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He had
walked no more than twelve miles, when night closed in again.
His feet were sore, and his legs so weak that they trembled
beneath him. Another night passed in the bleak damp air, made
him worse; when he set forward on his journey next morning he
could hardly crawl along.

He waited at the bottom of a steep hill till a stage-coach came
up, and then begged of the outside passengers; but there were
very few who took any notice of him: and even those told him to
wait till they got to the top of the hill, and then let them see
how far he could run for a halfpenny. Poor Oliver tried to keep
up with the coach a little way, but was unable to do it, by
reason of his fatigue and sore feet. When the outsides saw this,
they put their halfpence back into their pockets again, declaring
that he was an idle young dog, and didn't deserve anything; and
the coach rattled away and left only a cloud of dust behind.

In some villages, large painted boards were fixed up: warning all
persons who begged within the district, that they would be sent
to jail. This frightened Oliver very much, and made him glad to
get out of those villages with all possible expedition. In
others, he would stand about the inn-yards, and look mournfully
at every one who passed: a proceeding which generally terminated
in the landlady's ordering one of the post-boys who were lounging
about, to drive that strange boy out of the place, for she was
sure he had come to steal something. If he begged at a farmer's
house, ten to one but they threatened to set the dog on him; and
when he showed his nose in a shop, they talked about the
beadle--which brought Oliver's heart into his mouth,--very often
the only thing he had there, for many hours together.

In fact, if it had not been for a good-hearted turnpike-man, and
a benevolent old lady, Oliver's troubles would have been
shortened by the very same process which had put an end to his
mother's; in other words, he would most assuredly have fallen
dead upon the king's highway. But the turnpike-man gave him a
meal of bread and cheese; and the old lady, who had a shipwrecked
grandson wandering barefoot in some distant part of the earth,
took pity upon the poor orphan, and gave him what little she
could afford--and more--with such kind and gentle words, and such
tears of sympathy and compassion, that they sank deeper into
Oliver's soul, than all the sufferings he had ever undergone.

Early on the seventh morning after he had left his native place,
Oliver limped slowly into the little town of Barnet. The
window-shutters were closed; the street was empty; not a soul had
awakened to the business of the day. The sun was rising in all
its splendid beauty; but the light only served to show the boy
his own lonesomeness and desolation, as he sat, with bleeding
feet and covered with dust, upon a door-step.

By degrees, the shutters were opened; the window-blinds were
drawn up; and people began passing to and fro. Some few stopped
to gaze at Oliver for a moment or two, or turned round to stare

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