Page:Oliver Twist (1838) vol. 2.djvu/187

Rh room, the feeble voice of the sick child recounting a weary catalogue of evils and calamities which hard men had brought upon him. Oh! if, when we oppress and grind our fellow-creatures, we bestowed but one thought on the dark evidences of human error, which, like dense and heavy clouds are rising, slowly it is true, but not less surely, to Heaven, to pour their aftervengeance on our heads—if we heard but one instant in imagination the deep testimony of dead men's voices, which no power can stifle and no pride shut out, where would be the injury and injustice, the suffering, misery, cruelty, and wrong, that each day's life brings with it!

Oliver's pillow was smoothed by woman's hands that night, and loveliness and virtue watched him as he slept. He felt calm and happy, and could have died without a murmur.

The momentous interview was no sooner concluded, and Oliver composed to rest again, than the doctor, after wiping his eyes and condemning them for being weak all at once,