Chapter-11
Before three months had passed, Rose Fleming and Harry Maylie were married in the village church which was henceforth to be the scene of the young clergyman’s labours; on the same day they entered into possession for their new and happy home.
Mrs Maylie took up her abode with her son and daughter-in-law, to enjoy, during the tranquil remainder of her days, the greatest felicity that age and worth can know—the contemplation of the happiness of those on whom the warmest affections have been unceasingly bestowed.
It appeared on full and careful investigation, that if the wreck of property remaining in the custody of Monks (which had never prospered either in his hands or in those of his mother) were equally divided between himself and Oliver, it would yield, to each little more than three thousand pounds. By the provisions of his father’s will, Oliver would have been entitled to the whole; but Mr Brownlow, unwilling to deprive the elder son of the opportunity of retrieving his former vices and pursuing an honest career, proposed this mode of distribution, to which his young charge joyfully acceded.
Monks, still bearing that assumed name, retired with his portion to a distant part of the New World, where, having quickly squandered it, he once more fell into his old courses and, after undergoing a long confinement for some fresh act of fraud and knavery, at length sunk under an attack of his old disorder, and died in prison. As far from home, died the chief remaining members of his friend Fagin’s gang.
Mr Brownlow adopted Oliver as his son. Removing with him and the old housekeeper to within a mile of the parsonage house, where his dear friends resided, he gratified the only remaining wish of Oliver’s warm and earnest heart, and thus linked together a little society whose condition approached as nearly to one of perfect happiness as ever be known in this charging world.
Soon after the marriage of the young people, the worthy doctor returned to Chertsey where, bereft of the presence of his old friends, he would have been discontented if his temperament had admitted of such a feeling, and would have turned quite peevish if he had known how. For two or three months he contented himself with hinting that he fluted the air began to disagree with him; then, finding that the place really on longer was to hint what it had been, he settled his business on his assistant, took a bachelor’s cottage outside the village of which his young friend was pastor, and instantaneously recovered. Here he took to gardening, planting, fishing, carpentering, and various other pursuits of a similar kind, all undertaken with his characteristic impetuosity. In each and all, he had since become famous throughout the neighbourhood as a most profound authority.
Before his removal, he had managed to contact a strong friendship for Mr Grimwig, which that eceentric gentleman cordially reciprocated. He was accordingly visited by Mr Grimwig a great many times in the course of the year. On all such occasions Mr Grimwig planted, fishes and carpentered with great ardour, doing everything in a very singular and unprecedented manner, but always maintaining, with his favourite asseveration, that his mode was the right one. On Sundays he never failed to criticize the sermon to the young clergyman’s face, always informing Mr Losberne, in strict confidence afterwards, that he considered it an excellent performance but deemed it was as well not to say so. It was a standing and very favourite joke for Mr Brownlow to rally him on his old prophecy concerning Oliver and to remind him of the night on which they sat with the watch between them, waiting his return; but Mr Grimwig contended that he was right in the main, and, in proof thereof, remarked that Oliver did not come back after all which always called forth a laugh on his side, and increased his good humour.
Mr Noah Claypole, receiving a free pardon from the Crown in consequence of being admitted approver against Fagin, and considering his profession not always so safe a one as he could wish, was for some little time at a loss for the means of a livelihood not burthened with too much work. After some consideration he went into business as an Informer, in which calling he realized a genteel subsistence. His plan was to walk out once a week during church time attended by Charlotte in respectable attire. The lady fainted away at the door of charitable publicans and the gentleman, being accommodated with three penny worth of brandy to restore her, laid an information next day and pocketed half the penalty. Sometimes Mr Claypole fainted himself, but the result was the same.
Mr and Mrs Bumble, deprived of their situations, were gradually reduced to great indigence and misery, and finally became paupers in that very same workhouse in which they had once lorded it over others. Mr Bumble had been heard to say that in this reverse and degradation he has not even spirit to be thankful for being separated from his wife.
As to Mr Giles and Brittles, they still remain in their old posts, although the former was bald and the last-named boy was quite grey. They slept at the parsonage but divide their attentions so equally among its inmates, and Oliver, and Mr Brownlow and Mr Losberne, that today the villagers had never been able to discover to which establishment they properly belonged.
Master Charles Bates, appalled by Sikes’s crime, fell into a train of reflection whether an honest life was not, after all, the best. Arriving at the conclusion that it certainly was, he turned his back upon the scenes of the past, resolved to amend it in some new sphere of action. He struggled hard and suffered much for some time; but having a contented disposition and a good purpose, succeeded in the end.
