These precautions having been taken, Mr. Giles held on fast by the tinker’s arm (to prevent his running away, as he pleasantly said), and gave the word of command to open the door. Brittles obeyed; the group, peeping timorously over each other’s shoulders, beheld no more formidable object than poor little Oliver Twist, speechless and exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes, and mutely solicited their compassion.
“A boy!” exclaimed Mr. Giles, valiantly pushing the tinker into the background. “What’s the matter with the—eh?—Why—Brittles—look here—don’t you know?”
Brittles, who had got behind the door to open it, no sooner saw Oliver, than he uttered a loud cry. Mr. Giles, seizing the boy by one leg and one arm (fortunately not the broken limb) lugged him straight into the hall, and deposited him at full length on the floor thereof.
“Here he is!” bawled Giles, calling, in a state of great excitement, up the staircase; “here’s one of the thieves, ma’am! Here’s a thief, miss! Wounded, miss! I shot him, miss; and Brittles held the light.”
“—In a lantern, miss,” cried Brittles, applying one hand to the side of his mouth, so that his voice might travel the better.
The two women-servants ran upstairs to carry the intelligence that Mr. Giles had captured a robber; and the tinker busied himself in endeavouring to restore Oliver, lest he should die before he could be hanged. In the midst of all this noise and commotion, there was heard a sweet female voice, which quelled it in an instant.
“Giles!” whispered the voice from the stair-head.
“I’m here, miss,” replied Mr. Giles. “Don’t be frightened, miss; I ain’t much injured. He didn’t make a very desperate resistance, miss~! I was soon too many for him.”
“Hush!” replied the young lady; “you frighten my aunt as much as the thieves did. Is the poor creature much hurt?”
“Wounded desperate, miss,” replied Giles, with indescribable complacency.
“He looks as if he was a-going, miss,” bawled Brittles, in the same manner as before. “Wouldn’t you like to come and look at him, miss, in case he should?”
“Hush, pray; there’s a good man!” rejoined the lady. “Wait quietly only one instant, while I speak to aunt.”
With a footstep as soft and gentle as the voice, the speaker tripped away. She soon returned, with the direction that the wounded person was to be carried, carefully, upstairs to Mr. Giles’s room; and that Brittles was to saddle the pony and betake himself instantly to Chertsey: from which place, he was to despatch, with all speed, a constable and doctor.
“But won’t you take one look at him, first, miss?” asked Mr. Giles, with as much pride as if Oliver were some bird of rare plumage, that he had skilfully brought down. “Not one little peep, miss?”
“Not now, for the world,” replied the young lady. “Poor fellow! Oh! treat him kindly, Giles, for my sake!”
The old servant looked up at the speaker, as she turned away, with a glance as proud and admiring as if she had been his own child. Then, bending over Oliver, he helped to carry him upstairs, with the care and solicitude of a woman.
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Chapter XXIX
Has an Introductory Account of the Inmates of the House, to Which Oliver Resorted
IN a handsome room: though its furniture had rather the air of old-fashioned comfort, than of modern elegance: there sat two ladies at a well-spread breakfast-table. Mr. Giles, dressed with scrupulous care in a full suit of black, was in attendance upon them. He had taken his station some half-way between the side-board and the breakfast-table; and, with his body drawn up to its full height, his head thrown back, and inclined the merest trifle on one side, his left leg advanced, and his right hand thrust into his waistcoat, while his left hung down by his side, grasping a waiter, looked like one who laboured under a very agreeable sense of his own merits and importance.
Of the two ladies, one was well advanced in years; but the high-backed oaken chair in which she sat, was not more upright than she. Dressed with the utmost nicety and precision, in a quaint mixture of by-gone costume, with some slight concessions to the prevailing taste, which rather served to point the old style pleasantly than to impair its effect, she sat, in a stately manner, with her hands folded on the table before her. Her eyes (and age had dimmed but little of their brightness) were attentively fixed upon her young companion.