Brittles

Brittles is the lad-of-all-work at the Maylie household, a servant who entered the family's service as a mere child and who, though well past thirty years of age, is still regarded and spoken of as a promising young boy. His permanent boyishness is a running joke: Mrs. Maylie remarks that "Brittles always was a slow boy," and the narrator notes that having been slow for upwards of thirty years, there appeared no great probability of his ever being a fast one. He is a creature of habit and limited initiative, yet he is thrust into the center of the most dramatic event in the household's quiet life.

Role in the Burglary and Its Aftermath

On the night of the attempted burglary at Chertsey, Brittles is roused from his bed by Mr. Giles, the butler and steward, who whispers that they are "dead men" and urges him not to be frightened. Brittles, carrying a dark lantern, follows Giles downstairs into the pitch dark. When the intruders are fired upon and flee, Brittles joins Giles and a travelling tinker in a half-hearted pursuit across the fields. The three men quickly lose their nerve; Brittles, like the others, admits he is afraid, and they all turn back, rationalizing that the gate they climbed had "stopped the flow of the excitement." When a knock comes at the door the next morning, Brittles is the one who opens it, and he immediately recognizes the wounded boy on the step, crying out in recognition. Giles, seizing Oliver by one leg and one arm, drags him inside and announces that he has captured one of the thieves, with Brittles corroborating that he "held the light—in a lantern."

Confusion and the Protection of Oliver

When the Bow Street officers Blathers and Duff arrive to investigate, Brittles is called in to give his account. His testimony is a masterpiece of contradiction and uncertainty: he involves himself and Giles in "such a wonderful maze of fresh contradictions and impossibilities" that it throws no light on anything except his own mystification. Crucially, he declares that he "shouldn't know the real boy, if he were put before him that instant" and that he had only taken Oliver to be the thief because Mr. Giles had said he was. This confusion, combined with the discovery that Giles's pistol had been loaded only with gunpowder and brown paper, allows Mr. Losberne to present Oliver as an innocent victim of a spring-gun accident rather than a participant in the burglary. Brittles's muddled testimony thus becomes an unwitting instrument of Oliver's rescue.

Later Life

Brittles remains in his old post at the Maylie household long after the events of the story. In the final chapter, it is noted that he has grown quite grey, but he and Giles still divide their attentions so equally among the inmates of the parsonage, Oliver and Mr. Brownlow, and Mr. Losberne, that the villagers have never been able to discover to which establishment they properly belong. His slow, faithful service endures, a quiet constant in the happy resolution of the tale.