"Gentlemen of the jury, the prisoner at the bar is well known for his benevolence and his piety. Even at a time when the bad odour in St. Dunstan's induced many of the parishioners to go elsewhere, he always attended his own church, and in the most pious and exemplary manner made the responses. I ask you as men, gentlemen of the jury, if you could do that with the consciousness that you had committed a murder? "Gentlemen, it is for my client a most unfortunate thing that a person named Lovett, who kept the pieshop in Bell Yard, is not now in the land of the living. If she were so, there is no doubt but that she would have told some true tale of how the vaults beneath the old church connected with her shop, and so have cleared the prisoner at the bar of all participation in her crimes. "That murder has been committed in conjunction with that woman, who committed suicide rather than come forward and clear the prisoner at the bar, against whom she had a spite, there can be no doubt; but, gentlemen, it is the wrong man who now stands at this bar. The real murderer has yet to be discovered; and therefore it is that I call upon you, in the sacred name of justice, to acquit my client." With this the counsel sat down, and Todd looked positively hopeful. He drew a long breath or two, and ventured a keen glance towards the jurybox. "Do you call any witnesses," asked the junior counsel, "for the prosecution?" "Nonono. Witnesses! Innocence is its own best safeguard." "I waive my right of reply, my lord," said the AttorneyGeneral. Upon this, nothing remained for the judge to do but to sum up the evidence; and after arranging his notes, he proceeded to do so, in that clear and lucid style, for which some of our judges are so famous. "The prisoner at the bar, Sweeney Todd, stands charged with the wilful murder of Francis Thornhill. It appears that Francis Thornhill left a certain ship for the purpose of proceeding to a Miss Oakley in the City of London, with a String of Pearls, which had been confided to him to deliver to that lady by a Mr. Mark Ingestrie. "We have it in evidence, that Francis Thornhill on his route down or along the northern side of Fleet Street, went into the shaving shop, kept by the prisoner at the bar, and from that instant he is not again seen alive. The prisoner at the bar takes a String of Pearls, similar to those which were in the possession of Francis Thornhill, and raises upon them a considerable sum of money of a man named John Mundell. It appears then, that the hat of Mr. Francis Thornhill is taken from the premises of the prisoner by a dog; and it further appears, upon the clear testimony of respectable persons, that beneath the prisoner's shop is a contrivance by which people might be killed; and there or thereabouts contiguous to that contrivance, a certain bone is found, which is proved to be the thighbone of Francis Thornhill. "Gentlemen of the jury, the sequence of evidence by which it is attempted to bring this crime home to the prisoner at the bar, lies in a very small compass indeed. Firstly, there is the tracing of Francis Thornhill to the prisoner's shop, and his disappearance from thence. Then there is the hat found there or taken from there, and then there is the thighbone sworn to be that of Francis Thornhill, and certainly found in such contiguity to his premises, as to warrant a belief that he placed it there. "Gentlemen of the jury, the case is in your hands." This was a very short summing up, but the bar quite understood it to mean that the guilt of the prisoner was so clear and transparent, that it was not at all necessary for the judge to go elaborately through the evidence, but merely as a matter of form, leave the facts in evidence to the jury. And now came that awful moment to Todd, when the question of guilty or not guilty hovered on the lips of those twelve men, who were to decide upon his fate. The jury laid their heads together for a few moments only, and then they turned round and faced the court again. The clerk of the arraigns rose, and spoke "Gentleman of the jury. How say you? Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of the crime laid to his charge in the indictment?" "Guilty!" said the foreman. A cheer burst from the auditors, and the judge raised his hand, saying "Officers, repress this unmanly exultation that a fellowcreature is found guilty of a dreadful crime. I beg that any person so offending may be brought before me at once." The officer could not or would not find anybody so offending, but the judge's words had the effect of calming the tumult at all events, and then all eyes were turned upon Sweeney Todd, who stood in the dock glaring at the foreman of the jury, as though he had only imperfectly heard what he had said, or if he had perfectly heard him, doubting the evidence of his own senses, as regarded the real, full, and true meaning of the dreadful word "guilty!" CHAPTER CXXXI. TODD MAKES AN ATTEMPT UPON HIS OWN LIFE. In the course of a few minutes the tumult in the court was effectually suppressed, and then as it was known that the judge would sentence Todd at once, all eyes were turned upon the criminal, to note the effect which that awful moment was likely to have upon him. The judge spoke. "Sweeney Todd, you have been by an impartial and patient jury, convicted upon the clearest evidence of the murder of Francis Thornhill. Have you anything to say why sentence of death, according to the law, should not be passed forthwith upon you?" Todd did not seem to understand the question, and the Governor of Newgate repeated it to him. He started then, and glared at the judge, as in a deep hollow voice, he said "Death! death!Did you say death?" "Such says the lawnot I. If you have anything to say why that sentence should not be pronounced against you, now is your only time in which to say it." Todd passed his hand twice across his brow before he spoke, and then, in a vehement voice, he said "It is falseall false. I did not kill the man. There is a vile conspiracy against me. I say I did not do it. Who saw mewhat eye was upon me? I was at chapelat prayers, when you say among you that I did it. It is a plotnothing but a plot from first to last. You would make me the victim of it among you. Who saw me kill him? I know nothing of hidden places in the old house. It is not true, I say. A plota vile plot for my destruction." "Have you finished?" said the judge. "Have I not said enough? I know nothing of it. I am a poor man, and strive to get a living as best I might, and among you now you bring a bone from some churchyard to kill me with. You swear anythingI know you all well. If the man you say I killed be really dead, I here at this moment summon his spirit from another world, to come and bear witness for me that I did not kill him!" These last words Todd yelled out in such a tone of frantic passion, that everybody looked aghast; and more than once, more than commonly superstitious spectators thought that the appeal to the beings of a supernatural world might yet be answered in some way. There was a deathlike stillness in the court for some few moments, and then the Governor of Newgate in a whisper, said to Todd "Have you finished?" "Finished what?" he cried, in a startling tone. "Finished what?Finished pleading for my life? Yes, I have, for I know that they have made up their minds to murder me. I have no witnessesthey are all in the grave now. That woman, Lovett, who is dead, you tell meI cannot say if she be dead or not, she is hard to killthat woman could exculpate me; but, as I say, my witnesses are in the grave, and there is no truth in spirits visiting this world again, or she and the man you say I murdered would appear here, and yell in your ears, all of you, that I did not do it." The judge sat quite patiently. He was evidently resolved to hear quietly what Todd chose to say. It could but occupy a little more time; and as his fate was fixed, it did not matter. "If you have finished your observations, prisoner," said the judge, "it will now be my duty to proceed to pass upon you the sentence of the law." "But I have said I did not do it. I am not guilty." "It does not lie within my power to decide that question. The jury have found you guilty, and all I have to do in my capacity here is, in accordance with that finding, to sentence you according to law. If you could have stated any legal impediment to the passing of the sentence, it would have had effect; but now it is my painful duty to" "Hold! I will, and can state a legal impediment." "What is it?" "I am mad!" The judge opened his eyes rather wider than usual at this statement, and the jury looked at each other in wonder and amazement. Among the spectators there was a general movement, too, of surprise. "Mad!" said the judge. "Yes," added Todd, holding up his arms, "I am madquite mad. Do you think any other but a madman would have done the deeds with which you charge me? I either did not do them, and am saved, or I did do all these murders, the consequences of which you would heap upon my head, and am mad. What is there in the wide world would compensate a man for acting as you say I have acted? Could he ever know peace again? What is madness but an affliction of providence? and dare you take the life of a man, who has acted in a certain way, in consequence of a disease with which the Almighty has thought proper to visit him? I tell you you dare not, and that I am mad!" This speech was uttered with a vehemence that made it wonderfully effective; and at its conclusion Todd still held up his arms, and glared upon the judge with the look of one who had advanced something that was utterly and completely unanswerable. The judge leant over to the recorder, and whispered something to him, and the recorder whispered to the judge. "Mad! Mad!" shrieked Todd again. The AttorneyGeneral now whispered something to the judge, who nodded; and then addressing Todd, he said in calm and measured tones "However great the novelty of a plea of insanity, put in by the party himself, may be, it will yet meet with every attention. I shall now proceed to pass sentence of death upon you; and after you are removed to the jail of Newgate, certain physicians will see you, and report upon your mental condition to the Secretary of State, who will act accordingly." Todd dropped his arms. The judge put on the black cap, and continued "Sweeney Todd, you have been convicted of the crime of murder; and certain circumstances, which it would have been improper to produce before this court in the progress of your trial, lead irresistibly to the belief that your life for years past has been one frightful scene of murder; and that not only the unhappy gentleman for whose murder you now stand here in so awful a position has suffered from your frightful practices, but many others. It will be a satisfaction, too, to the court and the jury to know that the woman named Lovett, who you say would and could have proved your innocence, had she been in life, made, shortly before her death, a full confession, wherein she inculpated you most fearfully." "False! False!" cried Todd. The judge took not the slightest notice of the interruption, but continued his speech "It is now my painful duty to pass upon you the sentence of the law, which is, that you be hanged by the neck until dead, and may Heaven have mercy upon you, for you cannot expect that society can do otherwise than put out of life one who, like yourself, has been a terror and a scourge." "Quite mad!" cried Todd. "Quite mad!" "Officers, remove the prisoner," said the judge, who was much disgusted by the attempt of Todd upon their credulity, by stating that he was mad. The Governor of Newgate laid hold of him by the arm, but Todd raised his voice again, saying "One moment. Only one moment. Before I leave this court, I have a great desire to say something