Oliver shot and left for dead

Oliver is shot during the failed burglary at Chertsey and left for dead by Bill Sikes in a ditch, an event that marks the lowest point of his physical suffering and the beginning of his rescue by the Maylie family.

The Shooting and Collapse

Inside the house, Oliver had resolved to dart upstairs and alarm the family rather than proceed with the robbery. But before he could act, Sikes cried out, a light appeared, and two terrified half-dressed men confronted him at the top of the stairs. A flash, a loud noise, and smoke followed; Oliver staggered back, hit by a shot. Sikes, who had disappeared for an instant, was up again and had Oliver by the collar before the smoke cleared. He fired his own pistol after the retreating men and dragged the boy through the window. "Clasp your arm tighter," Sikes said as he drew him out, calling for a shawl. "They've hit him. Quick! How the boy bleeds!" Then came the loud ringing of a bell, the noise of firearms, the shouts of men, and the sensation of being carried over uneven ground at a rapid pace. The noises grew confused in the distance, and a cold, deadly feeling crept over Oliver's heart; he saw or heard no more.

Abandoned in the Ditch

Sikes carried the wounded boy on his back, running with Toby Crackit across fields. When the pursuit grew too close, Sikes threw over Oliver's prostrate form the cape in which he had been hurriedly muffled, ran along the front of a hedge to distract attention, and then cleared a hedge at a bound and was gone. Toby Crackit, preferring the chance of being shot by his friend to the certainty of being taken, had already turned tail and darted off at full speed. Oliver lay motionless and insensible on the spot where Sikes had left him. The air grew colder as day came slowly on; the mist rolled along the ground like a dense cloud of smoke. The grass was wet, the pathways were all mire and water, and the damp breath of an unwholesome wind went languidly by with a hollow moaning. The rain came down thick and fast, pattering noisily among the leafless bushes, but Oliver felt it not as it beat against him; he still lay stretched, helpless and unconscious, on his bed of clay.

The Awakening and Struggle

At length, a low cry of pain broke the stillness, and uttering it, the boy awoke. His left arm, rudely bandaged in a shawl, hung heavy and useless at his side; the bandage was saturated with blood. He was so weak that he could scarcely raise himself into a sitting posture, and when he did so, he looked feebly round for help and groaned with pain. Trembling in every joint from cold and exhaustion, he made an effort to stand upright but, shuddering from head to foot, fell prostrate on the ground. After a short return of stupor, Oliver, urged by a creeping sickness at his heart that seemed to warn him that if he lay there he must surely die, got upon his feet and essayed to walk. His head was dizzy, and he staggered to and fro like a drunken man, but he kept up nevertheless, with his head drooping languidly on his breast, going stumbling onward he knew not whither. Hosts of bewildering and confused ideas crowded on his mind; he seemed to be still walking between Sikes and Crackit, who were angrily disputing, and when he caught his own attention by making some violent effort to save himself from falling, he found that he was talking to them. Through all these rapid visions ran an undefined, uneasy consciousness of pain that wearied and tormented him incessantly.

The Return to the House

Thus he staggered on, creeping almost mechanically between the bars of gates or through hedge-gaps as they came in his way, until he reached a road. Here the rain began to fall so heavily that it roused him. He looked about and saw that at no great distance there was a house, which perhaps he could reach. Pitying his condition, they might have compassion on him; and if they did not, it would be better, he thought, to die near human beings than in the lonely open fields. He summoned up all his strength for one last trial and bent his faltering steps towards it. As he drew nearer to this house, a feeling came over him that he had seen it before. That garden wall! On the grass inside, he had fallen on his knees the previous night and prayed the two men's mercy. It was the very house they had attempted to rob. Oliver felt such fear come over him when he recognised the place that, for an instant, he forgot the agony of his wound and thought only of flight. But he could scarcely stand. He pushed against the garden-gate; it was unlocked and swung open on its hinges. He tottered across the lawn, climbed the steps, knocked faintly at the door, and, his whole strength failing him, sunk down against one of the pillars of the little portico. There, he was discovered by Mr. Giles and Brittles, who, after the terrors of the night, were at first convinced he was one of the thieves, until the intervention of the household's mistress and the doctor led to his being carried inside and cared for.