Chapter XLVIII

Oliver Twist

by Charles Dickens

The Flight of Sikes

Of all bad deeds that, under cover of the darkness, had been
committed with wide London's bounds since night hung over it, that
was the worst. Of all the horrors that rose with an ill scent upon
the morning air, that was the foulest and most cruel.

The sun--the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but
new life, and hope, and freshness to man--burst upon the crowded city
in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and
paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it
shed its equal ray. It lighted up the room where the murdered woman
lay. It did. He tried to shut it out, but it would stream in. If
the sight had been a ghastly one in the dull morning, what was it,
now, in all that brilliant light!

He had not moved; he had been afraid to stir. There had been a
moan and motion of the hand; and, with terror added to rage, he had
struck and struck again. Once he threw a rug over it; but it was
worse to fancy the eyes, and imagine them moving towards him, than to
see them glaring upward, as if watching the reflection of the pool of
gore that quivered and danced in the sunlight on the ceiling. He had
plucked it off again. And there was the body--mere flesh and blood,
nor more--but such flesh, and so much blood!

He struck a light, kindled a fire, and thrust the club into it.
There was hair upon the end, which blazed and shrunk into a light
cinder, and, caught by the air, whirled up the chimney. Even that
frightened him, sturdy as he was; but he held the weapon till it
broke, and then piled it on the coals to burn away, and smoulder into
ashes. He washed himself, and rubbed his clothes; there were spots
that would not be removed, but he cut the pieces out, and burnt them.
How those stains were dispersed about the room! The very feet of
the dog were bloody.

All this time he had, never once, turned his back upon the
corpse; no, not for a moment. Such preparations completed, he moved,
backward, towards the door: dragging the dog with him, lest he
should soil his feet anew and carry out new evidence of the crime
into the streets. He shut the door softly, locked it, took the key,
and left the house.

He crossed over, and glanced up at the window, to be sure that
nothing was visible from the outside. There was the curtain still
drawn, which she would have opened to admit the light she never saw
again. It lay nearly under there. He knew that. God, how the sun
poured down upon the very spot!

The glance was instantaneous. It was a relief to have got free
of the room. He whistled on the dog, and walked rapidly away.

He went through Islington; strode up the hill at Highgate on
which stands the stone in honour of Whittington; turned down to
Highgate Hill, unsteady of purpose, and uncertain where to go; struck
off to the right again, almost as soon as he began to descend it; and
taking the foot-path across the fields, skirted Caen Wood, and so
came on Hampstead Heath. Traversing the hollow by the Vale of Heath,
he mounted the opposite bank, and crossing the road which joins the
villages of Hampstead and Highgate, made along the remaining portion
of the heath to the fields at North End, in one of which he laid
himself down under a hedge, and slept.

Soon he was up again, and away,--not far into the country, but
back towards London by the high-road--then back again--then over
another part of the same ground as he already traversed--then
wandering up and down in fields, and lying on ditches' brinks to
rest, and starting up to make for some other spot, and do the same,
and ramble on again.

Where could he go, that was near and not too public, to get some
meat and drink? Hendon. That was a good place, not far off, and out
of most people's way. Thither he directed his steps,--running
sometimes, and sometimes, with a strange perversity, loitering at a
snail's pace, or stopping altogether and idly breaking the hedges
with a stick. But when he got there, all the people he met--the very
children at the doors--seemed to view him with suspicion. Back he
turned again, without the courage to purchase bit or drop, though he
had tasted no food for many hours; and once more he lingered on the
Heath, uncertain where to go.

He wandered over miles and miles of ground, and still came back
to the old place. Morning and noon had passed, and the day was on
the wane, and still he rambled to and fro, and up and down, and round
and round, and still lingered about the same spot. At last he got
away, and shaped his course for Hatfield.

It was nine o'clock at night, when the man, quite tired out, and
the dog, limping and lame from the unaccustomed exercise, turned down
the hill by the church of the quiet village, and plodding along the
little street, crept into a small public-house, whose scanty light
had guided them to the spot. There was a fire in the tap-room, and
some country-labourers were drinking before it.

They made room for the stranger, but he sat down in the furthest
corner, and ate and drank alone, or rather with his dog: to whom he
cast a morsel of food from time to time.

The conversation of the men assembled here, turned upon the
neighboring land, and farmers; and when those topics were exhausted,
upon the age of some old man who had been buried on the previous
Sunday; the young men present considering him very old, and the old
men present declaring him to have been quite young--not older, one
white-haired grandfather said, than he was--with ten or fifteen year
of life in him at least--if he had taken care; if he had taken
care.