to Sir Richard Blunt." "If Sir Richard Blunt has no objection," said the judge, "the court can have none. Is that gentleman present?" "I am here," said Sir Richard, as he made his way towards the dock, in which Todd was. "What is it you have to say to me, Sweeney Todd?" "It is for your private ear." "Then, I decline to hear it. If you have anything to say to me, say it out, and openly. I decline any private communications." "Nay, but it really interests those whom you love. Come a little closer to me, and I will speak it." "Now," said Sir Richard, as he reached the front of the dock, "speak at once, and say what it is. The court is too indulgent to you." "Is it, really!" With the rapidity of thought, Todd drew a small table knife from the breast of his apparel, and made a stab at Sir Richard's neck with it; but the magistrate had had by far too long experience with such men as Todd to be so taken at unawares, and he dropped to the floor of the court before the point of the knife reached him. The Governor of Newgate sprung upon Todd, and disarmed him in a moment. Todd, On His Trial, Attempts To Kill Sir Richard Blunt. Todd, On His Trial, Attempts To Kill Sir Richard Blunt. From seeing Sir Richard Blunt drop, the general impression in the court was, that he was killed, or seriously injured, by Todd; and in a moment a scene of unparalleled confusion arose. Everybody got up from their seats, and the place was full of cries. "Kill him!" cried some."Down with him!" shouted others."Hang him at once! A surgeon for Sir Richard!" Amid this Babel of confusion, Sir Richard Blunt rose again, and sprung upon the barrister's table, calling out in a loud voice that rose above every other sound "I am perfectly unhurt." Upon this such a cheer arose in the court, that the judge saw that it was perfectly hopeless to attempt to stop it by any ordinary means, and he only held up his hand deprecatingly. The cheer was thrice repeated, and then Sir Richard dismounted from the table, and a deathlike stillness ensued in the court as the judge spoke. "How was it possible," he said, "that the prisoner at the bar could be furnished with such a weapon at a time like this?" The Governor of Newgate felt that this question was addressed to him, and he tremblingly spoke, saying "My lord, I have not the most distant idea upon the subject. He was searched this morning carefully before leaving his cell. It is beyond my comprehension." "My lord," said a counsel at the table, rising, "there was a very similar case about five years since, when a notorious criminal attacked a witness for the prosecution with a fork, and it appeared afterwards that as he was brought through some of the dayrooms of Newgate to the bar, he had hastily snatched it up from a table that he passed without the officers noticing him." "This is very likely a similar case," said the judge. "It may be so my lord," said the Governor. Todd yelled with rage, when he found that Sir Richard Blunt had escaped his malice. If he could but have taken his life or inflicted upon him some very serious injury, he would have been satisfied almost to have gone to death; but to fail was almost enough to drive him really mad. "Curses on ye all!" he cried; and then he burst into a torrent of such frightful invectives, that everybody shrunk aghast from it, and it is quite impossible that we should transfer it to our pages. How long he would have proceeded in such a storm, there is no knowing, had not the officers rushed upon him, and by main force dragged him from the dock and the court into the dark passages leading to Newgate. His voice was yet heard for several moments, uttering the most dreadful and diabolical curses! It may be supposed that after what had happened, the officials of the prison were not over tender in the treatment of Sweeney Todd, for they well knew that they would be some time before they heard the last of the knife business, and indeed it was a piece of gross carelessness to allow a man in Todd's situation, and such a man as Todd too, to have an opportunity of doing such very serious mischief in a moment as he might have done. There can be very little doubt, that if he had been content to do an injury to any other witness but Sir Richard Blunt, he would really have succeeded; but that personage was too wary to fall in such a way. It was not thought advisable by the prison authorities to take Todd back to the same cell from which they had brought him. It was an idea of the Governor, and by no means a bad one, that desperate criminals were caused to change their cells now and then, as it baffled and cut up completely any combination they might in their own minds have made for an attempted escape; so Todd found himself in a new place. "Why is this?" he said. "Why am I placed here? This cell is darker than the one I before occupied." "It's quite light enough for you," growled a turnkey. "Yes," added one of the officers who had been in court. "Folks who are keen and bright enough to pick up knives, and nobody see 'em, mustn't have too much light in their cell. Oh, won't it be a mercy when you are settled next Monday morning." "The fetters hurt me," said Todd. "Oh, they are too light," said the officer; "and for your satisfaction, I have to tell you that the Governor has ordered you another pair." At this moment a couple of blacksmiths came into the cell, carrying with them the heaviest set of irons in the whole prison, which the Governor had determined Sweeney Todd should be accommodated with. Without a word they proceeded to knock off the fetters that he wore. "So you are not contented," said Todd, "to cage me as though I were some wild animal, but you must load me with irons?" "And a good job too." "And you think to hang me?" "Rather!" "Then thus I disappoint you, and be my own executioner!" As he spoke, he snatched up one of the smith's hammers, and made a blow at his own forehead with it, which if it had taken effect, would unquestionably have fractured his skull, and killed him instantly; but one of the officers just managed to strike his arm at the moment and confuse his aim, so that although he did strike himself, it was not with anything like sufficient force to do himself any hurt. The hammer was wrested from him in a moment, and he was thrown to the floor of the cell, and the heavy irons placed upon him. Todd's Second Attempt At Suicide In The Condemned Cell At Newgate. Todd's Second Attempt At Suicide In The Condemned Cell At Newgate. CHAPTER CXXXII. TODD MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE IN NEWGATE, AND TRIES AN ESCAPE. In the course of a quarter of an hour more, Todd was left alone. The irons he wore weighed upwards of a hundredweight, and it was with some difficulty that he managed to get up, and sit upon the stone seat that was in the cell. It was close upon evening, and the cell was getting very dark indeed, so that the walls, close as they were together, were only very dimly discernable indeed. Todd rested his head upon his hands, and thought. "Has it then really come to this?" he said. "Am I truly doomed to die? Oh, what a dreadful thing it is for me now to begin to doubt of what I always thought myself so sure, namely, that there was no world beyond the grave. Oh, if I could only still please myself with an assurance of that! But I cannotI cannot now. Oh, nonono." He started, for the cell door opened, and the turnkey brought him in his food for the night, which he placed on the floor. It was not then the custom to sit up with condemned prisoners. "There," said the man, "it's more than you deserve. Goodnight, and be hanged to you. Here's the sheriff been kicking up the devil's delight in the prison about that knife affair." "I hope he will discharge you all," said Todd. "Do you?" "Oh, yes. I wish you had all one neck only, and I a knife at it. With what a pleasant gash I would force it ininin!" "Well, you are a nice article, I must say." "Bring me two candles, and pens, ink, and paper." The turnkey stared with astonishment. "Anything else," he said, "in a small way that you'd like? Buttered rolls, perhaps, and a glass of something good? Perhaps a blunderbuss would suit you? I tell you what it is, old fellow, it ain't very often that anybody goes out from here on a Monday morning to be scragged, that we don't feel a little sorry for them, but I don't think we shall any of us cry after you. You may sleep or do what you like now until tomorrow morning, for you have got it all to yourself. Two candles, indeed! Well I'm surewhat next? Two candles!Oh, my eye!" The turnkey banged shut the door of the cell, and barred and bolted it in a passion; and then away he went to the lobby, which was the great gossiping place, to relate the cool demands of Sweeney Todd. Once more the prisoner was alone. For some time he set in silence, and then he muttered "All the night to myself. He will not visit this cell until the morning. A longlong night; many hours of solitude. Well, I may chance to improve them. It was well in that scuffle for the hammer, when they threw me down, that I contrived to grasp a handful of tools from the smith's basket, and hid them among my clothing. Let me see what I haveay, let me see, or rather feel, for by this light, or rather by this darkness, I can only judge of them by the feel." The tools that Sweeney Todd had been clever enough to abstract from the smith's basket, consisted of two files and a chisel. He ran his fingers over them with some feeling of satisfaction. "Now," he muttered, "if the feeling to die were upon me, here are the means; but it has passed away, and even with these small weapons, and in a cell of Newgate, I do not feel quite so helpless as I was. It will be time to die if all should fail else, but yet if I could only for a time live for revenge, what a glorious thing it would be! How I should like yet to throttle Tobias. What a pleasure it would be to me to hold that girl by the throat, who so hoodwinked me as to impose herself upon me for a boy, and hear and see her choking. How I should like to see the blood of Sir Richard Blunt weltering forth while his colour faded, and he expired gradually!" Todd ground his teeth together in his rage. "Yes," he added, while he moved with difficulty under the weight of his iron. "Yes, I have bidden adieu to wealth and the power that wealth would have given me. I have carried on my life of crimes for nothing, and in blood I have waded to accomplish only this world of danger that now surrounds meto give to myself the poor privilege of suicide; but yet how fain I would live for vengeance!" His chains rattled upon his limbs. "Yes, for revenge. I would fain live for revenge. There are some five or six that I would like to kill! Yes, and I would gloat over their deathagonies, and shriek in their ears, 'I did it! I, Sweeney Todd, did it!'" The fetters entangled about his legs, and threw him heavily to the floor of the cell. He raved and cursed frightfully, until he was too much exhausted to continue such a course, and then he sat upon the floor, and with one of the files he began working away assiduously at the iron, in order to free himself from those clogs to his movements. As he so worked, he heard the prison clock strike ten. "Ten," he said. "Ten already. Of a truth I did not think it was so late. I must be quick. Others have escaped from Newgate, and why should not I? The attempt will and shall be made; and who knows but that it may be successful? A man may do much when he is resolved that he will do all he wishes or die." Todd filed away at the chains. "Who will stop me," he said, "with the feeling that will possess me? Who will say, 'I will stop this man, or he shall kill me?' No oneno one!" The file was a good one, and it bit fairly into the iron. In the course of a quarter of an hour Todd had one wrist at liberty, and that was a great thing. He