“Oh, Noah!” cried Charlotte, reproachfully.
“Yer are, yer know yer are!” retorted Noah. “She’s always a-doing of it, Mr. Bumble, sir; she chucks me under the chin, please sir, and makes all manner of love!”
“Silence!” cried Mr. Bumble, sternly. “Take yourself down stairs, ma’am. Noah, you shut up the shop, and say another word till your master comes home at your peril; and, when he does come home, tell him that Mr. Bumble said he was to send a old woman’s shell after breakfast to-morrow morning. Do you hear, sir? Kissing!” cried Mr. Bumble, holding up his hands. “The sin and wickedness of the lower orders in this porochial district is frightful; if parliament don’t take their abominable courses under consideration, this country’s ruined, and the character of the peasantry gone for ever!” With these words, the beadle strode, with a lofty and gloomy air, from the undertaker’s premises.
And now that we have accompanied him so far on his road home, and have made all necessary preparations for the old woman’s funeral, let us set on foot a few inquiries after young Oliver Twist, and ascertain whether he be still lying in the ditch where Toby Crackit left him.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LOOKS AFTER OLIVER, AND PROCEEDS WITH HIS ADVENTURES.
“Wolves tear your throats!” muttered Sikes, grinding his teeth. “I wish I was among some of you; you’d howl the hoarser for it.”
As Sikes growled forth this imprecation, with the most desperate ferocity that his desperate nature was capable of, he rested the body of the wounded boy across his bended knee, and turned his head for an instant to look back at his pursuers.
There was little to be made out in the mist and darkness; but the loud shouting of men vibrated through the air, and the barking of the neighbouring dogs, roused by the sound of the alarm-bell, resounded in every direction.