26 Oliver Twist - Read By Stephanie Poppins

"Oliver Twist," written by Charles Dickens in the 19th century, tells the story of an orphan boy and his adventures in London's slums. In this episode, there is a shock in the night that disrupts the fragile peace of the darkened city streets, propelling Oliver into unforeseen challenges and encounters.

In this episode, Fagin goes a-hunting...

Transcript

Hello.

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.

Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.

But before we begin,

Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

Chapter 26 In which a mysterious character appears upon the scene and many things inseparable from this history are done and performed.

The old man had gained the street corner before he began to recover the effect.

Of Toby Crackett's intelligence.

He had relaxed nothing of his unusual speed but was still pressing onward in the same wild and disordered manner when the sudden dashing past of a carriage and a boisterous cry from the foot passengers who saw his danger drove him back upon the pavement.

Avoiding as much as was possible all the main streets and skulking only through the byways and alleys he at length emerged on Snow Hill.

Here he walked even faster than before nor did he linger until he had again turned into a court when as if conscious that he was now in his proper element he fell into his usual shuffling pace and seemed to breathe more freely.

Near to the spot on which Snow Hill and Hoban Hill meet opens upon the right hand as you come out of the city a narrow and dismal alley leading to Saffron Hill.

In its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of secondhand silk handkerchiefs of all sizes and patterns for here reside the traders who purchase them.

From pickpockets.

Hundreds of these handkerchiefs hang dangling from pegs outside the windows or flaunting them from the door posts and the shelves within are piled with them.

Confined as the limits of Field Lane are it has its barber,

Its coffee shop,

Its beer shop and its fried fish warehouse.

It is a commercial colony of itself the emporium of petty larceny visited at early morning and setting in of dark by silent merchants who traffic in dark back parlours and who go as strangely as they come.

Here the clothes man,

The shoe vamper and the rag merchant display their goods as signboards to the petty thief.

Here stores of old iron and bones and heaps of mildewy fragments of wool and stuff and linen rust and rot in the grimy cellars.

It was into this place that the Jew turned.

He was well known to the Saludensians of the lane for such of them as were on the lookout to buy or sell nodded familiarly as he passed along.

He replied to their salutations in the same way but bestowed no closer recognition until he reached the further end of the alley when he stopped to address a salesman of small stature who had squeezed as much of his person into a child's chair as the chair would hold and was smoking a pipe at his warehouse door.

Why the sight of you Mr Fagin will cure the hop to me said this respectable trader in acknowledgement of the Jew's inquiry after his health.

The neighbourhood was a little too hot lively said Fagin elevating his eyebrows and crossing his hands upon his shoulders.

Well I've heard that complaint of it once or twice before replied the trader but it soon cools down again don't you find it so?

Fagin nodded in the affirmative pointing in the direction of Saffron Hill he inquired whether anyone was up yonder tonight.

At the cripples inquired the man.

The Jew nodded.

Let me see.

Yes there's some half a dozen of them gone in that I knows I don't think your friends there.

Sykes is not I suppose inquired the Jew.

With a disappointed countenance.

Non instrentis as the lawyers say replied the little man shaking his head and looking amazingly sly.

Have you got anything in my line tonight?

Nothing tonight said the Jew turning away.

Are you going up to the cripples Fagin?

Cried the little man calling after him.

Stop I don't mind if I have a drop there with you.

But as the Jew looking back waved his hand to intimate he preferred being alone and moreover as the little man could not very easily disengage himself from the chair the sign of the cripples was for a time bereft of the advantage of Mr Lively's presence.

By the time he got upon his legs the Jew had disappeared.

So Mr Lively after ineffectually standing on tiptoe in the hope of catching sight of him again forced himself into the little chair and exchanging a shake of the head with a lady in the opposite shop in which doubt and mistrust were plainly mingled resumed his pipe with a grave demeanour.

The three cripples or rather the cripples which was the sign by which the establishment was familiarly known to its patrons was the public house in which Mr Sykes and his dog have already figured merely making a sign to a man at the bar Fagin walked straight upstairs and opening the door of a room and softly insinuating himself into the chamber looked anxiously about shading his eyes with his hands as if in search of some particular person.

The room was illuminated by two gas lights the glare of which was prevented by the bar shutters and closely drawn curtains of faded red from being visible outside.

The ceiling was blackened to prevent its colour from being injured by the flaring of the lamps and the place was so full of dense tobacco smoke that at first it was scarcely possible to discern anything more.

By degrees however as some of it cleared away through the open door an assemblage of heads as confused as the noises that greeted the ear might be made out and as the eye grew more accustomed to the scene the spectator gradually became aware of the presence of a numerous company male and female crowded round a long table at the upper end of which sat a chairman with a hammer of office in his hand.

A professional gentleman meanwhile with a bluish nose and his face tied up for the benefit of a toothache presided at a jingling piano in a remote corner.

As Fagin stepped softly in the professional gentleman running over the keys by way of prelude occasioned a general cry of order for a song which having subsided a young lady proceeded to entertain the company with a ballad in four verses between each of which the accompanist played the melody all through as loudly as he could.

When this was over the chairman gave a sentiment after which the professional gentleman on the chairman's right and left volunteered a duet and sang it with great applause.

It was curious to observe some faces which stood out prominently from the group.

There was the chairman himself the landlord of the house a coarse rough heavy built fellow.

Near him were the singers receiving with professional indifference the compliments of the company and applying themselves in turn to a dozen proffered glasses of spirits and water tendered by their more boisterous admirers.

Cunning ferocity and drunkenness in all its stages were there in their strongest aspect and women some with the last lingering tinge of their early freshness almost fading as you looked others with early mark and stamp of their sex utterly beaten out and presenting but one loathsome blank of profligacy and crime.

Some mere girls others but young women and none past the prime of life formed the darkest and saddest portion of this dreary picture.

Fagin troubled by no grave emotions looked eagerly from face to face while these proceedings were in progress.

Succeeding at length in catching the eye of the man who occupied the chair he beckoned to him slightly and left the room as quietly as he had entered it.

What can I do for you Mr Fagin inquired the man as he followed him out to the landing.

Won't you join us they'll be delighted every one of them but the Jew shook his head impatiently.

Is he here?

No replied the man and no news of Barney inquired Fagin.

None replied the landlord of the cripples.

He won't stir till it's all safe depend upon it they're on the scent down there and if he moved he'd blow upon the thing at once.

He's all right enough Barney is else I should have heard of him.

I'll pound it that Barney's managing properly.

Let him alone for that.