was tired, however, of the comparatively slow progress of the file, and he made a great effort to break the chains from his ankles; but he only bruised himself in the attempt to do so without succeeding. With a feeling of exhaustion, he paused. "Oh, that I could find an opportunity of exerting so much force against those whom I hate!" he said. At this moment he fancied he heard a slight noise not far from him, and every faculty was immediately strained to assist in listening for a repetition of it. It did not come again then. "It must have been imagination," he said, "or some sound far off in the prison conveyed by echoes to this spot. I will not suffer myself to be alarmed or turned from my purpose. It is nothingnothing. I will use the file again." He commenced now upon the other wrist, and by the little experience he had gathered from his practice at the one which he had already filed in two, he got on more quickly with this one. He found that a long light movement of the file did more work than a rapid grating process. In much less time, then, this other wrist manacle was off, and he could lift up both his arm in freedom. "This is something," he said, "Nay, it is much, very much indeed. I feel it, and accept it as a kind of earnest of success. Where is the manwhere are the two or three men, that will dare to stand in my desperate way, when I have one of these files in each hand, and are free from fetters. They will need be mad to do it. Such an amount of zeal is not to be found. No, they will step aside and let me pass." It now became a matter of great importance with him, to get the other two fetters that bound his ankles undone. He felt as if he should go mad, if he did not quickly release himself from them now. Sitting upon the floor of the cell, he set to work; but he found that the file he had been using did not bite very well. The work it had done already had dulled its powers; but the other was fresh and keen, and with it he made great progress. The lefthand shackle was entirely removed, and now only by his right ankle was he connected with that hundredweight of iron, which held him to the ground. "I shall be free!" he muttered. "I shall be free! Did they think to hold me with these chains? Ha! ha! No. It may be, that there is a dark spirit of evil that aids men, such as I am; and if it be so, I will consent to be wholly his, if" Todd started, for the same noise that had before come upon his ears, now attracted him. It was plainer though than before; and at the moment he thought that it must be in his cell. A cry of terror rose to his lips, but he smothered it in the utterance, and bent again all his faculties to listen. The sound did not now pass away like an echo as it had done before, but it went on steadily, and he could trace it as localising itself against one of the walls of the cell. It was a profound mystery. He could not make out what it meant. It was a strange dull scraping noise. At times he thought it was some animal in the cella rat, probably; but then the sound was too continuous, and although he stamped once, and said 'Hush!' several times, it steadily continued. The darkness in the cell was now so intense, that it was in vain to attempt to pierce it. Any straining of the eyes only peopled the palpable black atmosphere with all sorts of strange shapes, conjured up by the imagination; so Todd was glad to close his eyes after a few moments' experience of that character. "I will know what this is," he said. "I must know what this is, and I will know!" He held out his arms, and he slowly advanced towards the side of the cell from whence the sound came. "Speak," he said, "if you are mortal, speak. If immortal, I fear you not. I am now past all such terrors. You can but kill me." His hands touched the cold stone wall; and then he felt it from the floor upwards, but nothing but the chill surface of the stones was perceptible; and yet the scraping noise continued, and at last he felt convinced that it came from the other side of the wall. Now he did not know what to think, for he had no means of knowing what was upon the other side of that wall. It might be a corridor of the prison. It might be a room belonging to one of the officials, who was about some work that, if explained, would not appear singular at all. He placed his ear to the exact spot from whence the noise came, and he listened attentively. As he so listened, Todd began to have other notions about that noise, and for more than once the square block of stone, against which his ear reposed, shook in its place. "It must be a cell like this," he said, "that is on the other side of the wall, and that, no doubt, is some prisoner at work, trying to effect his escape. If so, it is fortunate. He must be a bold man, and we can help each other." Still Todd hesitated what he should do, notwithstanding the hypothesis regarding the noise he heard appeared so very probable. He was resolved to spend a little more time in listening, for he felt that once to commit himself would possibly be to spoil his own chances of escape. He kept his ear to the stone of the wall, then which shook more and more each passing moment. Suddenly he heard a voice. In a drawling accent, it sang a few lines of a popular thieves' song "The beak looked big, and shook his head, Heigho, the beak! He wished such family cares were dead, That honest folks might get their bread, Heigho, the beak! The family cove, he grinned a grin, Heigho, the cove! Says he, to prig I think no sin; For sure a Romany must have tin Heigho, the cove!" "It must be all right," thought Todd, "or he would not sing that song; but what good it can do him to get from his own cell into this, I cannot imagine. He would be equally confined here as there, and all his labour thrown away. But together, we may do something. I will speak to him. Yes, I think I will speak to him." Todd still waited and lingered before he gave any intimation of his presence and knowledge of what was going on, and then the song ceased, and by the renewed vigour with which the tenant of the next cell worked at the stone, it would seem that he had got very impatient at the length of time it took him. Suddenly, the stone, which was about a foot square, shook so, that Todd withdrew from it, thinking that it would come out of its place altogether; and as it was evidently the object of the prisoner at the other side to push it through into Todd's cell, he thought it better to stand on one side, and let it come. Suddenly, with a crash, it fell through, and then Todd spoke, for the first time, to the prisoner. CHAPTER CXXXIII. THE PROGRESS OF THE OPERATIONS TO ESCAPE FROM NEWGATE. "Who's there? Who are you?" cried Todd. "The deuce!" said a voice, from the adjoining cell. "Sold at last, after all my trouble. Confound you, why didn't you speak before, and save me the last hour's work?" "What do you mean?" cried Todd. "I am a desperate man. Do not tamper with me. Do you belong to the prison, or do you not?" "I belong to the prison! I should think not. Don't you?" "Oh, nononono." "Why, you don't mean to say that you are a prisoner?" "I am, indeed, and condemned to die." "All's right then. Bravo! This is capital. I thought I was in the end cell, do you know, and that by working through the wall by the assistance of Providence alwaysBah! I can't get out of the old trade. I mean to say, that I thought I was working through a wall that would have taken me into one of the corridors of Newgate, and then there would have been a chance of getting off, you know." "I do not know, and did not know," said Todd; "but if there be really any chance of escape, I am a desperate man, and will risk anything for it. Only say that you will help me." "Help you? Of course I will. Do you think I am in love with these cold walls? No, I will get a light in a moment, and we can then have a look at each other. Are you in fetters?" "I was, but I have a file, and have succeeded in freeing myself from them completely. Are you?" "Yes, but I have muffled them with some pieces of my clothing that I have torn up for the purpose, and please the Lord they will make no noise.


" Todd was rather amazed at the religious expressions of the other prisoner; but he forbore to make any remark concerning them, and as something had been said about getting a light, he resolved to wait patiently until it was procured, when he would be able to see who it was that chance had so very strangely thrown him into companionship with. "You see," added the other prisoner, "a religious lady left me some tracts, and as I told her they did not allow light here, she was kind enough to smuggle me in some phosphorous matches, in case in the night I should wish to read." "Very kind of her," said Todd. "Oh, very. Let us praise theBother, I shall never get out of the habit of chaunting, I do believe." In a moment, now, a faint blue light illumed the cell adjoining to Todd's, and as the religious lady had been kind enough to bring some little wax ends of candles, the prisoner lit one, and placing it upon the ledge left by the displaced brick in the wall, he put his face close to it, and looked at Todd. Todd did the same thing, and looked at him. "Humph," said the prisoner. "They are not going to hang you for your beauty, whoever you are, my friend." "Nor you," said Todd, who was a little stung by this cool remark, "for I must say a more villanous looking countenance than yours I never saw in all my life." "Then you certainly never looked in a glass." "Hark you, my friend," said Todd. "If we are to aid each other in getting out of Newgate, it will not be by railing at each other through a square hole in the wall of our cells. We had better leave all remarks about our looks to other folks, and at once set to work about what is much more important, namely, breaking our way out of this most detestable of all places." "Truly," said the other; "you speak wisdom, and the LordPho! The deuce take it, when shall I get rid of the cant of the conventicle? My dear sir, you see before you a man who has been a great victim." "What is your name?" "Lupin they used to call me. The Reverend Josiah Lupin." "Ah," said Todd. "I heard something of your case. I believe you murdered a woman, did you not?" "Why, my friend," said Mrs. Oakley's old acquaintance, for indeed it was no other, "I don't mind confessing to you, that a woman met with a slight accident at my place, and they say I did it. But now that I have been so candid, pray who are you?" "They call me Todd." The Reverend Mr. Lupin screwed up his mouth, and whistled. "Humph," he said. "The religious lady only this morning told me all about you. You used to polish the people off in your barber's shop, and then make them into pork pies, I believe?" "Ha! ha!" said Todd. "And you had a charming assistant in the shape of a lady, named Lovett, I have been informed, who used to help you to scrape the bones of the poor devils who had only just slipped in for a shave, and by no means expected such a scrape." "Ha! ha!" said Todd. "Stop a bit," said Mr. Lupin, "don't come that sort of laugh again. It don't sound at all pleasant. Well, I think we may manage to get out of Newgate, do you know, by a little hard work, if you are willing; but mind you, I don't want to be made a pork or a veal pie of, if you please." "I never ate them myself," said Todd, "so there is no temptation; but I sincerely hope, my friend, that you do not believe one word of the many calumnies that have been heaped upon my character?" "Oh, dear no; and you, too, are well aware that I am the most falsely accused and innocent clergyman that ever lived." "Perfectly." "My dear, sir, you are a very reasonable man, and I don't see any reason on earth that we should not be capital friends from this moment. Just help me to move another of these stones and I shall be able to creep through the opening