d have slept but ill that night if
they could have seen him.

From early in the evening until nearly midnight, little groups of two
and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate and inquired, with
anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received. These being
answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to
clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from
which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built,
and walking with unwilling steps away, turned back to conjure up the
scene. By degrees they fell off, one by one; and, for an hour in the
dead of night, the street was left to solitude and darkness.

The space before the prison was cleared, and a few strong barriers,
painted black, had been already thrown across the road to break the
pressure of the expected crowd, when Mr. Brownlow and Oliver appeared at
the wicket, and presented an order of admission to the prisoner, signed
by one of the sheriffs. They were immediately admitted into the lodge.

The condemned criminal was seated on his bed, rocking himself from side
to side, with a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the
face of a man. His mind was evidently wandering to his old life, for
he continued to mutter, without appearing conscious of their presence
otherwise than as a part of his vision.

"Good boy, Charley--well done," he mumbled; "Oliver, too, ha! ha! ha!
Oliver, too--quite the gentleman now--quite the--take that boy away to
bed!"

The jailer took the disengaged hand of Oliver, and whispering him not
to be alarmed, looked on without speaking.

"Take him away to bed!" cried the Jew. "Do you hear me, some of you? He
has been the--the--somehow the cause of all this. It's worth the money
to bring him up to it--Bolter's throat, Bill; never mind the
girl--Bolter's throat, as deep as you can cut. Saw his head off!"

"Fagin," said the jailer.

"That's me!" cried the Jew, falling instantly into the attitude of
listening he had assumed upon his trial. "An old man, my lord; a very
old, old man!"

"Here," said the turnkey, laying his hand upon his breast to keep him
down--"here's somebody wants to see you--to ask you some questions, I
suppose. Fagin, Fagin! Are you a man?"

"I shan't be one long," replied the Jew, looking up with a face
retaining no human expression but rage and terror. "Strike them all
dead! what right have they to butcher me?"

As he spoke he caught sight of O