RELATES WHAT BECAME OF OLIVER TWIST, AFTER HE HAD
BEEN CLAIMED BY NANCY
The narrow streets and courts, at length, terminated
in a large open space; scattered about which, were
pens for beasts, and other indications of a cattle-market.
Sikes slackened his pace when they reached this spot:
the girl being quite unable to support any longer,
the rapid rate at which they had hitherto walked.
Turning to Oliver, he roughly commanded him to take
hold of Nancy’s hand.
‘Do you hear?’ growled Sikes, as Oliver
hesitated, and looked round.
They were in a dark corner, quite out of the track
of passengers.
Oliver saw, but too plainly, that resistance would
be of no avail. He held out his hand, which
Nancy clasped tight in hers.
‘Give me the other,’ said Sikes, seizing
Oliver’s unoccupied hand. ‘Here,
Bull’s-Eye!’
The dog looked up, and growled.
‘See here, boy!’ said Sikes, putting his
other hand to Oliver’s throat; ‘if he
speaks ever so soft a word, hold him! D’ye
mind!’
The dog growled again; and licking his lips, eyed
Oliver as if he were anxious to attach himself to
his windpipe without delay.
‘He’s as willing as a Christian, strike
me blind if he isn’t!’ said Sikes, regarding
the animal with a kind of grim and ferocious approval.
’Now, you know what you’ve got to expect,
master, so call away as quick as you like; the dog
will soon stop that game. Get on, young’un!’
Bull’s-eye wagged his tail in acknowledgment
of this unusually endearing form of speech; and, giving
vent to another admonitory growl for the benefit of
Oliver, led the way onward.
It was Smithfield that they were crossing, although
it might have been Grosvenor Square, for anything
Oliver knew to the contrary. The night was dark
and foggy. The lights in the shops could scarecely
struggle through the heavy mist, which thickened every
moment and shrouded the streets and houses in gloom;
rendering the strange place still stranger in Oliver’s
eyes; and making his uncertainty the more dismal and
depressing.
They had hurried on a few paces, when a deep church-bell
struck the hour. With its first stroke, his
two conductors stopped, and turned their heads in
the direction whence the sound proceeded.
‘Eight o’ clock, Bill,’ said Nancy,
when the bell ceased.
‘What’s the good of telling me that; I
can hear it, can’t I!’ replied Sikes.
‘I wonder whether THEY can hear it,’ said
Nancy.
‘Of course they can,’ replied Sikes.
’It was Bartlemy time when I was shopped; and
there warn’t a penny trumpet in the fair, as
I couldn’t hear the squeaking on. Arter
I was locked up for the night, the row and din outside
made the thundering old jail so silent, that I could
almost have beat my brains out against the iron plates
of the door.’