into your cell." Todd very kindly assisted the Reverend Mr. Lupin, and in the course of a few minutes, another of these large square blocks of stone that formed the wall of the cell being removed, he was able to creep through the aperture with the assistance of Todd. "All's right," said Lupin, as he shook himself. "And now, my new friend, I will borrow the same file with which you released yourself from your fetters, and git rid of mine." "Here it is," said Todd; "you work upon one leg, and I will work upon the other, for I have two files here, although one of them is a little blunted by the work it has already done. Yet it will help, and time is everything." "It is," said Lupin. "Work away, for I am not able to think of anything until I am free of these confounded irons." They worked in real earnest, and to such purpose, that in a much less space of time than anybody would have thought it possible to accomplish the process in, the fetters of Mr. Lupin dropped from him, and, like Todd, he stood so far free from restraint. "Now," he said, "I have some firstrate picklocks, and if providenceTush! tush! I mean if we are lucky, we shall get on capitally. The next thing we have to do is, to get out of here, and by far the shortest way is to work through the wall. Have you any other tools beside the files, for they are not much use now to us?" "Yes, a chisel." "A chisel? Oh, my friend, you are indeed a wonderful man. A chisel? What may not be done with a chisel! A strong, good chisel, too. Oh, if we do not chisel our way out of Newgate now, it will be very hard indeed. Come, you shall see an old hand at work. Perhaps you have not had much experience at prisonbreaking?" "Certainly not," said Todd. "Well, this will be a good lesson to you. Now you will see how nicely I will get one of these old square blocks of stone out of its place." Todd smiled grimly. Perhaps he thought he could have given the Reverend Josiah Lupin a good lesson in some things; but at that time he was only too happy to meet with a companion who promised such great things in the way of immediate escape. Certainly Mr. Lupin showed great dexterity in handling the chisel, with which he had been furnished by Todd; and in a much less space of time than any one would have thought the work could have been performed in, he had loosened the stone in the wall that he wished to dislodge. "Let us both push it," he said, "and we shall get it through easily." "But its fall will make an alarm," said Todd. "Oh, no. The distance is too short, and it will go down easy. Now for it." They pressed upon the stone both of them, and by a skilful joggling movement, Lupin got it to move along until it was beyond its centre of gravity, and then, with a heavy bump, down it went on the other side. They both now paused for some moments, and spoke not a word, for they were anxious to discover if the fall of the stone into the passage beyond the cells had made any noise sufficient to attract the attention of the prison officials. All was still. "It's as right as possible," said Lupin. "They are asleep, the greater part of them. The pretended vigilance in this place, and the sleepless watchfulness, is all a fudge. Turnkeys, and police officers, and Governors of Newgate, are but flesh and blood, and they will take things easy if they can." "You are quite a man of the world," said Todd. "Oh, yes; I have seen a little of it. But I say, Master Todd, deal candidly with me now. Have you not some secret hoard of cash, upon which we can make ourselves comfortable, when we get out of this mousetrap? I have not a penny piece; but you ought to have something, I should say. I don't mean to say but that I had money, but it was not hidden, and the police have got hold of that. If I were acquitted, they kindly said they would let me have it. But if found guilty, of which they did not entertain the smallest doubt, I could not want it." "Curses on them!" said Todd; "they had enough of mine to have made us both rich menvery rich men. Oh, that I had been off a month ago!" "Don't fret about that. We are all in the hands of a gracious proviPsha! I am forgetting again. Whatever you do, Todd, in this world, don't turn parson to a parcel of old women, for the phraseology will stick to you as long as you live, if you do. But cometell me now. You do know where to lay your hand upon money?" Todd thought that it would be very indiscreet to say no to this little proposition, so with a nod and a smile he replied "Only a few hundreds. That's all." "A few hundreds? That is a pretty good all, and will do very well indeed, my dear friend. Is it an understanding that we go halves?" "Quite, quite." "Then, if we don't get out of the stonejug pretty soon, it will be a strange thing to me. Now let us work away like bricks, and we will show them that two determined men can laugh at their bolts, and bars, and stone walls." "How confident you are," said Todd. "You surely forget that we must go through much, before we can see the outside of the walls of this dreadful place. I wish I could be as sure of the result as you are, or as you seem to be." "It is onehalf the battle to make sure; there goes another of the stones. Now follow me through this opening in the wall. It leads to a passage from which we can reach one of the smaller inner courts; and from that we shall get on through the chapel to the Governor's house, and if we can't get out there, it's a bad case." Mr. Lupin, who had, in a great measure, now that he no longer had any sanctified character to keep up, thrown of his timid nature, ventured to scramble through the opening in the wall, and he assisted Todd to follow him. The Two Murderers, Todd And Lupin, Escaping From The Cell Of Newgate. The Two Murderers, Todd And Lupin, Escaping From The Cell Of Newgate. They both now stood in a narrow vaulted passage, and then they paused again for several minutes to listen if any noise in the prison gave intimation that any one was stirring; but everything was perfectly still, and so deathlike was the silence, that, but that they well knew to the contrary, they might have supposed that they were the only living persons within that gloomy pile of building. The little bit of wax candle that had been brought to Lupin by the pious lady, and which he had lit in his own cell, for the purpose, at first, of having a good look at Todd, was now upon the point of going out; but he was very well provided with wax candleends, and he speedily lighted another, as he said in a tone of irony "The sheriffs will write a letter of threats to the pious lady, when they find how much she aided us in escaping." "They ought," said Todd. "We will pray for her." Lupin laughed, as he with a light step now crept along the vaulted passage, and reached a massive door at the end of it, up and down which he passed the light several times. Then he muttered to himself "Good! Only the lock, and it will need to be a good one if it resist me. I used to be rather an adept at this sort of thing." "Then you are," said Todd, "a professional" He paused, for he did not like to say thief; but Lupin himself added the word, cracksman, and Todd nodded. "Yes," added Lupin, "I was a cracksman, but I got known, so I thought the chapel dodge would suit me, and it did for a time, and would for some time longer, but that the little accident of which you have heard something took place in the chapel, and that idiot Mrs. Oakley found me out. Ah! you never after all can be a match for a crafty old woman. They will have you at some moment when you least expect it. She regularly sold me." CHAPTER CXXXIV. THE ESCAPE, AND THE RETREAT IN CAEN WOOD, HAMPSTEAD. While Mr. Lupin talked, he did not lose time, but he was working away at the lock of the door at the end of the passage. After a few moments there was a crackling sound, and then the lock yielded to the exertion of Mr. Lupin, and went back into its home. The door, with a wheezing sound, slowly opened. "All's right," whispered Lupin. "The less we say now, Todd, the better, for our voices will go farther now that we shall be clear of this passage. Come on. Follow me!" They both emerged into the night air; and crouching down, Lupin ran along the little yard in which they were, and which was not above halfadozen yards across. He paused at a door, and then suddenly starting away from it, he muttered "It is not this one. Ah! this is it! Stand quite close up against the wall, and then there will be the less chance of any one seeing you. I must work away at this door." "Where does it lead to?" whispered Todd. "To the chapel." Todd screwed himself up into the smallest space that he possibly could against the wall, close to the door, while Lupin tried to open it. That door for more than ten minutes baffled him. Probably that fact was owing in some degree to the circumstance of his being in the dark, for of course, before emerging from the vaulted passage, he had thought it prudent to extinguish the little light he had. "It baffles you," said Todd, in a voice of great anxiety. "As yet, yes. No. It is open." Todd breathed more freely. "Come in," said Lupin. "Come in. We have done wonders as yet, my friend, and we will do wonders yet, I think, if Providence only looks with a graciousThere I go again. When shall I forget that chapel, I wonder?" "It don't matter," said Todd. "I used to find a little religion answer very well myself." "Not a doubt of it. Now, then, that the door is fast, we may muster up a light again." With the aid of one of his matches, Lupin again illuminated the little wax end of the candle, and then Todd found that he was in a small kind of vestibule from which a green baize door led directly into the chapel. In fact, that was the entrance by which the lower class of offenders confined in Newgate were brought to the chapel on Sundays. The little building looked much larger by the faint light of that one candle than it really was, and Todd glared around him with a feeling of terror, as he had not felt since he had left his cell. Perhaps, after all, a good deal of that was owing to the low temperature of the chapel, that lent a chill to his system. "Look at that seat," said Lupin, pointing to one. "Do you know what it is?" "Only a seat," said Todd. "Is there anything particular in it?" "Nothing, except the kind of interest it might have for you, as being the one upon which the condemned prisoners sit, on the Sunday previous to their execution, that is all." Todd turned aside with a shudder. "Enough," he said. "Enough. That is enough. Let us get on, and not waste time in idle talking about such idle matters as these. I do not feel very well." "And I," said Lupin, "would give a few bright pieces out of those hundreds that you have hidden, for a glass of brandy. But that's not to be thought of now. This is a door that leads from the chapel to the Governor's house, through which the parson, and the Governor and Sheriffs come on the occasion of Sunday service here. It is by that we must attempt an escape in this place." Sweeney Todd, and Mr. Lupin looked like two spectres, as they crept noiselessly through the chapel of Newgate; but Lupin appeared to know perfectly well the route which it was necessary for him to take, and he soon went up three small steps, and applied his ear to the panel of a door to listen, as he said "Through here lies our route." "Is all still?" said Todd. "Quite. I don't believe, except ourselves, there is any one up and about in Newgate except a couple of lazy fellows in the vestibule; but we are too far off them to be in any danger of their overhearing us. This door will not give any trouble. Ah!" "What is the matter?" "It is bolted on the other side." "Then we are foiled?" "Not at all. It will take us a little time to unbolt it, that's all. Hand me the chisel." Todd handed it to him; and then holding the light for Lupin, the