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his face was bruised and scratched; and his hair scattered over
his forehead. The angry flush had not disappeared, however; and
when he was pulled out of his prison, he scowled boldly on Noah,
and looked quite undismayed.

'Now, you are a nice young fellow, ain't you?' said Sowerberry;
giving Oliver a shake, and a box on the ear.

'He called my mother names,' replied Oliver.

'Well, and what if he did, you little ungrateful wretch?' said
Mrs. Sowerberry. 'She deserved what he said, and worse.'

'She didn't' said Oliver.

'She did,' said Mrs. Sowerberry.

'It's a lie!' said Oliver.

Mrs. Sowerberry burst into a flood of tears.

This flood of tears left Mr. Sowerberry no alternative. If he
had hesitated for one instant to punish Oliver most severely, it
must be quite clear to every experienced reader that he would
have been, according to all precedents in disputes of matrimony
established, a brute, an unnatural husband, an insulting
creature, a base imitation of a man, and various other agreeable
characters too numerous for recital within the limits of this
chapter. To do him justice, he was, as far as his power went--it
was not very extensive--kindly disposed towards the boy; perhaps,
because it was his interest to be so; perhaps, because his wife
disliked him. The flood of tears, however, left him no resource;
so he at once gave him a drubbing, which satisfied even Mrs.
Sowerberry herself, and rendered Mr. Bumble's subsequent
application of the parochial cane, rather unnecessary. For the
rest of the day, he was shut up in the back kitchen, in company
with a pump and a slice of bread; and at night, Mrs. Sowerberry,
after making various remarks outside the door, by no means
complimentary to the memory of his mother, looked into the room,
and, amidst the jeers and pointings of Noah and Charlotte,
ordered him upstairs to his dismal bed.

It was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness
of the gloomy workshop of the undertaker, that Oliver gave way to
the feelings which the day's treatment may be supposed likely to
have awakened in a mere child. 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 were none to see or hear him, he fell
upon his knees on the floor; and, hiding his face in his hands,
wept such tears as, God send for the credit of our nature, few so
young may ever have cause to pour out before him!

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

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