On a cold, wet morning, Oliver is lying in a ditch, unconscious with a bullet wound. His situation can hardly become worse. The alternatives before him are either death or a turn for the better. In one of Dickens's frequent twists of Fate, Oliver's fortunes begin to rise. The disastrous failure of the burglary has delivered the boy from a miserable future.
Now within a secure dwelling, the boy is surrounded by the safeguards of servants, affluence, respectability, and, above all, benevolent friends. From his low point in the ditch, Oliver has experienced a spectacular reversal in the way his life is moving.
Some readers may take exception to the apparent tinkering of Dickens's standards by his representatives of the best in mankind. In his measures to assist Oliver, Mr. Losberne cheerfully goes against respected standards of conventional morality and order. In this he is firmly aided by the upright Mrs. Maylie and her good-natured niece Rose. This compact is all the more questionable because its intention is to thwart the operation of the law, the alleged cornerstone of civilized society.
The doctor invents a bold lie to deceive the police, even to the extent of compromising his own professional integrity. Still worse, he tricks the trusty servants into unwilling collaboration. His master stroke is to tamper with evidence significant in a criminal investigation.
All of this is, nevertheless, in accord with Dickens's fundamental social doctrines. He has little confidence in institutions, including the law, to bring about human betterment He has more faith in the ability of the benevolent impulses of worthy people as an agency of true justice than in the impersonal doings of legal machinery. In any event, Dickens would elevate the claims of mercy and charity above the dictates of arbitrary justice. It could be argued that he comes perilously close to contending that the end justifies the means, with the elusive provision that the end be laudable and the means innocuous.