latter set to work upon the panelling of the door, to cut away sufficient of it to enable him to get his head through, to draw back the bolts, one of which was at the top of the door and another at the bottom of it. The door, though, was not built for strength, for it was scarcely imagined that it would ever be attacked, so that the panelling was only of an ordinary character; and as the chisel was a good one, and Mr. Lupin was tolerably expert in its use, the chips from the wood soon began noiselessly to fall about him. He worked in a circle, so that when he should get fairly through the panel, there would be quite space enough for him to get his arm through, and unfasten both the bolts; and this he completed in about ten minutes. "I should never have got on without you," said Todd. "The only notion I had of the affair, was to try and fight my way out of the prison, and if I fell in doing so, I was no worse off than I should be on Monday morningor, indeed, rather better, for I could not endure the agony of waiting for death." "They would not have killed you." "They must." "Nay, they will go through fire and water here, and suffer anything, rather than that a man should escape the gallows. They would have flung themselves upon you, and overpowered you by numbers, and on Monday morning, if you had a breath of life left in you, you would have been dragged out to death." Todd shuddered. "And you so innocent, too," added Lupin. "But it is the innocent that in this world, verily, are chastened alway." "You are getting into your old habit of preaching again," said Todd, roughly. "So I am. I am much obliged to you, my friend, to put me in mind of it. Very much obliged. I was for a moment preaching; but here is the door open, and now I beg that you will tread as though you trod upon a mine, for we do not know what persons in this portion of this confounded building may be upon the alert." "Oh, that we were only in the open air!" said Todd. "Hush! hush!" The villain Lupin, almost as bad in his way as Todd was in his, now shaded the little light with his hands, and crept on slowly and cautiously, until he reached the staircase, which was nicely empanelled, and up that he slowly took his way. Before he got to the top of it, he blew out the light, and waiting there until Todd was close to him, he said, in the smallest possible whisper "Follow me, and be careful, I am afraid the light might gleam through some keyhole, and betray us. Come on, and recollect that a slip or a stumble may be fatal. Think that the rope is about your neck." "I will," said Todd. "I will. I almost seem to feel it actually. Oh, yes, I will be very careful." "Hush! hush! Are you mad to go on talking so?" Todd said no more, and Lupin crept on until he got right to the top of the stairs. Then holding by a balustrade that was continued along the landing, he reached the head of another flight of steps, which led directly down to the hall or passage of the Governor's house. Lupin was terribly afraid that Todd would come upon these second stairs at unawares, and stumble down some of them, so he waited at the head of them, until Todd touched him, and then he whispered the one word, "Stairs." "Yes," replied Todd, and then Lupin commenced the descent, followed by his trembling companion, and for the matter of that, Lupin himself shook now like an aspen leaf. The steps were fourteen in number, and then, by the feel of a mat at the foot of them, Lupin was satisfied that he had actually gained the hall of the Governor's house. Todd was close behind him. "Stop!" whispered Lupin, and Todd stopped as suddenly as though he had been some piece of machinery that could be in a moment arrested in its progress. Lupin well knew now that without a light it would be folly to attempt opening the door of the Governor's house, which, as a matter of course, was well secured; and very reluctantly he lit another match, and ignited the wax candleend again. He placed Todd in such a position on the mat at the foot of the stairs, that his bulky tall form acted as a screen against the rays of the light ascending the staircase, and then, with something of his old nervousness and abject fear of manner and expression, he narrowly scrutinized the door. "Curses on all these precautions!" he muttered. "We may be detained here until morning." In good truth, the door of the Governor's house was very well fastened up, and Mr. Lupin might well feel a little staggered at the sight of it. A chain that was up across it, he easily removed, and the bolts offered no obstacles; but what was the most serious consisted of a small, but exquisitely made lock that was on the door, and the key of which, no doubt, at such an hour was under the Governor's pillow. Todd at that moment would have given anything to be able just to say "How are you getting on?" but in such a place, with, for all he knew to the contrary, the Governor of Newgate within a dozen yards of him, he dared not open his lips. And now Lupin brought all his old skill to bear upon that one little lock upon the Governor's door, and yet it resisted him. One five minutes' attempt to pick it was to him pretty conclusive evidence that it was not to be done. He had the chisel in his pocket, and in despair he inserted it between the door and the post. It broke short off by the handle. Lupin uttered a groan, which was echoed by Todd, and then they both stood glaring at each other in solemn silence. Todd crept towards Lupin, and leaning forward he whispered faintly "It can't be done?" "No," said Lupin, "that lock stops us." "Lostlost!" said Todd. "We are lost, then?" "Hush. Let me think. The key of this lock is with the Governor, of course. Now, Todd, you are a man of strong nerves, you know, or else it would have been quite impossible for you to have gone through life in the way you have done. What do you say to going and trying to get the key?" "II?" "Yes, to be sure. I have, up to this moment, you know, done all the work, and if this lock had not baffled me, I would have done the remainder cheerfully; but could you not take one of these filesthe end of it is very sharpand persuade the Governor to give up the key?" "Kill him, you mean?" "You may call it killing." "If I thought it could be done with anything like a certainty of result, I would make no more of the life of the Governor thanthan" Todd was at a loss for a simile, and Lupin helped him out of the difficulty by saying "Giving a man a clean shave for one penny, or eating a veal pie." Todd nodded. "Now, hark you," continued Lupin, speaking in the same very low whisper, indeed, that he had conducted the conversation in. "It is quite a maddening thing, you see, to find that there is nothing between us and liberty but this door. Every moment is of the greatest possible importance. Will you do it?" "Are you mad?" "No. I am quite sane, I confess, though that I have not the pluck to do it. You ought to be a man of courage. What is it to you, if you were to murder everybody in this house, so that you got this door open? That is the great object, the only object; and to you, you know, three or four more deaths will not make much consequence." "My friend," said Todd, with a sickly smile, "I am afraid you believe the calumnies that have been heaped upon my innocent head. But, if nothing can be done, but what you say, I will make the attempt. There are two files, though, and they are equally sharp. Do you take one, and I will take the other." "You want me with you?" "I do, most, surely." "Wellwell; if it must be so, it must. I will come. Let us set about it at once, and" Before Mr. Lupin could say another word, there came a sharp rap at the door from the outside with the knocker; and so sudden and so utterly unexpected was the sound at such an hour, that Lupin and Todd fell on each other in their hurry to escape, they knew not where. CHAPTER CXXXV. THE CHASE THROUGH SMITHFIELD, AND THE MURDER. They were afraid to speak, were those two murderers, as they now stood trembling in the passage of the Governor's house in Newgate. They could only be conscious of each other's presence by the hard breathing which their fears gave rise to, and as Lupin had extinguished the little light, the most intense darkness reigned around them. Bangbangbang! went the knocker upon the door of the Governor's house again. "Lostlost!" said Todd. If Lupin was not the most hardened villain of the two, he was certainly at that moment the most courageous. He aimed a blow at Todd in the dark to give effect to his admonition for silence; but it did not take effect. Todd, however, was quite still now, and in the course of a few moments the knock at the door was repeated a third time. Then Lupin whispered to Todd "Keep yourself up as close against the wall as you can. Some one will come to the door, and you can throttle whoever it is, while I take the key of the little lock from them." "Yes," said Todd, faintly. The word had hardly escaped his lips, when a flash of light from above came streaming down into the passage, and from each side of the door, close to the passage wall, against which they screwed themselves into as small a compass as possible, they saw a man approaching. The person who came to answer the knock at the Governor's door was evidently only just roused from sleep, for he was looking heavy, and yawning as he came. The candle he carried swayed to and fro in his hand, and it was very unlikely that he would see anything that was not remarkably close to his nose. "Ah, dear me" he yawned. "Can't people come at reasonable times? Who'd be a Governor's clerk, I wonder, toah, dear!get up at all hours of the night in Newgate. Ah, heigho!" Mr. Lupin wanted to say only two words to Todd, and those were "Kill him;" but he was afraid even to whisper them, lest Todd should not be equally discreet in reply. He knew he could whisper softly enough; but he thought his companion might not be so accomplished in that particular, so he was silent. Before the individual who had announced himself to be the Governor's clerk could get into the passage down the flight of stairs, the person on the outside of the door got impatient, and executed another rather startling rap. "Oh, bother you," said the clerk. "I only wish you were at the bottom of the Thames. I'm coming, stupid; don't you see the light through the little bit of glass at the top of the door, thatah, dear! how gapish I amyou keep hammering away there, as if you thought we were all deaf or stupid?" The clerk was evidently wakening up, but as he carried the light right in front of his eyes, he had not the smallest chance of seeing either Mr. Todd or Lupin, and in that way he reached the passage, or hall it might be called from courtesy. To be sure, how could he for one moment suspect to find two of the most notorious criminals in all Newgate snugly hidden in the hall? We must consider how very improbable such a thing was, before we blame the clerk for any imprudence in the matter. The grand object of Lupin, who kept his sharp little ferretlooking eyes upon the clerk as he descended, was to note if he had a key with him at all; if he had, there could be no doubt of its being the key of the little lock that had so baffled his, Lupin's, attempts to open it, upon the door of the Governor's house. To his great satisfaction he saw that, dangling from the clerk's finger by a piece of tape, he did carry a key, and Lupin at once naturally concluded it was the one he wanted. "Only just let me find out now," said the clerk, "that this is something about nothing, and won't I make a riot about it in the morning. To rouse a fellow out of his bed, it is really too bad, as if any kind of thing could not be just as well done in the day time as in the middle of night. Now stupid, who are you?" These last words he addressed to the person outside, by placing his mouth close to