There was nothing to attract attention, or excite alarm in this.
The robber, after paying his reckoning, sat silent and unnoticed in
his corner, and had almost dropped asleep, when he was half wakened
by the noisy entrance of a new comer.

This was an antic fellow, half pedlar and half mountebank, who
travelled about the country on foot to vend hones, stops, razors,
washballs, harness-paste, medicine for dogs and horses, cheap
perfumery, cosmetics, and such-like wares, which he carried in a case
slung to his back. His entrance was the signal for various homely
jokes with the countrymen, which slackened not until he had made his
supper, and opened his box of treasures, when he ingeniously
contrived to unite business with amusement.

'And what be that stoof? Good to eat, Harry?' asked a grinning
countryman, pointing to some composition-cakes in one corner.

'This,' said the fellow, producing one, 'this is the infallible
and invaluable composition for removing all sorts of stain, rust,
dirt, mildew, spick, speck, spot, or spatter, from silk, satin,
linen, cambrick, cloth, crape, stuff, carpet, merino, muslin,
bombazeen, or woollen stuff. Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains,
water-stains, paint-stains, pitch-stains, any stains, all come out at
one rub with the infallible and invaluable composition. If a lady
stains her honour, she has only need to swallow one cake and she's
cured at once--for it's poison. If a gentleman wants to prove this,
he has only need to bolt one little square, and he has put it beyond
question--for it's quite as satisfactory as a pistol-bullet, and a
great deal nastier in the flavour, consequently the more credit in
taking it. One penny a square. With all these virtues, one penny a
square!'

There were two buyers directly, and more of the listeners
plainly hesitated. The vendor observing this, increased in
loquacity.

'It's all bought up as fast as it can be made,' said the fellow.
'There are fourteen water-mills, six steam-engines, and a galvanic
battery, always a-working upon it, and they can't make it fast
enough, though the men work so hard that they die off, and the widows
is pensioned directly, with twenty pound a-year for each of the
children, and a premium of fifty for twins. One penny a square! Two
half-pence is all the same, and four farthings is received with joy.
One penny a square! Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains,
water-stains, paint-stains, pitch-stains, mud-stains, blood-stains!
Here is a stain upon the hat of a gentleman in company, that I'll
take clean out, before he can order me a pint of ale.'

'Hah!' cried Sikes starting up. 'Give that back.'

'I'll take it clean out, sir,' replied the man, winking to the
company, 'before you can come across the room to get it. Gentlemen
all, observe the dark stain upon this gentleman's hat, no wider than
a shilling, but thicker than a half-crown. Whether it is a
wine-stain, fruit-stain, beer-stain, water-stain, paint-stain,
pitch-stain, mud-stain, or blood-stain--'

The man got no further, for Sikes with a hideous imprecation
overthrew the table, and tearing the hat from him, burst out of the
house.

With the same perversity of feeling and irresolution that had
fastened upon him, despite himself, all day, the murderer, finding
that he was not followed, and that they most probably considered him
some drunken sullen fellow, turned back up the town, and getting out
of the glare of the lamps of a stage-coach that was standing in the
street, was walking past, when he recognised the mail from London,
and saw that it was standing at the little post-office. He almost
knew what was to come; but he crossed over, and listened.

The guard was standing at the door, waiting for the letter-bag.
A man, dressed like a game-keeper, came up at the moment, and he
handed him a basket which lay ready on the pavement.

'That's for your people,' said the guard. 'Now, look alive in
there, will you. Damn that 'ere bag, it warn't ready night afore
last; this won't do, you know!'

'Anything 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 knows 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.'

'Oh, that's quite true,' said a gentleman inside, who was
looking out of the window. 'And a dreadful murder it was.'

'Was it, sir?' rejoined the guard, touching his hat. 'Man or
woman, pray, sir?'

'A woman,' replied the gentleman. 'It is supposed--'

'Now, Ben,' replied the coachman impatiently.

'Damn that 'ere bag,' said the guard; 'are you gone to sleep in
there?'

'Coming!' cried the office keeper, running out.

'Coming,' 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 St. Albans.

He went on doggedly; but as he left the town behind him, and
plunged 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 been a relief: but like a corpse endowed with the
mere machinery of life, and borne on one slow melancholy wind that
never rose or fell.

