Chapter 51

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, w hen 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,


  By PanEris using Melati.

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