the keyhole. A voice responded something, the only recognisable word of which was "donkey." "What do you say?" cried the clerk, again. "You areaadonkey, do you say?" "No," said the voice from the outside through the keyhole. "But you are." "Oh, am I, you infernal vagabond? I'll soon let you know what's what, I will, you rascal." With this the clerk began to open the door, and the moment he got the key in the little lock, so that Mr. Lupin was thoroughly aware it was the one he wanted, he sprung upon the unfortunate clerk, and dashing his head against the door, which was heavily plated with iron, he knocked him insensible in a moment. To open the lock was the work of an instant, and the door creaked upon its hinges. "Who are you?" said Lupin. "A messenger from the Secretary of State," said the man on the outside, "and I shall report your insolence." "Don't," said Lupin. "Indeed, I shall." "Then take that." With the file he dealt him a frightful wound in the face, and then they both rolled down the whole flight of steps together, for Mr. Lupin had overbalanced himself with that blow. Todd sprang over them both, and gained the open street, just as a watchman who was opposite began to spring his rattle at seeing such a scuffle going on at the Governor's door. The messenger from the Secretary of State, notwithstanding his wound, grappled with Lupin, but that rascal got hold of him by his hair, and knocked his head against the pavement until he was quite dead. Then rising, he cried "Through Smithfield, Todd! Follow me." "I will," said Todd, and off they both set, pursued by the single watchman, who had happened to be the sole witness to the whole affair, and who, finding himself outstripped by the two men, wisely stopped at the corner of Giltspur Street to spring his rattle, which he did with a vengeance that soon brought others to his assistance. "An escape from Newgate!" the watchman kept crying"An escape from Newgate! There they gothrough Smithfield; two men, one very big and the other not so big! An escape from Newgate!" The Astonished Watchman.Leaving Newgate Behind. The Astonished Watchman.Leaving Newgate Behind. These cries soon sent about a dozen persons on the trail of the fugitives, and as the alarm was understood at the prison, four of the most bold and skillful men upon the premises at once started in pursuit. From the watchman who still stood at the end of Giltspur Street, they heard in what direction the prisoners had gone, and they did not lose a moment in dashing after them, calling out as they went "Fifty pounds reward for two prisoners escaped from Newgate! Fifty pounds reward for them!" These words summoned up many an idler who was trying to dream away the night in the pens of Smithfield, and the officers soon got together a rabble host for the pursuit of Todd and his villanous companion. But these officers with their fifty pounds reward were rather late in the field. It was the few persons who first heard the rattle and the outcries of the watchman, who were close upon the heels of the men, and they kept them well in sight right across Smithfield and so on towards Barbican. Todd heard the shouts of the pursuers, but he did not look back, for fear of losing time by so doing; and the fact was, that Mr. Lupin was so fleet of foot that it required all the exertion of Todd to keep up with him at all. Upon any less exciting occasion it is extremely doubtful if Todd could have kept up such a race; but as it was, he seemed to lose his wind, and then in some mysterious way to get on without any at all. Mr. Lupin crossed Aldersgate Street, and dashed down Barbican. He then turned down the first opening he came to on the right, and he did so, not because he was making for any known place of safety, but because he knew that a labyrinth of small streets were thereabouts, amid the intricacies of which he hoped to baffle his pursuers; and it was certainly under the circumstances very good policy in him to take the course he did.


From the moment of so abruptly turning out of Barbican, they were both out of sight of their pursuers, who had been able to keep them steadily in view up to this; but although that was the case, they were not without their perils, for a watchman met them both and aimed a blow at Lupin's legs with his stick, crying in an Irish brogue "Stop that, my beautyStop that any way!" Lupin sprang upon him like an enraged tiger, and turning the stick from his hands, he laid him flat with one blow of it and on he rushed, carrying it with him as a defence against the attack of any one else. They now turned a corner and met a string of halfdrunken gents of the period, arminarm, and occupying the whole breadth of the pavement. Lupin avoided them by swerving into the roadway, but they caught hold of Todd, crying "Here's the devil. Let's make him an offer for his tail!" Certainly, Sweeney Todd was not at that moment disposed for trifling, and he laid about him with his immense fists in such style that the gents were all rolling in the kennel in a moment or two; and then, however, before Todd could again reach Mr. Lupin so closely as he had been, he heard a loud shout of "There's one of them. Come on!Come on!" That was no drunken shout, and Todd immediately felt that the danger was imminent. He rushed on at increased speed, and just got up to Lupin at the corner. They turned it together, and then Todd managed to say "They comethey come!" "Officers?" said Lupin. "Yes, I think so. Onon. Oh, push on!" "This way." Lupin crossed the road, and sprung down a narrow court; but even as he did so, came that voice, crying "There they go. Stop themstop them! There they go! Fifty pounds reward!" A frightful oath burst from Todd's lips, as he emerged from the court still close upon the heels of Lupin. They were now in a tolerably wide street, and they saw but one individual in it, and he was evidently, by the curious manner in which he sometimes favoured the curbstone by walking upon it for a few paces, and then lumbered up against the house, just a little gone in intoxication. This individual, after some fumbling in his pocket, produced a latch key, and having staggered up the steps of a house, he made some ineffectual attempts to open the door. "Hold!" said Todd to Lupin. "Anything is better than this race for life. We can hide in the passage of that house until the pursuit is past. Come." "A good thought," said Lupin. By this time the inebriated individual had succeeded in opening the streetdoor with his latchkey, and he was so elated at having performed the feat, that he stopped to laugh before he entered the house. The moment, however, that he did get into the passage, Todd sprung up the steps, and very adroitly placed his foot against the door, so that when the person from within slammed it as he thought shut, it was a good two inches off that condition. It was then amusing to hear him, with drunken gravity and precision, as he thought, shooting the bolts into their sockets, after which, often tumbling on his way, he went along the passage, and up stairs. Todd opened the door. "Come," he said. "All's right," said Lupin. "Stop thief! Stop thief!" cried a chorus of voices at the corner of the street. "Indeed," said Lupin, "The Lord be good to you all." He stepped into the house after Todd, and very quietly closed the door. The passage was profoundly dark, and there they both stood, those two convicted murderers, listening to what was taking place outside their place of refuge. They heard the sounds of several voices, and it was quite evident that just about that spot the pursuers were baffled, and did not know now which course to take after the fugitives, who were so snugly ensconced so near them. CHAPTER CXXXVI. TODD AND LUPIN ESCAPE TO CAEN WOOD. "What's to be done?" said a voice. "I'll be hanged if I know," said another, "and yet I feel sure that they came this way. I thought how it would be when they took to all these streets. Lord bless you, we might have passed them in some doorway easy enougha dozen times." "So we might," said the other voice. "All we can do now, is to go round to the different outlets of the city, and give an alarm." "Well, I won't give it up yet," said a third person; "I feel quite sure they are lingering somewhere about here, and I'll be on the watch yet for a time, and hunt about quietly. You be off and give the notice to the watch, and leave Johnson and I to do what we can." "Very goodI wish you luck." There was a scuffle of feet, and it was quite clear that some of the men had gone off at a quick pace, leaving, no doubt, the two only in the street. "Well," whispered Lupin. "Well, my friend, what do you think of all this?" "I don't know what to think," said Todd. "I'm very tired." "Ah, and so am I, but that can't be helped. I ain't used to such a run as we have had. But it won't do us any harm. If we can get off, it will be a world's wonder, I can tell you. It ain't now every day that a fellow gives Newgate the goby." "Nono, and I must say that I did not myself expect it. But I was prepared to cheat the hangman." "Pho! That's a poorenough look out." "Yes, but it's a something. She did it." "She? Who the deuce is she?" "Mrs. Lovett." "Oh, I recollect. I have heard of herI have heard of her. She was the nice creature who lived in Bell Yard, wasn't she, and accommodated the folks with pies?" "Yes," said Todd, and if Lupin had seen the horrible contortion of visage with which he accompanied the word, even he, with all his nerve in such matters, might well have been excused for a sudden accession of terror. "Well," added Todd, after a pause, "you are a man of judgment Mr. Lupin, and all I want to know now, is what you mean to do?" "Get away from here as soon as possible. But it won't be quite safe to try it yet. This house is very quiet, and no doubt everybody is in bed and asleep, so I shall get a light and look about a little. It would be quite a providential thing to find something to eat." "Yes, and to drink," said Todd. "Just so. I would give something handsome now, if I had it, for a good glass of brandy. That run has made me first hot and then shivery all over; but who knows what luck may be in store for us? Come nowhere's a light, and we shall soon, by the help of providence, see what sort of a crib we have got into." It was lucky for them both that Lupin had retained about him the means of getting a light, for if he had not, they would have been left to conjectures merely regarding their position. He ignited one of the little pieces of waxends, and when the small flame rose and began to burn steadily, he held up the piece of candle, so they both looked curiously about them. The hall of the house in which they were was well got up. A handsome table and some old carved chairs were in it, with some crests upon the backs, and upon numerous pegs hung hats, cloaks, and coats. "Humph," said Lupin, "this is the very place for us, I shall take the great liberty of making free with some gentleman's coat and hat, and I think you had better do the same." Todd at once practically acquiesced in the suggestion, by slipping on a large cloak with sleeves, and placing upon his head a hat richly bound with silver lace. "Upon my word," said Lupin, "you almost look respectable." "Do I?" said Todd. "It isn't then on account of the company I am in." Lupin smiled, as he said "Very goodvery good, but the less we cut at each other, my friend, the better." "You began it," said Todd. "So I did, so we will say no more about it, as yours was the hardest hit. How do I look in the cloak and hat?" "Just nice," said Todd, making a frightful face. Lupin laughed again. "Come," he said. "Now that we have a little time to spare, let us see if these people keep a good larder. If they do and they lock it up at night, they will find that the cat has been at it by the morning, I rather think. Tread