There was another roar.At this moment the word was passed among the crowd that the door was forced at last, and that he who had first called for the ladder had mounted into the room. The stream abruptly turned, as this intelligence ran from mouth to mouth; and the people at the windows, seeing those upon the bridges pouring back, quitted their stations, and running into the street, joined the concourse that now thronged pell-mell to the spot they had left: each man crushing and striving with his neighbor, and all panting with impatience to get near the door, and look upon the criminal as the officers brought him out. The cries and shrieks of those who were pressed almost to suffocation, or trampled down and trodden under foot in the confusion, were dreadful; the narrow ways were completely blocked up; and at this time, between the rush of some to regain the space in front of the house, and the unavailing struggles of others to extricate themselves from the mass, the immediate attention was distracted from the murderer, although the universal eagerness for his capture was, if possible, increased.
The man had shrunk down,thoroughly quelled by the ferocity of the crowd,and the impossibility of escape;but seeing this sudden change with no less rapidity than it had occurred,he sprang upon his feet,determined to make one last effort for his life by dropping into the ditch,and, at the risk of being stifled,endeavouring to creep away in the darkness and confusion.
Roused into new strength and energy,and stimulated by the noise within the house which announced that an entrance had really been effected, he set his foot against the stack of chimneys, fastened one end of the rope tightly and firmly round it, and with the other made a strong running noose by the aid of his hands and teeth almost in a second. He could let himself down by the cord to within a less distance of the ground than his own height, and had his knife ready in his hand to cut it then and drop.
At the very instant when he brought the loop over his head previous to slipping it beneath his arm-pits, and when the old gentleman before-mentioned (who had clung so tight to the railing of the bridge as to resist the force of the crowd, and retain his position) earnestly warned those about him that the man was about to lower himself down—at that very instant the murderer, looking behind him on the roof, threw his arms above his head, and uttered a yell of terror.
“The eyes again!” he cried in an unearthly screech.
Staggering as if struck by lightning,he lost his balance and tumbled over the parapet.The noose was on his neck. It ran up with his weight,tight as a bow-string,and swift as the arrow it speeds.He fell for five-and-thirty feet.There was a sudden jerk,a terrific convulsion of the limbs; and there he hung,with the open knife clenched in his stiffening hand.
The old chimney quivered with the shock,but stood it bravely.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.
CHAPTER LI. AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE,AND COMPREHENDING A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE WITH NO WORD OF SETTLEMENT OR PIN-MONEY
The events narrated in the last chapter were yet but two days old,when Oliver found himself,at three o’clock in the afternoon,in a travelling-carriage rolling fast towards his native town.Mrs. Maylie, and Rose, and Mrs. Bedwin,and the good doctor were with him: and Mr.Brownlow followed in a post-chaise,accompanied by one other person whose name had not been mentioned.
They had not talked much upon the way;for Oliver was in a flutter of agitation and uncertainty which deprived him of the power of collecting his thoughts, and almost of speech, and appeared to have scarcely less effect on his companions, who shared it, in at least an equal degree. He and the two ladies had been very carefully made acquainted by Mr. Brownlow with the nature of the admissions which had been forced from Monks; and although they knew that the object of their present journey was to complete the work which had been so well begun, still the whole matter was enveloped in enough of doubt and mystery to leave them in endurance of the most intense suspense.
The same kind friend had, with Mr.Losberne’s assistance,cautiously stopped all channels of communication through which they could receive intelligence of the dreadful occurrences that had so recently taken place. “It was quite true,” he said, “that they must know them before long, but it might be at a better time than the present, and it could not be at a worse.” So, they travelled on in silence: each busied with reflections on the object which had brought them together: and no one disposed to give utterance to the thoughts which crowded upon all.
But if Oliver, under these influences,had remained silent while they journeyed towards his birth-place by a road he had never seen, how the whole current of his recollections ran back to old times, and what a crowd of emotions were wakened up in his breast, when they turned into that which he had traversed on foot: a poor houseless, wandering boy, without a friend to help him, or a roof to shelter his head.
“See there, there!” cried Oliver, eagerly clasping the hand of Rose,and pointing out at the carriage window;“that’s the stile I came over;there are the hedges I crept behind,for fear any one should overtake me and force me back!Yonder is the path across the fields,leading to the old house where I was a little child!Oh Dick, Dick, my dear old friend,if I could only see you now!”
“You will see him soon,” replied Rose,gently taking his folded hands between her own.“You shall tell him how happy you are,and how rich you have grown,and that in all your happiness you have none so great as the coming back to make him happy too.”
“Yes, yes,” said Oliver,“and we’ll—we’ll take him away from here,and have him clothed and taught,and send him to some quiet country place where he may grow strong and well, —shall we?”
Rose nodded “yes,” for the boy was smiling through such happy tears that she could not speak.
“You will be kind and good to him,for you are to every one,” said Oliver.“It will make you cry, I know,to hear what he can tell; but never mind, never mind,it will be all over,and you will smile again—I know that too—to think how changed he is;you did the same with me.He said ‘God bless you’ to me when I ran away,” cried the boy with a burst of affectionate emotion;“and I will say ‘God bless you’ now,and show him how I love him for it!”
As they approached the town,and at length drove through its narrow streets,it became matter of no small difficulty to restrain the boy within reasonable bounds. There was Sowerberry’s the undertaker’s just as it used to be, only smaller and less imposing in appearance than he remembered it—there were all the well-known shops and houses, with almost every one of which he had some slight incident connected—there was Gamfield’s cart, the very cart he used to have, standing at the old public-house door—there was the workhouse, the dreary prison of his youthful days, with its dismal windows frowning on the street—there was the same lean porter standing at the gate, at sight of whom Oliver involuntarily shrunk back, and then laughed at himself for being so foolish, then cried, then laughed again—there were scores of faces at the doors and windows that he knew quite well—there was nearly everything as if he had left it but yesterday, and all his recent life had been but a happy dream.