At times, he turned, with desperate determination, resolved to
beat this phantom off, though it should look him dead; but the hair
rose on 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 now--always. He leaned his back against a bank,
and felt that it stood above him, visibly out against the cold
night-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 widely staring eyes, so
lustreless and so glassy, that he had better borne to see them than
think upon them, 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, there 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 laid
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, was something to him. He regained his strength and
energy at the prospect of personal danger; and springing to his feet,
rushed into the open air.

The broad sky seemed on fire. Rising into the air with showers
of sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame,
lighting the atmosphere for miles round, and driving clouds of smoke
in the direction where he stood. The shouts grew louder as new
voices swelled the roar, and he could hear the cry of Fire! mingled
with the ringing of an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and the
crackling of flames as they twined round some new obstacle, and shot
aloft as though refreshed by food. The noise increased as he looked.
There were people there--men and women--light, bustle. It was like
new life to him. He darted onward--straight, headlong--dashing
through brier and brake, and leaping gate and fence as madly as his
dog, who careered with loud and sounding bark before him.

He came upon the spot. There were half-dressed figures tearing
to and fro, some endeavouring to drag the frightened horses from the
stables, others driving the cattle from the yard and out-houses, and
others coming laden from the burning pile, amidst a shower of falling
sparks, and the tumbling down of red-hot beams. The apertures, where
doors and windows stood an hour ago, disclosed a mass of raging fire;
walls rocked and crumbled into the burning well; the molten lead and
iron poured down, white hot, upon the ground. Women and children
shrieked, and men encouraged each other with noisy shouts and cheers.
The clanking of the engine-pumps, and the spirting and hissing of
the water as it fell upon the blazing wood, added to the tremendous
roar. He shouted, too, till he was hoarse; and flying from memory
and himself, plunged into the thickest of the throng. Hither and
thither he dived that night: now working at the pumps, and now
hurrying through the smoke and flame, but never ceasing to engage
himself wherever noise and men were thickest. Up and down the
ladders, upon the roofs of buildings, over floors that quaked and
trembled with his weight, under the lee of falling bricks and stones,
in every part of that great fire was he; but he bore a charmed life,
and had neither scratch nor bruise, nor weariness nor thought, till
morning dawned again, and only smoke and blackened ruins remained.

This mad excitement over, there returned, with ten-fold force,
the dreadful consciousness of his crime. He looked suspiciously
about him, for the men were conversing in groups, and he feared to be
the subject of their talk. The dog obeyed the significant beck of
his finger, and they drew off, stealthily, together. He passed near
an engine where some men were seated, and they called to him to share
in their refreshment. He took some bread and meat; and as he drank a
draught of beer, heard the firemen, who were from London, talking
about the murder. 'He has gone to Birmingham, they say,' said one:
'but they'll have him yet, for the scouts are out, and by to-morrow
night there'll be a cry all through the country.'

He hurried off, and walked till he almost dropped upon the
ground; then lay down in a lane, and had a long, but broken and
uneasy sleep. He wandered on again, irresolute and undecided, and
oppressed with the fear of another solitary night.

Suddenly, he took the desperate resolution to going back to
London.

'There's somebody to speak to there, at all event,' he thought.
'A good hiding-place, too. They'll never expect to nab me there,
after this country scent. Why can't I lie by for a week or so, and,
forcing blunt from Fagin, get abroad to France? Damme, I'll risk
it.'

He acted upon this impluse without delay, and choosing the least
frequented roads began his journey back, resolved to lie concealed
within a short distance of the metropolis, and, entering it at dusk
by a circuitous route, to proceed straight to that part of it which
he had fixed on for his destination.

The dog, though. If any description of him were out, it would
not be forgotten that the dog was missing, and had probably gone with
him. This might lead to his apprehension as he passed along the
streets. He resolved to drown him, and walked on, looking about for
a pond: picking up a heavy stone and tying it to his handerkerchief
as he went.

The animal looked up into his master's face while these
preparations were making; whether his instinct apprehended something
of their purpose, or the robber's sidelong look at him was sterner
than ordinary, he skulked a little farther in the rear than usual,
and cowered as he came more slowly along. When his master halted at
the brink of a pool, and looked round to call him, he stopped
outright.

'Do you hear me call? Come here!' cried Sikes.

The animal came up from the very force of habit; but as Sikes
stooped to attach the handkerchief to his throat, he uttered a low
growl and started back.

'Come back!' said the robber.

The dog wagged his tail, but moved not. Sikes made a running
noose and called him again.

The dog advanced, retreated, paused an instant, and scoured away
at his hardest speed.

The man whistled again and again, and sat down and waited in the
expectation that he would return. But no dog appeared, and at length
he resumed his journey.