as lightly as you can, Todd, and keep down your voice as you have done. Sounds go so far in the night time." "They do," said Todd. "I have heard them at odd times." Lupin led the way along the hall, at the end of which was the staircase, and to the right of that a door which was not fast, so that they passed on quite easily to the domestic portion of the house, and soon found the way to a kitchen, which was upon the same floor. Then they opened a door that led into a little sort of outhouse, paved with red bricks, and in one corner of that was a larder, or safe, well stocked with provisions. Lupin took from it a magnificent quarter of venison, with scarcely a quarter of a pound cut from it; and that, with some bread were the only viands that he felt disposed to take from the larder. "It will be wholesome," he said, "and do us a world of good, by the aid of Providence; and we don't know what we may have to go through yet, in this world of woe. Amen!" "You fancy you are in the chapel again." "Dear me; yes, I doI do. Well, well, it don't matterit don't matter. Come, friend Todd. Let us recruit ourselves a little. Oh, that I could find the way to the wine cellar of these people; and yet that should not be a difficult matter. Let us think. It must be somewhere hereabouts." "There is a door," said Todd, pointing to one at the end of the outhouse. "It seems to be locked, and if so, it is no doubt that of the cellar." "We will try it," said Lupin. With this he quickly opened the door, by the aid of his picklocks, which no ordinary lock could withstand the fascinations of for a moment, and then sure enough the supposition of Todd was found to be correct, for a goodly collection of bottles in long rows presented themselves to the eye. Lupin at once laid hold of a bottle, and breaking off the neck of it he decanted a quantity of its contents into his throat, rubbing his stomach as he did so in a most ludicrous kind of way, to indicate how much he enjoyed the draught. "Nectar," he said, when he took the bottle from his mouth to enable himself to breathe; "nectar." "Is it?" said Todd, as he seized upon another bottle. "I am partial generally to something a trifle stronger than wine; but if it be really good, I have no particular objection to a drop." With this Todd finished off half a bottle of the rich and rare old port that was in the cellar. They then worked away at the haunch of venison; and having made a very hearty meal, they looked at each other as though they would both say"What next?" "You say you have money?" said Lupin. "True," said Todd. "But not here of course, my friend; and who knows what difficulties we may find in our way before we reach your nice little hoard? Where did you say it was?" "Hidden beneath a tree in Caen Wood, close to the village of Hampstead. I went one night, and myself placed the cash there in case of accidents." "And how much do you suppose, my friend, there is?" "I know what there is. I put away two thousand pounds, and that you know will be a thousand pounds for you, and another for me. I purpose in that manner equitably to share it, for I am not ungrateful for the great assistance you have been to me in this escape from Newgate." If Mr. Lupin had not swallowed twothirds of a bottle of old portwine, the probability is that he would have detected that Todd was deceiving him, by the whining canting tone in which he spoke. The fact was, that Todd had not one farthing hidden in Caen Wood; but he thought it highly desirable while there existed any danger, and while Mr. Lupin was likely to be useful to him, to keep up such a delusion. "Well," added Lupin, "you really are a liberal fellow; but as, I say, there is no knowing what good a trifle may be to us before we reach your snug two thousand pounds in Caen Wood, I propose to see what we can get in this house. People who keep such a good cellar, and such a capital larder, ought to have something in the place worth the taking in the way of cash." "Yes, but I am afraid it will be hazardous," said Todd. "A little, perhaps; but with this carving knife, don't you think we might make things pleasant?" "That is possible. Well, if anything worth having is to be got, let us set about it at once; for I think we have spent time enough in this house; and no doubt our friends are upon the move off, if they have not gone long before this." "Come on, then." They both left the kitchen, and each being armed with a knife, they cautiously opened all the room doors on that floor; but they only found the usual furniture of such apartments, and it was quite clear that no cash was to be had in that portion of the premises. "Come up stairs," said Lupin, with a look of savage determination. "Come on, Todd; we will see what can be done up stairs." They carefully ascended the staircase, but they only just peeped into the drawingroom, and then they went up to the floor upon which the bedrooms were situated. They paused at the first door they came to, and Lupin very carefully tried the lock. It was only on the latch, and in the room a rushlight was burning. They both crept in, and their footsteps made no noise upon the soft carpeting of the apartment. A bed was in the room, and upon it lay a young lady. Lupin gave a hideous grin as he looked at her, and then stooping down by the bedside he said, in a whisper "If you scream, everybody in this house will be murdered!If you scream, everybody in this house will be murdered! If youOh, that will do." The young lady awakened with a start, but the words that were twice repeated still rung in her ears, and scream she did not, but she looked half dead from fright. "Now, my dear," said Lupin, "Providence has brought us to your bedside, and if you make any disturbance, we mean to submit you and the whole of the family to the operation of a carvingknife, the Lord willing. All we want is money, and if we can get that quietly, we will go and not so much as ask your pretty little lips for a kiss." The Murderers In The Young Lady's Chamber. The Murderers In The Young Lady's Chamber. "Oh, Heaven protect me!" said the young lady. "Amen!" said Lupin. "Now my dear, who is in the house besides you?" "My father, the alderman, and my mother, and the servants above stairs.Oh, spare my parents." "Very good, where can any money be got hold of?" "Will a hundred pounds content you?" "Yes," said Todd, putting his head between the curtains at the foot of the bed. The young lady gave a faint cry, and Mr. Lupin flourished the carvingknife over her"Where are the hundred pounds?" he said, "and we will go." "In my father's room. It is the next room. His purse is on the dressingtable. If you will let me go and get it, I will give it to you upon your promise then to leave the house." "How are we to trust you not to say that we are here?" "I swear by all that is holyI use the name of the great God. Oh, indeed you may trust me." "Go," said Lupin. The young lady got out of bed, and both Todd and Lupin followed her from the room. She crossed the landing, and at once opened the door of a room. Then they heard a man's voice say"Who's that?" and the young lady replied"Only me, father. I want something out of your room. I shall not be a minute." "Bless the girl," said a female voice"What can she want?" In a minute or two the young lady came back to the landing where Todd and Lupin were waiting for her. "Now," said Lupin in a low voice"Now, my little dear, have you got it?" "Quickquick!" said Todd, "or you die. I am half a mind to cut your throat as it is, just for the pleasure of the thing." The young lady stood just upon the threshold of the door of her father's room, and then as Lupin held up his light, she raised both her hands, in each of which was a horsepistol, and presenting one at Lupin's head and one at Todd's, she said "Thieves! thieves! thieves!" CHAPTER CXXXVII. THE MURDER AT CAEN WOOD, HAMPSTEAD. It would be quite impossible to describe the effect that was produced upon Lupin and Sweeney Todd, by this heroic conduct on the part of the young lady, from whom they did not in the least expect any such active resistance to their proceedings. Lupin was constitutionally, by far the greater coward of the two, and when he saw the bright barrel of the pistol in such startling and unexpected contiguity to his head, he at once stepped back, and missing his footing, fell down the stairs to the landingplace immediately below that flight. Todd thought that there would be just a chance of dashing in upon the young lady and disarming her of her pistols; but now that both of them were levelled at him, and she began to cry out "Help! help! thieves!" again, louder than before, he reluctantly abandoned the idea, and turning, he bounded down the staircase. The young lady leant over the stairhead and fired one of the pistols after him, which so accelerated the movements of Todd, that he tumbled right over Mr. Lupin, and fell down all the way to the hall with Lupin after him. Under any other circumstances than the dangerous and exciting ones in which they were in, no doubt they would both of them have been too much hurt to do anything but lie on their backs in the hall; but the feeling that if they were taken it would be to death, was sufficient to rouse them, and they both scrambled to their feet. Lupin got the streetdoor open, and dashed out closely followed by Todd. A watchman tried to stop them, but him they felled with a blow, and then off went Lupin down a crossstreet, that led him into Oldstreet Road, and with Todd at his heels, who was very faint. "Stop, stop!" panted Todd, "stop!" "What for?" said Lupin. "I cannot run so fast. Are you hurt? Oh, that I had a knife at that girl's throat!" Lupin paused, and held by a post at the corner of a street, and swore dreadfully, as he too panted a little for breath, although he was by no means so much usedup as Todd was. But then Lupin was a younger man, and much lighter on his feet, than our old friend of murdering notoriety. "Oh, dear," said Todd. "What's to be done now?" "Nothing." "Nothing, did you say? But, my dear friend, something must be done. We have positively wasted half the night, and we are without money, and half dead. I am covered with bruises from head to foot by the fall down the staircase, and it will be daylight in another half hour or so at the utmost." "Ah," said Lupin, "we must breakfast somewhere, I'm thinking, my friend." "And so am I." "Well, well, we have made certainly a mess of our adventure at the alderman's; but it can't be helped now. The idea, only to think of it now, Todd, of you and I, two such men as we are, and as the world refutes us to be, being beaten back, and, you may say, thrown down two pair of stairs, by a girl of sixteen or thereabouts." Todd growled out some malediction. "It was the will of Providence," said Lupin. "But who is this? Stand aside, Todd, and let this old gentleman pass on. We may as well not be seen and described by any one." "Do you think he may likely have enough about him," whispered Todd, "to pay our expenses for the day?" "A lucky thought. It is more than likely that he has. Knock him down and rob him, Todd. There's not a soul in sight. Give him one of the knocks you used to give the poor devils you made the pies of, you know." "Be quiet," said Todd, "I am amazed that a man of your profound sense and sagacity, should give ear to such idle rumours about me! I am really both shocked and surprised, Mr. Lupin!" "Amen!" said Lupin. "You rob the old man, and we won't quarrel about any such nonsense, Todd. Here he comes, grinning like an old polecat. What business has a man of that age out at such a time as this?" "None," said Todd, "except to provide us with a little money." Todd cast a keen glance around him, and was convinced that the report of Mr. Lupin that no one was in sight was quite correct, so he stepped up to the old man, and