smelt close and unwholesome, the walls were dirt-discoloured, and the ceiling blackened. ”

“ But perhaps she would recoil from a plot to take the life of Sikes, and that was one of the chief ends to be attained. “How,” thought the Jew, as he crept homewards, “can I increase my influence with her? what new power can I acquire?”
Such brains are fertile in expedients. If, without extracting a confession from herself, he laid a watch, discovered the object of her altered regard, and threatened to reveal the whole history to Sikes (of whom she stood in no common fear) unless she entered into his designs, could he not secure her compliance?
“I can,” said Fagin almost aloud. ”

“ Sikes had him down and his knee was on his throat, when Crackit pulled him back with a look of alarm and pointed to the window. There were lights gleaming below, voices in loud and earnest conversation, the tramp of hurried footsteps—endless they seemed in number—crossing the nearest wooden-bridge. One man [253] on horseback seemed to be among the crowd, for there was the noise of hoofs rattling on the uneven pavement; the gleam of lights increased, the footsteps came more thickly and noisily on. ”

“ I stood alone beside the body when death came over it.”
“Good,” said Monks, regarding her attentively: “go on.”
“She spoke of a young creature,” resumed the matron, “who had brought a child into the world some years before: not merely in the same room, but in the same bed in which she then lay dying.”
“Ay?” said Monks, with quivering lip, and glancing over his shoulder. “Blood! How things come about at last!”
“The child was the one you named to him last night,” said the matron, nodding carelessly towards her husband; “the mother this nurse had robbed.”
“In life?” asked Monks. ”

“ When he spoke of you and the other lady, and said it seemed contrived by Heaven, or the devil, against him, that Oliver should come into your hands, he laughed, and said there was some comfort in that too, for how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds would you not give, if you had them, to know who your two-legged spaniel was.”
“You do not mean,” said Rose, turning very pale, “to tell me that this was said in earnest.”
“He spoke in hard and angry earnest, if a man ever did,” replied the girl, shaking her head. “He is an earnest man when his hatred is up. ”

“ Nancy followed the old man down stairs with the candle. When they reached the passage he laid his finger on his lip, and drawing close to the girl, said in a whisper,
“What is it, Nancy, dear?”
“What do you mean?” replied the girl in the same tone.
“The reason of all this,” replied Fagin.
“If he”—he pointed with his skinny forefinger up the stairs—“is so hard with you, (he’s a brute, Nance, a brute-beast) why don’t you——”
“Well!” said the girl, as Fagin paused, with his mouth almost touching her ear, and his eyes looking into hers.
“No matter just now,” said the Jew; “we’ll talk of this again. ”

“ Mr. Bolter put his hand to his neckerchief as if he felt it inconveniently tight, and murmured an assent, qualified in tone but not in substance.
“The gallows,” continued Fagin, “the gallows, my dear, is an ugly finger-post, which points out a very short and sharp turning that has stopped many a bold fellow’s career on the broad highway. To keep in the easy road, and keep it at a distance, is object number one with you.”
“Of course it is,” replied Mr. Bolter. “What do yer talk about such things for?”
“Only to show you my meaning clearly,” said the Jew, raising his eyebrows. ”

“ I can see the people jumping up, one behind another, and snarling with their teeth and making at him like wild beasts; I can see the blood upon his hair and beard, and hear the dreadful cries with which the women worked themselves into the centre of the crowd at the street corner, and swore they’d tear his heart out! ”

“ Suppose he was to do all this, and besides to blow upon a plant we’ve all been in, more or less—of his own fancy; not grabbed, trapped, tried, earwigged by the parson and brought to it on bread and water,—but of his own fancy; to please his own taste; stealing out at nights to find those most interested against us, and peaching to them. Do you hear me?” cried the Jew, his eyes flashing with rage. “Suppose he did all this, what then?”
“What then!” replied Sikes with a tremendous oath. ”

“ When such as me, who have no certain roof but the coffin-lid, and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital nurse, set our rotten hearts on any man, and let him fill the place that parents, home, and friends filled once, or that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to cure us? ”

“ Brownlow adopted Oliver as his own son, and removing with him and the old housekeeper to within a mile of the parsonage house, where his dear friends resided, gratified the only remaining wish of Oliver’s warm and earnest heart, and thus linked together a little society, whose condition approached as nearly to one of perfect happiness as can ever be known in this changing world. ”