Charlotte's fist was by no means a light one; but, lest it should not be effectual in calming Oliver's wrath, Mrs. Sowerberry plunged into the kitchen, and assisted to hold him with one hand while she scratched his face with the other. In this favorable position of affairs Noah rose from the ground and pommelled him behind.
This was rather too violent exercise to last long. When they were all three wearied out and could tear and beat no longer, they dragged Oliver, struggling and shouting but nothing daunted, into the dust-cellar, and there locked him up. This being done, Mrs. Sowerberry sank into a chair and burst into tears.
"Oh, Charlotte!" she cried; "what a mercy we have not all been murdered in our beds, with such a little villain in the house!"
And when Mr. Sowerberry presently came home, he gave Oliver a whipping on his own account for good measure.
It was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness of the cellar that Oliver gave way to the feelings which the day's treatment had awakened. He had listened to their taunts with a look of contempt; he had borne the lash without a cry, for he felt that pride swelling in his heart which would have kept down a shriek to the last, though they had roasted him alive. But now, when there was none to see or hear him, he fell upon his knees on the floor, and, hiding his face in his hands, wept bitter tears.
For a long time Oliver remained motionless in this attitude. The candle was burning low in the socket when he rose to his feet. Having gazed cautiously round him and listened intently, he gently undid the fastenings of the door and looked abroad.
It was a cold, dark night. The stars seemed, to the boy's eyes, farther from the earth than he had ever seen them before. There was no wind, and the sombre shadows thrown by the trees upon the ground looked sepulchral and death-like, from being so still. He softly re-closed the door. He resolved to run away in the early morning—to go to that great city of London.
With the first ray of light that struggled through the crevices in the shutters, Oliver arose, and again unbarred the door. One timid look around,—one moment's pause of hesitation,—he had closed it behind him, and was in the open street.
He looked to the right and to the left, uncertain whither to fly. He remembered to have seen the wagons, as they went out, toiling up the hill. He took the same route, and arriving at a footpath across the fields, which he knew led out again into the road, struck into it and walked quickly on.
He was then only ten years old.