said "Good morning, sir." "Thieves! thieves!" cried the old man, and began to run, but Todd put out one of his long legs and tripped him up. Then pouncing upon him, he extracted a wellfilled purse from his pocket, and holding it up to Lupin, he said "This will do?" "Rather," replied Lupin. "Come on." Off set Lupin again on a run, rather to the discomfiture of Todd, who had not had such a scampering about for a long time indeed; but yet he felt the necessity of getting as soon as possible out of the immediate vicinity of the old man whom they had just robbed, so they did not stop until they got right away on the northern side of Finsbury Square. That side of the ancient square of Finsbury was not built then; and beyond it, where there is now such a squalid and uninviting neighbourhood, there was nothing but fields. "Now," said Lupin. "Let us look at the purse!" "Here it is," said Todd. "It's very light!" The fact was, that notwithstanding the speed at which he was compelled to run to keep up with Lupin, or rather to keep a few paces only behind him, Todd had contrived to abstract the better part of the contents from the purse, and to pocket them; for the story with which he had tickled the ears of Lupin of his having any money concealed in Caen Wood, Hampstead, was a mere delusion, got up for the purpose of making him, Lupin, more than commonly solicitous concerning his, Todd's, safety in the escape from Newgate. "Yes," replied Todd, "it is light, but such as it is it may be of some service to us. Take it, Mr. Lupin, and you can be the treasurer you know I can trust to you." "Implicitly," said Lupin, as turning out the contents of the purse into his hand, he said"Here are four guineas and a half, and about six or seven shillings in loose silver." "Better than nothing," said Todd, with a look of great philosophy. "Our first care now is to get a breakfast." "I don't know," said Lupin. "I took quite enough at the alderman's to last me some time. I should say, get out of London as quickly as we possibly can; and when we are at Caen Wood, we can, at our ease, consider what course we will feel inclined to take with our money in our pockets." "A couple of thousands," said Todd. "Exactly so. I move that we strike across the fields now at once, and make for Highgate and Hampstead, so that at each step we shall be leaving some danger behind us." "Agreed," said Todd. "Come on! For my part I should like very much to find a conveyance of some sort; but that, I suppose, is impossible." "Quite! Besides, on foot we are much less likely to be recognised and described. Come on, Todd; you ought to be able to walk to Hampstead, surely, after the little trifling exercise that you have had only." "Trifling, do you call it?" said Todd, making one of his most hideous faces. "Trifling! I have not a bone in my body that don't ache. Trifling? I am one mass of bruises from top to toe, and I never, in all my life, felt so exhausted; but yet the love of life and of liberty will lend me strength; so, come on; I will go on to Hampstead, and I will reach it, my friend, unless I drop by the way." "Well spoke," said Lupin. They now pursued a course which led them rapidly by the back of the City Road, and through the now wellpopulated district called Hoxton; and keeping on in that way they crossed the highroad near to Stamford Hill, and soon began to get a good view of the heights of Highgate and Hampstead in the distance. "Brandy," said Todd, "brandy!" "Why, what's the matter?" "My good friend, I can't get on without some brandy. I am rather used to a little stimulant at times, so I must have it. Then we have no risk now to run by going into a publichouse." "I don't know that, Todd. But if you can't do without, some brandy you must have. To be sure, we are in luck's way, so far, that we are provided with hats and coats from the alderman's hall, and, therefore, people cannot have a description of us. The first quiet little hotel we come to, Todd, I promise you that I will not object to our stopping at, so that you may have your drop." "Yes," said Todd, "that will do. My good friend, it is the only thing that keeps me up. When I used to feel a little down in spirits I poured some other spirits down, and then I get up again." "Exactly. Here we are, at an old roadside house called the Adam and Eve, which will be the very thing. They may take you for Adam and me for Cain or Abel.Come along." They halted at the door of the little publichouse, but upon going in they found the landlord and landlady bargaining with a man who was hawking something, and the following words came upon the startled ears of Todd. "Only threepence, sir, I assure you, and the most exact likeness of Sweeney Todd, the murderer; taken while he was on his trial at the Old Bailey. You will see what a look he has, and the artist has been most successful in the squint and only threepence." "He will be hanged on Monday, of course?" said the publican's wife. "Oh yes, ma'am, in course, and there's expected such a crowd as never was known at the execution." "No doubt of it. Well, I'll give twopence." "And a drop of ale," said the publican. "Here you are, master, you shall have it. A capital likeness. If you was only now to catch a sight of the original Todd, you'd know him in a moment by the look of this picture, particularly the squint." "Come in," whispered Lupin to Todd. "Oh nonoI don't want the brandy now." "But I do. Your speaking about it, has got me into the mind of wanting some now; so come on and let us have it, my friend, at once. Why, you are not afraid that the portrait is too good a likeness, are you?" "Oh dear, I don't know," said Todd. "I believe I have a remarkable nose, and rather an engaging look about the eyes.Come along." "A quartern of the best brandy," said Lupin. Todd felt that now the safest thing he could do, was to brave the matter out, as anything in the shape of a retreat would be much worse than actually making an appearance at the bar of the publichouse; and then it was truly ridiculous to see the manner in which Todd strove to alter the cast of his features, by protruding one lip, and putting on what he thought as a kind of satisfied smirking smile, extremely difficult, indeed, for his usual expression of face. There was only one slight comfort he felt, and that was in the circumstance that the news of their escape from Newgate had not yet reached that place. "A nice, bracing morning, gentlemen," said the publican. "Very, by the goodness of providence," said Lupin. "Amen!" said Todd. "I have just, gentlemen, been buying a portrait of the execrable Todd; and if either of you have happened to see him in London, perhaps you can tell me if it is at all like the villain. We frighten our children now, if they misbehave themselves at all, and tell them that Todd is coming to make them into pies, and then they are as quiet as possible. Ha! ha!" "How funny," said Todd, "Well," said Lupin, as he looked at the twopenny portrait of Todd, with a pretended critical air, "I don't think it's like him at all. I saw him at Newgate; and my friend here, is more like him than this picture." "You don't say so, sir?" said the landlord. "He! he!" laughed Todd"ho! ho!" How he wished at that moment that he could have taken Lupin by the throat and strangled him! The brandy was duly discussed, and Lupin having paid for it out of the contents of the old gentleman's purse, took a courteous adieu of the landlord, and with Todd left the house. "Gracious goodness!" exclaimed Todd, "how could you dream of saying what you did about me at the bar?" "My good friend, that was for the express purpose of drowning suspicion for you. I saw the landlady staring at you most fixedly, and so I said it on purpose, for fear she should really begin to think you could be no other than Todd the murdererthe execrable Todd, with whom they frighten the children." "Oh, well," said Todd, "don't say anything more about it. I am quite satisfied. Indeed, I am more than satisfied, my dear friend." "I thought you would be, when you come to think" "Oh, dear, yes." "You may depend, Todd, that the greatest safety always runs alongside of the greatest danger; and that when you think that your fortunes are at the lowest, you may not unfrequently be upon the point of a highly favourable change and it's all by the goodness of Providence." "Bother you!" said Todd. "I do believe, if you were to live for a hundred years, you would not forget your chapel experience." "Perhaps not; but I made a good bit of money that way, taking one thing with another, Mr. Todd." CHAPTER CXXXVIII. CAEN WOOD AND HAMPSTEAD IN THE OLD TIMES. In such discourse as this, the precious pair beguiled the way to Highgate, from which they proposed crossing to Hampstead. Notwithstanding the liberal potations that they had taken at the Alderman's house; and notwithstanding the brandy that had since been discussed, they neither of them felt any the worse for the imbibition. Probably, the active exercise they took carried off all bad effects. But, certainly, when they reached Highgate, both Todd and Lupin were hungry. "Let us turn into the Old GateHouse Tavern," said Lupin. "Don't you think a more obscure place," suggested Todd, "would be better for us, as we do not by any means court popularity?" "No; there is more safety in a large place like the Gate House, where plenty of guests are coming and going continually, than in a little bit of a publichouse where we should be looked at, and scrutinised from top to toe, from the moment we went in to the moment we came out." "Very good," said Todd. "I think you reason well enough upon the point, and I give in to your better judgment completely. Ah! my good friend, I really don't know what I should have done at all without you." "Been hanged!" said Lupin. Todd gave a shudder, which was a tolerably convincing proof of how fully he agreed in what Mr. Lupin said; and then they went into the Old GateHouse Tavern, at Highgate, where they had a very plentiful breakfast; and by getting into a corner of the room, in which they sat, they did not attract any observation beyond the mere casual regards of the visitors to the house. Before they left though, Todd had the horror of hearing a great confusion of voices in the passage, and in a few moments one of the waiters came into the room, quite bursting with his news. "Gentlemen," he said, "the notorious Todd, and a man named Lupin, who was a murderer likewise, have escaped from Newgate!" "Escaped?" said Lupin. "You don't say so?" "Dear me, when?" said Todd. "Last night, gentlemen, last night; andcomingcoming!" The waiter was compelled to leave the room, as a bell rung violently. "Let us go," said Todd. "Yes, I think, now that the news has reached here, it will be wise to do so." "Come along, then." Todd rose in a moment; but Lupin in a whisper strictly cautioned him not to show any symptoms of hurry or alarm; and he was so far master of himself to see the necessity of such a caution, so that they both got safely out of the GateHouse Tavern, and took the route to Hampstead by Swains Lane, without having anything said to them. "This is an escape indeed," said Todd. "Yes," said Lupin, "you may depend that in a very little time there will be some officers at the GateHouse; but if we can get to the wood within the next half hour, I think we are safe enough. What do you think?" "I think that if our safety depends upon getting into Caen Wood in halfanhour, we ought to be there in half the time." "Do you? Then come on for a run." "Oh, dear," said Todd. "I am all aches and pains, and not at all fit for running; but I suppose I must. Don't go very fast, Mr. Lupin, or I shall never be able to keep up with you." "Then you go first and run as fast as you can without greatly distressing yourself, and I will adopt my speed to yours." "That will be better," said Todd.