Sunbury was passed through, and they came again into
the lonely road. Two or three miles more, and
the cart stopped. Sikes alighted, took Oliver
by the hand, and they once again walked on.
They turned into no house at Shepperton, as the weary
boy had expected; but still kept walking on, in mud
and darkness, through gloomy lanes and over cold open
wastes, until they came within sight of the lights
of a town at no great distance. On looking intently
forward, Oliver saw that the water was just below them,
and that they were coming to the foot of a bridge.
Sikes kept straight on, until they were close upon
the bridge; then turned suddenly down a bank upon
the left.
‘The water!’ thought Oliver, turning sick
with fear. ’He has brought me to this
lonely place to murder me!’
He was about to throw himself on the ground, and make
one struggle for his young life, when he saw that
they stood before a solitary house: all ruinous
and decayed. There was a window on each side
of the dilapidated entrance; and one story above; but
no light was visible. The house was dark, dismantled:
and the all appearance, uninhabited.
Sikes, with Oliver’s hand still in his, softly
approached the low porch, and raised the latch.
The door yielded to the pressure, and they passed
in together.
THE BURGLARY
‘Hallo!’ cried a loud, hoarse voice, as
soon as they set foot in the passage.
‘Don’t make such a row,’ said Sikes,
bolting the door. ’Show a glim, Toby.’
‘Aha! my pal!’ cried the same voice.
’A glim, Barney, a glim! Show the gentleman
in, Barney; wake up first, if convenient.’
The speaker appeared to throw a boot-jack, or some
such article, at the person he addressed, to rouse
him from his slumbers: for the noise of a wooden
body, falling violently, was heard; and then an indistinct
muttering, as of a man between sleep and awake.
‘Do you hear?’ cried the same voice.
’There’s Bill Sikes in the passage with
nobody to do the civil to him; and you sleeping there,
as if you took laudanum with your meals, and nothing
stronger. Are you any fresher now, or do you
want the iron candlestick to wake you thoroughly?’
A pair of slipshod feet shuffled, hastily, across
the bare floor of the room, as this interrogatory
was put; and there issued, from a door on the right
hand; first, a feeble candle: and next, the
form of the same individual who has been heretofore
described as labouring under the infirmity of speaking
through his nose, and officiating as waiter at the
public-house on Saffron Hill.
‘Bister Sikes!’ exclaimed Barney, with
real or counterfeit joy; ‘cub id, sir; cub id.’
‘Here! you get on first,’ said Sikes,
putting Oliver in front of him. ‘Quicker!
or I shall tread upon your heels.’
